Linguistic Emblems of South Korean Society

Abstract

This chapter considers linguistic emblems of South Korean society. It focuses on four areas of language that speakers in South Korea can and often do point to as standing for, or even explaining, aspects of their social world and history. Two of these emblems are quite traditional: the complex honorific system of deference and demeanor indexicals, and the indigenous morphophonemic writing system called Hangul. Two of them are relatively new: English language learning, instruction, and use in popular media; and slang, both spoken and written. Combined, these four linguistic emblems begin to sketch a picture of the semiotic stuff of Korean sociality. It also presents a comprehensive account of all linguistic emblems of South Korean society, it does introduce some of the most salient ones. Deference and demeanor indexicals give us a view into the interactional pragmatics of status and hierarchy so central to Korean sociality.

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