Korean Speech Style

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Hierarchy of confucian is sociocultural reality in South Korea and this basis also affects in their language. Power variables or solidarity variables is from confucian and it is appeared in verbal and written korean(Sohn, 1999). These form of morphological indicators represent honorific and it is called Jonching chegye in Korean. This jonching chegye include three categories, speech stlyes, addressee honorifics and referent honorifics. Especially, speech stlyes much affected by jonching chegye and most sensitive among three categories. There are six representative patterns of speech styles based from jonching chegye, which are deferential, polite, blunt, familiar, intimate and plain. Deferential speech style is upward formal speech, which used in public speech or official speech in usual. Polite speech style is upward informal speech and used in most adult conversations but less formal than defernetial. Blunt formal speech is lateral speech that is more rough and extremely colloquial speech. It is generally used between intimate relations and friends. Familiar speech style is slightly formal but downward speech. It is usually used between old friends and parents in law and son in law. Intimate speech style is lateral informal among childhood friends or pre-schooler to their family. Plain speech style is formal nuetral speech and it is also used into written material such as newspapers, articles. This plain speech also can be informal downward speech, which is used to

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