In the culture(s) where 'your' language is spoken, are there significant differences in the language when you are talking to family rather than strangers? older people rather than younger? men rather than women?
You need to be a member of The SDLAP Ning to add comments!
Replies
Like many Asian countries, Korea consists of a hierarchical format based on age, in which elders are given ultimate respect in terms of not only how they are treated but also how they are spoken to by those who are younger. In simple terms, when a younger person is talking to an elder, he or she must speak using “요” (“yo”) at the end of every sentence as an indication for politeness and formal speech. “존댓말” (formal speech) is not just addressed to those who are older in age than you but it is also used when talking to strangers. There are exceptions, however. For example, based on a family’s rules and culture, some children may speak to parents using “반말” (informal speech) if it is permitted. “반말” is essentially used between two people if they have a relatively close relationship, such as best friends, boyfriend and girlfriend, and etc. When an older person is speaking with a younger person, the older person is allowed to automatically speak in “반말” to the younger person while the younger person must speak in “존댓말” to the elder unless he or she is permitted to “lower his/her speech” to the informal style.
The Korean language uses honorifics to reflect the relationship between speakers. People use formal language when they talk to older people, strangers, and people who are superior. When talking with someone superior in status, we always need to use a special nouns or verb endings.
We use honorific nouns to replace regular ones. For example, for food, we use jinji instead of bap. Most of times, honorific nouns are used to refer to relatives. Suffix -nim is affixed to many terms in order to make them honorific. Furthermore, all verbs and adjectives can be converted to honorific form after adding infix -si- or -eusi-.
Distinguishing from formal and informal styles is important in Korean grammar, otherwise it will be impolite and disrespect talking to older people in an informal way.
I speak Mandarin. In my mother tongue, we do not have a specific way to distinguish formal and informal languages. People usually speak in a slower and softer tone to show their respect. But it also depends on the area, people from north have a slightly different tone than people from the south. Within the family, people often talk in dialects, while we talk to strangers with Mandarin even from the same place. For old people, we always call them “uncle” or “aunt” to show respect, even though they are not related to you. I just read a book about local culture in China. In West Hunan, people like to say “Nin Laoren jia”, which literary means “you old people”. This word means totally different things depends which region you are from. For example, I am from South and I think this is a phrase to show respect to the elder. But the north people just think this words insult old people. While in the original meaning, it means “nothing”. In terms of gender, we have different character to refer “him” and “her”. However, originally there is no such distinct. The female “ta”, which refer to “her”, was invented in 1919 during the New Culture Movement.
And what about Korean?
Korean has a pretty complicated system of formality and informality. Based on a person's age, social status, position, or the context of the situation, different greetings and sentence endings are required. It seems like the polite form requires you to end a sentence with the word "yo", but there are also deferential endings for very formal situations with different endings. For a conversation between friends, it is fine to drop some of the politeness words, but this would be considered very disrespectful when talking to a teacher or anyone older.
Turkish culture puts a lot of emphasis on respect and this can be seen in the language. The formal second person conjugation is the third person plural conjugation. There are also different greetings you say depending on your relationship to that person. You use the formal with your elders, both men and women.
There is a distinct distinction between formality and informality in Urdu. There are words that are befitting a formal situation and there are separate words that have the same meaning but are more suitable for informal situations. I found an example from an article I came across: "there are two words meaning ‘water,’ پانی pānī and آب āb. Words of older Hindustani or Sanskrit origin such as pānī are used coloquially, whereas words of Persian or Arabic origin such asāb are used in formal situations.”
In the Korean language and culture, there are different ways to addressing different family member, someone who’s older or younger, and gender. The Korean language is very hierarchy structured, partially due to the origin or history of the language. The Korean language has honorifics which are certain grammar structure or endings to reference someone who is older than you or has a social status superior to you. For example, the way to greet your both or grand-parents would be “annyong hasemnika” which instills/shows respect and honor. Greeting one’s friends or peers would be “annyong haseyo”. Another example of differences in addressing gender would be saying younger brother (Nam-Dong seng) and younger sister (Yeo- Dong seng). Certain endings or beginnings are added when referring to age or gender that is used in the Korean language.Koreans who fail or refuse to address elders or socially higher peers in a certain manner (with honorifics) are frowned upon and face severe social repercussions.
The language Hebrew is informal; the idea of "hebrew" -- especially in Modern Hebrew --, spearheaded by its cultural roots, doubles down on the notion of informality. Since Modern Hebrew is a relatively young language, reinstated in the 1800s and built upon thereafter, its syntax, diction and structure / pace, I believe, has been in part shaped by its ambient conditions and by extension its cultural manifestations. In Israel, a social hierarchy does not determine language formality. The only distinction the language acknowledges is gender. For example, when I interned for a ministry within the government, my boss told me to address him by his first name. Moreover, the language goes hand in hand with its culture. My boss also wore jeans and a slightly unbottoned collared shirt. Culturally, Israelis do not address their elders in a different manner from the way they would address their peers -- for the most part. So, the Israeli culture could be to blame as it is conditioned to circumvent the aesthetics in order to maintain a functional society. This is, in part, due to their resourcefulness that has been engendered by a lack of resources, as well as a by a constant hostility hovering over their psyches due to its complex region.
The Korean language has different grammar and vocabulary depending on the level of formality in a situation. In Korea, age difference and social position (”job status”) often take precedence over social ranking in Korea. Formal speech is called "jondaemal" (존댓말) and familiar/informal speech is called "banmal" (반말).
Honorifics are used with “jondaemal” and are used to differentiate between the formal and informal speech. Words like –yo and –seumnida are often added at the end of a sentence to show respect. Jondaemal is more directed to adults, seniors andacquaintances. Banmal, on the other hand, is less formal, but not necessarily disrespectful. Banmal is often used between friends of the same age or to people who are younger. Banmal in Korean literally translates into “half-words” in English, and it can be viewed as disrespectful in certain situations. Some families enforce the use of jondaemal to their children so they speak jondaemal to their parents, whereas some families grow up using banmal with each other. There are different words to differentiate between men and women, such as "mister" and "miss," and "he" and "she" respectively, but there aren't any significant differences.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next