15
Cognitive Science of Language Lecture Series talk by Dr. Kim
By Linguistics and Languages Department
Free Lecture for Faculty, Graduate Students, Researchers
Overview
You are invited to the next talk of the Cognitive Science of Language lecture series organized by McMaster’s Department of Linguistics and Languages. The lecture will be delivered online by Dr. Ariel Kim, who teaches Korean language and Korean pop-culture in the Department of Linguistics and Languages at McMaster as well as Intercultural Communication course for the Integrated Business and Humanities program. Please email lingdept@mcmaster.ca to request a link..
Title: “You missed two zeros!”: Impoliteness and the Korean Moral Order
Abstract:
There is growing interest in exploring the causes of impolite and aggressive communicative behaviors in computer-mediated communication (CMC) from a socio-cognitive perspective. Studies find that universally shared “intuitive ethics” or foundations of morality play an important role in how interactants evaluate the behavior of others, and potentially usher the use of impolite language. Though these studies provide further insights into a range of factors that cause people to be impolite and aggressive in CMC, there remains a lack of research that considers the affect of cultural influences on impolite language. To bridge this gap, this study sets out to investigate the underlying values and beliefs that influence people’s moral order judgements and how they are manifested in impolite language used during online interactions. Specifically, it explores the impact of culture on people’s judgement of (perceived) moral transgression in Korean online interactions. To satisfy the aims of the study, I examine data drawn from Instagram and YouTube posts created by a collection of Korean celebrities and entertainment media as well as user comments. Findings show that the impolite language found in the data samples are not necessarily unregulated outbursts of aggression, but rather follow identifiable, culturally specific patterns. The study concludes that ones’ “place” in Korean society plays a pivotal role in an interactant’s evaluation of behavior.