Kim, Myung-hee. 2016. “A Study on Style Shift between Honorific and Plain Language in Korean”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 24(3). 95~123. This study examines the mixed use of honorific forms (nophim-mal) and plain forms (pan-mal) by Korean speakers in task-based conversations. The data taken from ‘Mr. O Corpus’ relate to 20 pairs of Korean female speakers, 10 teacher-student (T-S) pairs and 10 student-student (S-S) pairs. A close examination of the data shows that most speakers alternated between the two forms, even within a single turn of talk, with partners with status differences. It seems that the frequent style shift shows the complexity of the phenomenon and the speakers’ sensitivity to the immediate context, as well as the societal norms that possibly constrain them. The results show that the speakers’ choice to use an honorific form or plain form has mainly four functions, three of which are interactional using honorific forms: (a) use of plain forms in self-directed or spontaneous talk, (b) use of honorifics to involve the addressee in the interaction, (c) use of honorifics to index identity, and (d) use of honorifics in confrontational interactions. Based on these results, it is claimed that Korean speakers strategically use honorific language as “relationship markers” in their interactions. (177)

Kim Myung-hee. 2012. Analysis of English Newspapers' Coverage of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake in Japan, Korea, and the U.S. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 20(2), pp. 93-114. The present paper aims to explore the different perspectives found in the English newspapers' coverage of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake in Japan, Korea and the U.S., by using a corpus-based critical discourse analysis, The data is drawn from newspaper articles published in the Japan Times, the Korea Times, and the New York Times from March 11, 2011 to April 30, 2011. It is assumed that the different perspectives or ideological stances taken by each newspaper will affect the articles both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitatively, it is hypothesized that the keywords list and the thematic distribution of the articles in each national newspaper will be influenced by the perspectives of the society or culture a given newspaper is part of. A qualitative analysis of the headlines and the articles will also show the newspapers' different perspectives of the same event. This paper uses the framework of the ‘ideological square (van Dijk 1998)’ to explore this issue: the positive representation of one's own group and the negative representation of that of others.

This study aims to explore the forms of negative yes/no interrogatives and the social actions they perform in task-oriented conversations in Korean and English. The data consist of 20 Korean and 22 English pairs interacting with each other whiJe arranging a series of 15 pictures. It seems that negative yes/no interrogatives are used more extensively in Korean conversation than in English, and that they have different interactionaJ functions in the two languages. AnaJyses of the data suggest that negative yes/no interrogatives in English are used to perform a very specific function in interaction, making an assertion in a disaligning situation while seeking agreement from the addressee. On the other hand, it is shown that negative yes/no interrogatives in Korean are used as an important interactionaJ device between conversationalists. It seems that the ch미ce of the two types of negative yes/no interrogatives in Korean is largely dependent on the speaker’s estimation of the following two factors: (a) the degree of certainty about the information conveyed, and (b) the degree of common ground with the addressee. (Hanyang University, 마1san)

Purpose - This paper aims to obtain a theoretical understanding for the relationship among the elderly's leisure activity, social support, life satisfaction and mental loneliness in their life. This paper has the purpose to draw policy implications by the course of research and study as well as to find alternatives in enhancing the elderly’s psychological well-being in a practical dimension. Research design, data, and methodology - Data has been collected from 380 elderly persons participating in leisure activities in 10 senior welfare service centers located in the Seoul area. A structured questionnaire sheet was used, and as the main analysis method for hypothesis verification, the hierarchical regression method was used. Results - Social support is moderating factor for the relationships among the productive leisure activity, life satisfaction and mental loneliness, but does not play the moderating role in the relationships such as consumptive leisure activity, life satisfaction and mental loneliness. Conclusions - It is necessary to make efforts to provide policies for promoting and expanding the elderly's participation especially in productive leisure activity. And also, an institutional support should be provided for maintaining and expanding a stable social relationship network for the elderly’s participation.

This research aims to look at and resolve the issue of Japanese military “comfort women,” an issue that sits at the core of the conflict over history in East Asia, from the perspective of politics of denial that inevitably intervenes in the phase of stagnant purging of the past. To this end, first of all, it is necessary to presuppose the recognition that the military “comfort women” issue is not a narrow Korea-Japan relations issue but one related to responsibility for colonial rule and to shared transitional justice in East Asia. Second, based on such presupposition, I introduce some of the debates and arguments within civil society in regard to the historiography of The Comfort Women of the Empire, as an example that shows the dilemma of historical self-reflection in East Asia. Third, I critically review the problems of the historiography of The Comfort Women of the Empire, positioned largely within historical revisionism in East Asia, from the standpoint of Stanley Cohen’s theory on denial. Fourth, I extrapolate theoretical and practical tasks implied by the foregoing discussion, from the perspective of possibility of historical dialogue in East Asia. As a conclusion, this paper seeks to reflect on the fact that the issue of denial, which emerged as a social fact during the process of debating on history in East Asia, raised the need for intellectuals of our time to sincerely self-reflect upon responsibilities of the academia. In other words, there is a need to fundamentally reflect upon the social sphere in which historiography and representations take place―in short, upon the transitive dimension of intellectual activity where historical knowledge competes and communicates.

This paper is an attempt to search for a meta-theoretical foundation to an integrated Korean studies. Without its own target and methodology, it will be difficult for Korean studies to be established as an independent academic discipline. In particular, the antagonism of the ‘Two Cultures,’ referring to the juxtaposition between humanities and the sciences, has been reproduced into a humanities-based ‘National studies’ (‘國學’) and a social science-based ‘Korean studies’ (‘韓國學’), and is acting as a factor preventing a more holistic perspective of Korean society. Such division originated from the modern academic disciplinary structure systemized at the end of the 19th century but was then deepened by the path dependency of the division system and the external dependency of the Korean academia. Under this context, this paper seeks to graft critical naturalism of Marx and Durkheim, who envisioned unified sciences at the end of the 19th century, before separation into modern academic disciplines took place, to the attempts to alleviate the ‘Two Cultures’ and thereby project an integrated Korean studies. Critical naturalism of the two thinkers – in particular, their relational social paradigm and theory of explanatory critique – proposes a third way that resolves the dichotomies between society and people, science and philosophy, nomothetic and idiographic methods, and facts and values, thus positioning itself as a paradigmatic basis for unified knowledge that overcomes the antagonism between hyper-naturalist positivism and anti-naturalist humanities. Moreover, the critical naturalism of the two provides the possibility of depth-explanatory human sciences that integrates the historicity and the scientificity of a divided society as well as abundant philosophy of science resources to promote a more complete Korean studies that encompasses both the South and the North.

Discourses around Korean familism emphasize traditional factors or remain in the realm of how Korean familism corresponds with mobilization strategy of a developmental state and functions in a transformative manner; therefore, the discourses are unable to break from the normative argument of public vs. private and egoistic vs. moral. This study explores the possibility of prospective interpretation by revisiting competing hypotheses on factors and characteristics of contemporary Korean familism. Major findings of this research are as follow. First, existing discussions can be generally categorized as follows: Cultural causation (Confucian familism theory), industrialization causation, historical structure approach and politico-sociological approach. By critically reconstituting achievements and limits of preceding studies, it is possible to better understand the familism of divided Korea as a political construct via historic experiences of the colonial modernity and war state as outcome of ‘the invention of tradition’ insisted by Eric Hobsbawm. This study conceptualizes institutional condition of familism into "family status system," a unique mechanism of the civil right of the divided state, which is a combined result of the National Security Act, implicative system, and patriarchal Family Law, all of three are twins of the 1948 Constitution of the Republic of Korea. Second, when complexity and multi-meanings of ‘family’ which is a space of reproduction where gender, generation, class and state come together, are applied to the level of historical experiences of cold war and post-cold war in the East Asia, ‘family’ in the war system plays the function of ambivalent medium in the sense that it becomes a compensating space of lost public space and that it is also a socialization space in which traumas related to colony, war, division are reproduced. In this context, this study proposes the potential of ‘political familism’ innate in family-centeredness of divided Koreans to be considered in intimate public sphere that is neither public nor private. In conclusion, this study shows that Korean familism needs to be understood comprehensively in conjunction with structural and institutional conditions around families, the legitimacy of the state, and the historical experiences as well as political consciousness of family members interacting with such environment. This research also calls for an interpretation which focuses on agency and political potentials of familism as historical product of colonial modernity.