서울 거주 방언 화자의 코드 선택 양상 - 20∼30대 경상도 출신 방언 화자를 중심으로 -

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine and consider the aspects of code choices of “dialect speakers residing in Seoul,” who have moved to Seoul from other regions of South Korea. The dialect speakers experience dialect contact and language conflict on individual levels after moving to Seoul. In this process, they learn new codes and perform a code choice according to the situation they face. Seoul, the target region in this study, is the capital of South Korea and has seen population increase due to migration from other regions of the country. Thus, the city is appropriate for examination of migrations between the regions in South Korea. In addition, Seoul dialect is a local dialect based on which the standard language of the country is established. Therefore, Seoul dialect is regarded as the standard language itself, having social prestige higher than other local dialects. For this reason, the migrants experience language conflict in Seoul. In this study, three codes of the standard language, Seoul dialect, and the hometown dialect, are proposed, and an inquiry is conducted on the awareness of each code and code choices according to various situations. The inquiry includes an interview (responses from 17 people) and a survey of which the target is limited to the dialect speakers in Seoul in their 20s and 30s (responses from 146 people). The result of the survey showed the response rate of 68.5% by the Gyeongsang-dialect speakers; thus, an analysis is performed concentrated on the Gyeongsang-dialect speakers. According to the result of the analysis, few migrants showed negative perception toward the standard language, Seoul dialect, and the hometown dialect. Meanwhile, the migrants generally felt negative to the obligatory use of the standard language, and showed more or less neutral responses to the use of the standard language in official situations such as announcements, presentations, job interviews, or business meetings. Nonetheless, the dialect speakers in Seoul chose the standard language as the basic code in most situations, their perception and attitudes toward each code not coinciding with their aspects of code choices. A limited number of the code choices were shown for the hometown dialect. The code conversion from the standard language to the hometown dialect occurred only when at least one of the factors of “talking with the person who also uses the hometown dialect,” “feeling intimacy towards the person involved in the conversation,” and “having an experience of talking in the hometown dialect in Seoul” is satisfied, though the priority among these factors could not be investigated due to individual differences. These three factors respectively represent “the same linguistic community,” “a close personal relationship,” and “an experience of using the code of the hometown dialect,” which means that the code conversion to the hometown dialect by the Seoul-residing dialect speakers appears only in the environment where “the psychological distance to the person involved in the conversation is very close.” This result seems to be related to the language use in the cities, where contacts with strangers are frequent, and also seems to indicate that the dialect speakers feel very distant from others in language use under the linguistic environment of Seoul.