A Japanese-Korean Contrastive Study

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  • 絶対敬語と相対敬語 : 日韓敬語法の比較

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It is usually said that Japanese has relative honorifics and Korean has absolute honorifics. That is correct as a rule. There are many usages, however, that we cannot explain by a general rule. So many extra expressions are observed not only in traditional but also in current usages. The phenomena of relative honorifics in Korean are typically found in family-honorifics, that is, in conversations among family members. Such usages of relative honorifics are traditional ones. But, relative honorifics are also observed when the speaker is a family member and the listener is an outsider, although in such cases, absolute honorifics are traditionally the norm. On the other hand, a typical example of absolute honorifics in Japanese is the Imperial family-honorifics (Koshitsu-keigo), which has succeeded the traditional feature of absolute honorifics. In Japanese, however, absolute honorifics are often observed in current usages. They appear in everyday language in new variations and as new tendency. Japanese as well as Koreans are not bound by the traditional norm of honorific behaviour. They use honorifics as occasion calls. In the long run, honorifics will be accepted as the expression of personal relationships and situations, rather than social status. As a point of contrast, however, Korean usages lay emphasis on social status, and Japanese ones on personal relationships

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