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A sociolinguistic study on kinship terms in Korean and Japanese - Focused on relation by marriage -

  • 日本硏究
  • 2013, (34), pp.111-128
  • Publisher : The Center for Japanese Studies
  • Research Area : Humanities > Japanese Language and Literature
  • Published : February 20, 2013

Hong, Min-Pyo 1

1계명대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper carried out a survey (conducted in July-September, 2011) of the use of the terms of address for siblings of spouses and spouses of siblings in Korean and Japanese. The important findings are summarized as follows. (1) In Korean language, basically different kinship terms from the ones for consanguinity are used for addressing siblings of spouse and sibling’s spouses regardless of age differences. As a secondary use, first-name, the terms from the viewpoint of the youngest member of the family and teknonymic terms are also used. (2) In Japanese language, basically the same kinship terms as the ones for siblings of consanguinity are used for elders such as elder brothers and sisters of spouse or spouses of elder brothers and sisters. Secondarily, first-name + san is also used. However, for younger ones such as younger brothers and sisters of spouse or spouses of younger brothers and sisters, first-name + san/kun/chan etc are used the most because there is no addressing term for younger siblings. (3) There are some elements of inequality of the gender among spouses in the addressing terms for siblings of spouse in both Korea and Japan, but there are much more elements in Korean than Japanese.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.