日本語と韓国語における性差と言語行動 ー自然会話に見られるスピーチレベルの分析を通してー

Abstract

While women are generally believed to used more polite expression than men, this study aimed to investigate the usage differences between men and women in terms of speech levels, playing an important role of one's consideration to talking partner in both Japanese and Korean. On a concrete, the effect of gender of speaker and talking partner on the usages of speech levels were revealed by analyzing the natural conversation between the two in first meeting in Japanese and Korean. The results of this study are as follows: (1) In general, women in Japan and men in Korea used more polite expression than opposite gender in terms of speech level. This phenomena may be due to the fact that women in Japan are educated to use more polite expression as the expression of womanhood. On the contrary, the tendency in Korean is thought to be the reflection of the prevalent strict hierarchical cultures, easily seen in military and company. (2)Irrespective of the base's gender, speakers tend to use more polite expression toward male talking partner in both Japanese and Korean. In spite of the current of sexual equality in modern society, androcentrism is still lingering in both countries, which was thought to be reflected in the linguistic behavior of speech level in both languages.