Honorific is considered as an address form which portrays respect towards the addressee and are classified according to addressee’s title. Suffix endings such as Professor, Mister, Coach, Officer, Captain, Sir, and so forth are some examples which are commonly used.
Every language has these kinds of honorifics and Asian societies have honorifics which are essential elements of their cultures and the language. Asian societies are fixed to a Confucian value arrangement which underlines diffidence, humbleness and respect towards older people (Brown, 2011, p. 65). Most honorifics are applied when attending to kings, queens, landlords, and some respected persons.
The dislodgment of honorific is extraordinary in Asian languages; while both Korean and Japanese have preserved their Honorific forms and this paper would compare and contrast honorific languages in these two communities.
In Japan, traditionally, respect and honor is mostly treasured since both are still traditional joint country. Thus, honorifics are essential elements while addressing other people, where they have agglutinative language which they usually do not recognize gender. Nouns are also not considered and conjunction is not reflected.
Japanese languages contain three stages of respects which are applied: Keigo (Advanced Plain), Teineigo (Simple Plain) and, lastly, Kudeketa (Plain); these are stages of respects which are essential than the prefixes or suffixes which accompanies (Backhouse, 2005, p. 25).
Teineigo level is more inflectional arrangement and commonly applied for a person who is being spoken to, while Keigo are split into two different languages, Sonkeigo and Kensongo. Kensongo are usually used when addressing the group which may include sister or brother or workmate.
Sonkeigo is a polite speech used for somebody being talked about which may include bosses or a customer. Regular and irregular verbs are contained in Kensongo and Sonkeigo and they as well apply the prefix ¨o¨ or ¨go¨ to create a term honorific (Backhouse 2005, p. 25).
Different from Teinogo, highly inflectional arrangement, both ¨ükagau¨, contained in Kensongo, and Sonkeigo apply interchange verbs to turn into ¨ükagau¨ in Kensongo and ¨ïrasshar u¨ in Sonkeigo and all stages of the languages possess its particular verb endings and vocabulary.
They considered that it is not the way you end the language that makes it very complex, but it important to understand which stage to use for a particular person. If a person needs to introduce the boss to another person of the same status with the boss, he or she would utilize the Kensongo to introduce the boss.
Another case is that a kid needs to apply Sonkeigo when addressing his grandmothers, but would apply Kensongo when introducing her to somebody else. The application of each of them relies on the idea of “Out groups” and “In groups” (Hasegawa, 2010, p. 140).
Hence, this language stage is corresponding with someone or situations which are being addressed or talked about. These language stages are distinguished by extended polite phrases like ¨¨ motasete itadaku¨¨ which can be translated as ¨¨can I kindly be permitted to carry…¨ in Kensongo (Hasegawa, 2010, p. 140).
On the other hand, Japanese usually has an inclination towards brevity, and this is shown in their sentence structure. Children are not provided to learn use of honorific language and they are usually expected to apply it, but it is just during their employment when he or she is openly taught.
Korean and Japanese languages share complex arrangement of honorific speech levels and they normally applied with Korean aristocracy (Yang bang). They contain prefixes like Sir, Doctor, etc. and also expressions for kinship. The suffix ¨¨ nim¨´ may be attached to a noun to create it more honorific and nouns can as well be substituted with these honorifics (Sohn, 2006, p. 132).
Contrary to honorific, polite words are there also and some verbs contain particular forms and terms like ‘I’ or ‘we’ pronouns utilize form. Speech levels are very significant in Korean language and these levels are applied to bring up narrators’ or authors’ addressees, while honorifics are mainly used for a subject.
Gender group, he or she, is required to settle on honorific and speech level to apply, hence, not just the addresser who has an option regarding speech level, but gender group as well may select to attach the honorific.
Subject and predicate have to match while using honorifics and it is impossible to attach a marker to the predicate when the subjects are categorized as group of nouns which are not in agreement with the marker.
For instance, ¨¨ sensaennim I cip e ka-si-eyo (the tutor has gone home) has corresponded with verb ending and honorific subject, while “haksean I hakkyo e ka-si-eyo” (the learner has gone to school) is inappropriate in Korean language since the subject is not allowed to have honorific ending and it is not corresponding with the verb used in the sentence (Sohn, 2006, p. 132).
Korean language has more than seven speech levels and every speech level has a particular distinct arrangement of verb endings to show the level of requirements. Politeness and respect are represented by three ordinary levels of speech and the first one is ‘ta’, usually used to address somebody younger than the addresser.
Second one is polite (yo), normally used to address somebody older than the addresser such as employer, stranger with same age or older than addresser, older relative, and superiors. Third one is deferential (su), commonly used to address somebody who is superior to the polite yo (Sohn, 2006, p. 132).
The number of levels remains unknown but the bilingual persons argue that there are around seven distinct speech levels and these levels would be briefly discussed below. The first five speech levels are combined as jondaemal, whereas the last two speech levels are grouped together as banmal and every speech level has a particular distinct arrangement of verb endings (Bruno, 2011, p. 33).
These seven different speech levels portray respect and politeness to addressees and in Japanese language these speech levels as well make “In groups” and “Out groups.” In Korean language, honorific arrangement is exceptionally complicated and the issues are present in three distinct ways.
First, each expression must be marked for the triad engaged in dialogue, receiver, referent, and reporter and second, the guidelines need cautious choice of highly linguistic pieces (Bruno, 2011, p. 33). Third, addressers can change speech levels at any moment (Bruno, 2011, p. 33).
Therefore, if somebody desires to bring in a dialogue, he or she is required to choose which speech level to apply and the addresser is required to settle on status and age with the aim of selecting proper speech level to use.
Different from Japanese honorifics, which are classified as relative, Korean kinds of honorifics are considered as absolute and are applied not considering the person the speaker is talking to. Honorifics are also attached irrespective of “In groups” and “Out groups.”
Conclusion
Language is just like something which undergoes evolution and changes and it is astonishing to observe the manner in which political and cultural transformations may change certain language. It appears that these honorifics originated from minor societies where people staying in those societies recognized everybody’s social status.
Japan appears to be experiencing much bigger problem regarding preservation of honorific language and it appears, from my view, that the Japanese are troubled as they preserve ¨face¨¨, the function of respectful language which is more influenced by changing western society and culture.
On the other hand, Korean seems not to be influence by the change of the western society regarding honorifics and appears that their honorifics, which are absolute, create it easier, while in Japanese language, honorifics are compared with the situation creating it slightly complex to apply.
Permanent honorific application, in Japanese language, will rely mainly on the way government is strict implementing its use in their newly introduced guidelines.
References List
Backhouse, E 2005, The Lexical Field of Taste: A Semantic Study of Japanese Taste Terms, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Bruno, L 2011, Asian Honorifics, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Philadelphia PA.
Brown, L 2011, Korean Honorifics and Politeness in Second Language Learning, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam.
Hasegawa, Y 2010, Soliloquy in Japanese and English, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Philadelphia.
Sohn, H 2006, Korean language in culture and society, University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii.