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This paper is a modest attempt to present a rather simplistic pedigree of sociolinguistics. It first describes the rise of sociolinguistics in the mid-1960s as an established academic discipline. The subsequent sections briefly survey the historial background of sociolinguistics in general, and the historical antecedents of the three main strands/orientations of modern sociolingujistics: the variation study, the ethnography of communication, and the sociology of language. The variation study, being primarily concerned with language variation and language change, finds its ancestry in the early studies in dialectology and historical linguistics. The ethnography of communication derives from anthropological linguistics and the language philosophy of 18th- and 19th-century German thinkers. The history of the sociology of language, which is rather short, stretches back to the earlier studies of language contact, bilingualism, and language policy.

he Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 18(2). On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Sociolinguistic Society of Korea (SSK), the paper presents a brief retrospective aspect of the developmental history of SSK and a comprehensive overview of the Labovian theory of language variation and change. He is the first sociolinguist who introduced the quantitative method to analyze the linguistic variation. His Master’s thesis Martha’s Vineyard Study (1963) and his doctoral dissertation The Social Stratification of New York English (1964) indeed gave rise to the rapid development of sociolinguistics in late 60s as a counterforce to the popular activities of the theoretical linguistics. Labov’s efforts for the education of the low-income children in Reading also deserve to be included just as great contributions as his linguistic achievements. The three volumes of his Principles of Linguistic Change which have just been completed this year together with The Atlas of North American English which includes vowel changes and chain shiftings of 332 northern American cities to establish the phonology of North American English more or less sum up his life-time achievements of 50 years in research and teaching.

This paper discusses theoretical orientations in the ethnography of communication and the future direction of research in the ethnography of communication in Korea. It consists of the following three parts: (1) an introduction to the ethnography of communication in Korea; (2) some discussion of theoretical orientations in the ethnography of communication; (3) future research topics in the ethnography of communication of Korean speech communities. Although it is a partial review, this paper is intended to contribute to the studies of Korean speech communities using the theoretical model of the ethnography of communication.

Ever since the sociology of language has made its start, it has been continuously confronting with social issues in the field. Social issues such as fledgling nations, racial discrimination, gender equality, minority groups, language death and intercultural communication had its significance more intimate as the matter of behavior and value of scholars who sees the scenes of life than simple lecture or research field. Also the sociology of language had been in charge of being ahead in the historical changing process such as liberation from suppresion, uniformity to diversification, destratification, decolonization. Although there has not been many cases where the sociology of language took the lead or be active in the aforementioned incidents, but at least, their approach to the historical change with knowledge and sensibility should be highly evaluated. In the future, issues such as climate, the rights of minority, multicultural social condition, aging and market integration will be the significant topics of life, and in these issues, the sociology of language tasks will be presented. Though a critical mind related to the space one is living in, one’s identity and interests will inevitably take the lead in the flow of the sociology of language, above all, it seems that the issue of political, historical rights of language and the creation of new jobs related to language will play a significant role.

From a conversation-analytic perspective, this paper reports on the analysis of incey used as a discourse marker in spontaneous Korean conversations. Systematic attention is given to how it is used as an interactional resource for recalibrating a prior description and engaging the hearer to take the conjoined perspective grounded on the point of "here and now." It is shown that the sequences in which incey is embedded are characterized by a vivid description of an event/state of affairs or reported speech produced in the manner of having the target event/state of affairs reenacted. Such a formulation, often signaling a shift toward an expressive mode of telling, provides a context where the hearer is invited to be involved in the detailed description of the event/state of affairs (i.e., from the shared perspective) and to appreciate its upshot by co-taking the speaker’s vintage point. Such a shift is often observed in terms of managing the boundary-marking as well, e.g., usually practiced in the form of marking contrast or mediating self-repair through which a prior turn component is progressively replaced by another. Some of the crucial implications of these practices are noted in terms of (i) the preliminary nature of incey-prefaced talk, i.e., the tendency of incey to preface materials which are still prefatory to what is to be told further later, and (ii) the ordinary nature of incey-prefaced talk which the co-participants tend to orient to as being empirically grounded and/or commonsensically accessible.

The article portrays one way in which academic voices and social identity can develop and constitute each other through the affordances of computer-mediated communication in the classroom. In this article, I present a case study in which voice is treated as an analytic means for understanding the complexities undergone by an L2 graduate student as she was transitioning into an L2 academic community. I highlight how voice as ideological point of view is developed through dialogic interactions with others, and such development can be traced through the discursive constructs such as intertextual relations and epistemic/affective stance. This study has important educational implications in relation to the academic writing/reading of L2 students with differing needs and the provision of opportunities for access to the curriculum.

This paper accommodates EIL(English as an international language) together with EFL in English pronunciation teaching and learning. In recognizing EIL, I suggest three strategic levels for phonological norms in assessing leaners’ pronunciation: the level P(phonemic) as a mandatory level to achieve, the level NLA(native language accent) as a cautious level to suppress the native accent, and the level TLA(target language accent) as a desirable level to accomplish a "native-like" accent. After probing the significance of each level, the paper addresses the issue of learning patterns depending on different proficiency levels, together with the effect of formal instruction. The sounds under investigation are English /l/, /r/, and /si/ for the level P, Korean Nasalization and Lateralization for the level NLA, and English /p, t, k/ for the level TLA. Two groups of local college sophomores served as experimental subjects, one as an intermediate group and the other as beginners group. The correctness rate for each level turned out to be the level TLA the lowest(14.21%～22.22%), the level NLA the next (49.37%～57.95%), and the level P the highest(66.47%～74.08%). The level TLA achieved the highest effect of formal instruction(13.30%), and the other two levels achieved less effect(5.69%～5.79%). In the level NLA, three factors that affect native interference are suggested: familiarity, syntactic distance, and the length of previous vowels. It is argued that the lowest correctness rate of the level TLA is less alarmimg than the low number indicates, while the level P is more demanding to overcome regardless of the highest correctness rate in regard to effective communication in English.

The purpose of this paper is to examine some issues concerning linguistic norms and language variations with special emphasis on the Standard of Korean Discourse(SKD). First of all, this paper starts with some theoretical and general considerations on linguistic norms and language variations, especially on their types, characteristics and correlation. Secondly, the establishing process, content and significance of the SKD as a linguistic norm are investigated. And then, some problems of language variation in the SKD are also examined through meticulous discussion about selection of linguistic variables, setting and subclassification of parameters, criteria for selection of normative form and so on. Finally, this paper presents a new possibility of the SKD as a rational and persuasive linguistic norm.

The purposes of this study are to describe the usages and meanings of insulting expressions for women used in Korean cyber space, and to analyze the attitudes of netizens about those expressions. In section 2, we make a list of the insulting expressions and classify their types. The insulting expressions identified in this study are fifteen neologisms such as ‘Kim-yeosa’ (김여사, female bad driver), ‘Orc-nyeo’ (오크녀, ugly girl), ‘Doenjang-nyeo’ (된장녀, a woman full of vanity) etc. They are classified into four categories in terms of their referent, duration, presence of male counterpart, and the focus of insulting. In section 3, we explain the usages and meanings of some representative insulting expressions. ‘Kim-yeosa’, ‘Orc-nyeo’, ‘Gaettong-nyeo’ (개똥녀, a girl with no etiquette), and ‘Doenjang-nyeo’ are analyzed closely by focusing on their basic meaning, expanded meaning, and the usages of derivatives or related forms. In section 4, with a statistical method, we compare the attitudes of netizens about ‘Kim-yeosa’ and ‘Doenjang-nyeo’ which are frequently used for all women. In the process of this analysis, we can figure out the fact that many insulting expressions are used actively for women in Korean cyber space. In addition, it will be proved that the male and the female are quite different in their attitudes about ‘Doenjang-nyeo’.

This study examines Chungnam dialect speakers’ perceptual dialect boundaries, their images of Korean dialects, and also their auditory ability to distinguish the dialects. Thirty Chungnam residents participated in this research as subjects and performed four tasks: pile-sorting, description of dialect images, dialect recognition, and a short interview. The focus of the study was to examine the informants’ subjective dialect boundaries among Chungnam dialect and geographically adjacent Chungbuk, and Jeonbuk dialects, the informants’ images about these dialects, and their ability to distinguish the three. The results from the tasks suggest that speakers of Chungnam dialect perceive Jeonbuk dialect at least as close as or even closer than Chungbuk dialect. The results from the dialect recognition experiment also reveal auditory-perceptual similarity between Chungnam and Jeonbuk dialects. Chungnam dialect speakers were, in addition, analyzed as having relatively favorable images about their dialect.

Sociolinguistics explores the relationship between language and/in society, dealing with topics such as (regional and social) dialects, bilingualism, multi-lingualism, language contact, ethnography of speaking, ethnomethodology/conversation analysis, language planning, and so on. This research provides a comprehensive overview of sociolinguistic studies in Korea, analyzing papers which have appeared in Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea. Analysis shows that a variety of topics has been dealt with in the Korean Sociolinguistic Society, covering topics on variation analysis of regional/social dialects, honorifics/politeness and address terms, gender studies, interactional sociolinguistics and discourse/conversation analysis, intercultural communication, language planning/policies, computer communication language, language learning and teaching and so on. This general overview shows the development of sociolinguistic studies in Korea, in terms of the topics, methods, objects of analysis and so on, and it will be a guide for future research in the field of Korean linguistics.