The research conducted on honorific and modest words is based on Chinese ancient books, records and handed-down documents. However, there is no consensus on research results due to various research materials used by scholars. This research employs Loulan Documents excavated during Wei-Jin period as research objects, and investigates the usage of honorific words and expressions and the phraseology of modest expressions. A quantity analysis based on thorough studies of most of the modest and honorific expressions in those documents was conducted. And, as a significant consequence, it is discovered that there is a slight usage difference between the honorific expressions in excavated documents during Wei-Jin period and in handed-down documents, which can be explained in three aspects. First of all, the second personal pronouns ‘er’ and ’ru’ are not unseemly words, and ‘er’, ‘ru’ and ‘jun’ are most widely used. Secondly, although part of the frequently used honorific expressions in later ages are used to express modest and respect in Wei-Jin period, they are not grammaticalized and cannot be considered as actual honorific expressions. Thirdly, during Wei-Jin period, not only there are honorific words and expressions, there are also fixed formats of expressing modesty.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of social factors on the use of honorific language by discourse completion test. Participants complete a short discourse by filling in their responses in conversations that may occur in families, schools, and workplaces where the social status and solidarity of the listener is predetermined. Honorific styles of sentence endings of their responses are analyzed by the generalized linear mixed model. The results show that social status and solidarity are statistically significant factors in the use of honorific styles, but their effects are dependent on the discourse situation. The ratio of using honorific styles gradually increases as the formality of situation increases (i.e., family < school < workplace). Interestingly, when the solidarity is low at the workplace, the ratio of using honorific styles is consistently high regardless of the social status of the listener. These results show that the use of Korean honorific styles is pragmatically changing according to the discourse situation.

The Kazak honorific system has been described to consist of a number of second person forms and terms of address. In addition to these core honorific expressions, however, my recent study of spoken Kazak in the Chinese Altai reveals that there are many other politeness features — both linguistic and non-linguistic — that constitute a loosely integrated honorific register system. They include grammatical distinctions (e.g., singular/plural, past/perfect, confirmative/non-confirmative), lexical distinctions (e.g., Chinese titles/Kazak kin terms), prosody (e.g., loud/quiet, fast/slow), as well as non-linguistic features (e.g., smoking/ non-smoking, male facial hair grown/removed, serving of black tea/milk tea). This paper describes these “non-core” expressions and the semiotic processes in which they, together with the core expressions, form a dichotomous system of contrast between plain and honorific registers.

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 Eun-hye. 2016. “The new feature of prefinal ending ‘-si-’: Inanimate object honorific marker－Focusing on speech comparison of department stores and local markets－”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 24(1). 91~113. The aim of this study is to research the new function of Korean honorific prefinal ending ‘-si-’ by field survey as well as to emphasize the need to be discussed this circumstance in Korean education. The object of this study ‘-si-’ is the most representative Korean subject honorific marker. It had been only used to person, but is now also used for inanimate object. Especially, it could be found in luxury service industries such as hotel, department store, and restaurant. Therefore, this language variation can be connected with social class. In order to research the new feature of ‘-si-’, Labov(1966)’s methodology which is modified for this study was applied. Then, dialogues between employees and customers from the department store and local market were collected. In addition, this study surveyed to find out Korean native speakers’ awareness about new feature of ‘-si-’. Thus, this research has significance by finding the new features of ‘-si-’ through field surveys and questionnaires as well as making realistic mention about ‘-si-’ in Korean linguistics.

중국은 자고로 禮儀의 나라라고 하며, 禮는 즉 존경하는 것, 바로 타인에 대한 공경함을 말하다. 많은 사람들은 중국어에 존경을 나타내는 말이 존재하지 않은 다고 한다. 하지만 실제 중국어에는 존경을 나타내는 많은 언어들이 있다. 뿐만 아니라 그 역사 또한 유구하다. 물론 존경을 나타내는 언어는 대화 중 경의를 나타내는 언어들을 말한다. 그중 빠질 수 없는 부분이 바로 존칭어이다. 또한 존칭어는 반드시 형성요인과 과정이 존재 한다. 본 논문은 경의를 나타내는 존칭어의 형성요인과 과정에 대해 연구하였다. 존칭어의 형성요인이 주로 신에 대한 경배에서 시작되고 국가의 형성에 따론 등급제도와 언어문자의 발전 및 유학의 흥기로 사람들 간의 관계 즉 아랫사람이 윗사람에게 존경으로 대하고, 비천한 자가 존귀한 자를 존경하며, 나이가 어린　자가 나이든 자에게 존경으로 대하는 것으로 발전하게 되었다. 또한 이런 관계에는 상대방에 대한 존경이 내재 되어야 함으로 존칭어를 사용하게 되었다. 또한 많은 존칭어들은 夏, 商, 周 및 秦, 漢대의 발전을 통해 지금까지 사용되고 있다.

The study investigates the validity of ‘subjecthood diagnostics’ in Korean proposed in the previous studies. Based on the studies on subjecthood diagnostics in Korean Single Subject Constructions (non-MSCs) and Multiple Subject Constructions (MSCs), the role of two subjecthood diagnostics―Honorific Agreement (HA) and Plural Copying (PC)―in these two constructions are examined through an empirical syntactic experiment. Seventy Korean native speakers participated in the experiment using acceptability judgment task designed to probe their intuition. The results show (i) that in the Non-MSCs, Honorific Agreement (HA) reliably seems to choose the subject (i.e., the only Nom-marked NP), whereas Plural Copying (PC) does not seem to pick out the subject in a less consistent manner; and (ii) that in the MSCs, neither Honorific Agreement (HA) nor Plural Copying (PC) seems to be a reliable subjecthood diagnostic. Possible reasons for these results are discussed.

Y.-H. Kim (2007) has presented an analysis of the alternation among Korean dative/locative case particles within the framework of the minimalist program. The gist of his analysis lies in his claim that the alternation among the case particles is influenced by their associated nouns’ animacy, a kind of gender according to his claim, and that their alternation is determined by agreement in the sense of the minimalist program. Recently, Kim and Chung (2015) have come up with an analysis of the honorific system of Korean from a totally different point of view. They treat kkey ‘to(honorific)’ as a realization of the honorific feature [+hon] whether the associated noun is assigned nominative or dative. They also make criticism of Y.-H. Kim’s (2007) analysis while claiming that agreement is not an operation in narrow syntax but one caused by feature sharing at the PF component as discussed by Bobaljik (2008). In this paper, we will take a critical look at Kim and Chung’s (2015) analysis and make a point of its flaws, and then try to present some solutions to Y.-H. Kim’s (2007) real problems.