Abstract
This chapter shows how K-wave viewers’ exposure to dramas and reality TV shows informs their perception and understanding of politeness. In particular, we focused on how participants in K-wave fandom acquire the notion of non-verbal honorifics and politeness. We adopted a multimodal qualitative design by including learners in a multilingual Korean classroom in the United Kingdom to express their perceptions on non-verbal politeness through a think-aloud protocol, as well as creating a multimodal text to express the mental thinking process of their notion on politeness through non-verbal acts. Findings show how different levels of learners perceive non-verbal politeness differently. For instance, beginners were unaware of Korean pragmatics and the significance of semiotic resources. Although intermediate participants demonstrated a better understanding of non-verbal behaviour, it still lacked nuance, whereas advanced participants understood it well. Also, the paper reveals how watching K-dramas and K-films provides insight into pragmatics learning without the need to exert much effort on the learners’ part and supplement traditional textbook-based classroom teaching. The chapter also sheds light on how media integration into language learning syllabuses could prove particularly beneficial for Asian languages, which have a different pragmatic system than European languages.
Chapter PDF
References
Alvarez-Pereyre, M. (2011). Using film as linguistic specimen: Theoretical and practical issues. In R. Piazza, M. Bednarek, & F. Rossi (Eds.), Telecinematic discourse. Approaches to the language of films and television series (pp. 47–67). John Benjamins.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.
Brown, L., & Winter, B. (2019). Multimodal indexicality in Korean: “doing deference” and “performing intimacy” through nonverbal behavior. Journal of Politeness Research, 15(1), 25–54. https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2016-0042
Brown, L., Winter, B., Idemaru, K., & Grawunder, S. (2014). Phonetics and politeness: Perceiving Korean honorific and non-honorific speech through phonetic cues. Journal of Pragmatics, 66, 45–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.02.011
Brown, L. (2011). Korean honorifics and politeness in second language learning. John Benjamins.
Brown, L. (2013). ‘“Mind your own esteemed business”: Sarcastic honorifics use and impoliteness in Korean TV dramas’. Journal of Politeness Research, 9(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2013-0008.
Byon, A. (2006). The role of linguistic indirectness and honorifics in achieving linguistic politeness in Korean requests. Journal of Politeness Research, 2(2), 247–276. https://doi.org/10.1515/PR.2006.013
Guillemin, M. (2004). Understanding illness: Using drawings as a research method. Qualitative Health Research, 14(2), 272–289.
Harper, D. (2002). Talking about pictures: A case for photo elicitation. Visual Studies, 17(1), 13–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725860220137345
Hong, J. O. (2009). ‘A discourse approach to Korean politeness: Towards a culture-specific Confucian framework’. Nottingham Trent University.
Kadar, D. Z., & Haugh, M. (2013). Understanding politeness. Cambridge University Press.
Kecskes, I. (2019). Interactional competence. In I. Kecskes (Eds.), English as a lingua franca: The pragmatic perspective (pp. 69–90). Cambridge University Press. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316217832.004
Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture. Cambridge University Press.
Kiaer, J. (2017a). The Routledge course in Korean translation. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315618210
Kiaer, J., Shin, J., & Driggs, D. (2022a). Pragmatic teaching and Learning. In A. S. Byon & D. O. Pyun (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of Korean as a second language (pp. 111–128). Routledge.
Kiaer, J., Driggs, D., Brown, L., & Choi, N. (2022b). Ideologies in second language learning: The case of Korean address terms. Journal of Language, Identity & Education,. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2022.2060229
Kiaer, J., & Kim, L. (2021). Understanding Korean film: A cross-cultural perspective (1st ed.). Routledge.
Kiaer, J. (2017b). Korean drama and variety shows in teaching pragmatics and intercultural communicative competence. 국제한국어교육, 3, 113–145.
Kiaer, J. (2019). ‘Translating invisibility: The case of Korean-English literary translation’. In J. Guest & X. A. Li (Eds.), Translation and literature in East Asia: Between visibility and invisibility. Routledge.
Kiaer, J. (2020). Pragmatic particles: Findings from Asian languages. Bloomsbury Academic.
Kiaer, J. (2022, forthcoming). Language of hallyu: More than polite. Routledge.
Kim, L., & Kiaer, J. (2022). A theory of multimodal translation for cross-cultural viewers of South Korean film. University of Oxford.
Locher, M. A. (2004). Power and politeness in action. De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110926552
McKinnon, S., & Prieto, P. (2014). The role of prosody and gesture in the perception of mock impoliteness. Journal of Politeness Research, 10(2), 185–219. https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2014-0009
McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. University of Chicago Press
Memrise. (2021, October 18). K Wave: Squid Game puts Korean top of language learners’ lists. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://www.memrise.com/blog/squid-game-puts-korean-top-of-language-learners-lists
Pickles, M. (2018, July 10). K-pop drives boom in Korean language lessons. BBC News. Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44770777
Silver, J. (2013). Visual methods. In C. Willig, Introducing qualitative research in psychology (3rd ed., pp. 207–221). McGraw Hill Education, Open University Press.
Suh, J. (1999). Pragmatic perception of politeness in requests by Korean learners of English as a second language. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 37(3), 195–214. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral.1999.37.3.195
Watts, R. J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge University Press.
Wharton, T. (2009). Pragmatics and non-verbal communication. University College London.
Yeon, J., & Brown, L. (2011). Korean: A comprehensive grammar. Routledge.
Young, R. F. (2011). Interactional competence in language learning, teaching, and testing. In Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 426–443). Routledge.
Zhang, X. (2019). Foreign language anxiety and foreign language performance: A meta-analysis. The Modern Language Journal, 103(4), 763–781.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kiaer, J., Kim, L., Lo, A.W. (2024). “Koreans Are Always Nodding or Bowing”: K-Wave Fandom’s Perception and Learning of Non-verbal Politeness. In: Kim, M.S. (eds) Exploring Korean Politeness Across Online and Offline Interactions. Advances in (Im)politeness Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50698-7_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50698-7_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-50697-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-50698-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)