한국 언어문화 속의 의사소통방식에 대한 고찰

Abstract

Cultural anthropologist Edward Hall divided cultures into high context and low context according to the way they communicated. Low context culture is straightforward and clear in communication and articulates its intentions in words and letters. Communication in high context, on the other hand, is ambiguous and implicit, and takes into account the relationship with the other. The greater the part that communication of meaning depends on words or letters, the lower context culture, and the less expressive, the higher context culture. In other words, a culture not to need to speak is a high context culture, and a culture to need words is a low context culture. In the high-context culture, communication aims to promote harmony and ties between the speaker and the listener, so the politeness or the expression of the overall emotion is emphasized rather than the meaning or truth of the sentence. Hence, the low-context communication style can be disrespectful or embarrassing to Koreans. Applying this distinction, Korean language belongs to the high context culture. Koreans prefer to use indirect methods that allow listeners to understand them on the premise of common cultural background rather than to accept them directly. Therefore, rather than telling a story clearly, they speak it in a roundabout way. Evidence that Korea is a high context culture is everywhere. In Korean language, subjects are often omitted, or euphemism or ironic expressions have been developed. Also, the fact that Koreans are not good at expressing apology, gratitude, and love is also attributable to this high context. This is because the situational emotions and the feelings between the listener and the speaker are more important than words. In Korean language culture, it is very important to read the context with Nunchi and judge the will of the person no matter what the other person's superficial words are.