Presented in person and online. Zoom details below.

Troubled Emblem: The Social History of Honorifics as Korea’s Language Problem

This talk explores one of Korea’s most prominent yet fraught language issues: honorifics. In Korean, speakers use a detailed system of grammar and vocabulary to show respect based on age, status, or relationship. Often praised as a hallmark of Korean politeness—or criticised as a form of linguistic discrimination—honorifics are widely seen as reflecting fixed social roles within a hierarchical society. What is often overlooked, however, is how this symbol of both “honour” and “dishonour” came to carry such meaning. This talk traces the modern history of Korean honorifics, asking how specific speech forms were selected, standardised, and promoted as markers of deference—and how they eventually came to represent Korean national identity. While honorifics have long played a role in Korean social interaction, it was not until the early 20th century that they became explicitly tied to ideas of refinement, morality, and national identity. Drawing on a range of sources—from etiquette books and grammar guides to newspaper commentary and language reform policies—this talk explores how scholars, educators, activists, and state officials helped transform honorifics into a powerful symbol of culture, politics, and modernity. A close examination of shifting ideas about what counts as polite language, and what it means to be polite in Korean, reveals how honorifics became deeply embedded in Korea’s broader projects of modernisation and nationalisation.

Speaker:
Eunseon Kim is a Lecturer in the School of Culture, History, and Language at the Australian National University. Her research focuses on the ideological and semiotic dimensions of the Korean language in metapragmatic discourse. She received her PhD in Asian Studies from the University of British Columbia (Canada). At ANU, she teaches both language and content-based courses, using Korean as a medium of communication and as a cultural lens through which students explore Korean society, history, and identity. Her current book project explores the socio-semiotic history of Korean honorifics and their role in shaping ethno-national modernity.

Zoom link: https://anu.zoom.us/j/84128620477?pwd=fRLFaoWlZw7kKJzZZWlCIavoO2pHOX.1