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Honorifics in child-directed speech
- Source: Asia-Pacific Language Variation, Volume 10, Issue 1, Aug 2024, p. 1 - 39
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- 27 Feb 2023
- 16 Aug 2023
- 08 Aug 2024
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Abstract
Abstract
How are honorifics, which are socially meaningful and socially conditioned, acquired, when their appearance in child-directed speech cannot replicate their use in adult-directed speech? In this paper, we conduct corpus and experimental studies aimed at characterizing the use of honorifics in child-directed speech in Korean. We find that the addressee honorific -yo is present at notable rates in child-directed speech, although the use of -yo in child-directed utterances is rated less natural than its absence. We further find that while -yo is given lower ratings for the presence of relevant social meanings when in child-directed speech compared to adult-directed speech, the use of -yo in child-directed speech is still significantly associated with these meanings. This suggests that while the presence of honorifics in child-directed speech is somewhat unexpected, such uses of honorifics nonetheless carry relevant information about the social meaning of honorifics.