Purpose of this assignment was to look into one aspect of human language or language use.

Through this assignment, I was able to have ability to understand, summarize and communicate current understanding of an area of my personal interest.

Sunjung Baer LING 210 April 9, 2012

Sexual Discrimination in Korean Language

Growing up in Korea, I heard and had experiences with sexual discrimination in the Korean language, and it has aroused my questions toward sexual discrimination in the Korean language. What was the starting point of sexual discrimination in Korean language? What are the words, proverbs, and expressions? Does sexual discrimination apply into our language choice and use? Through research, I was able to find answers to all of these questions. As Confucianism from China became popular in Korea back in Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897), both positive and negative customs came into Korean culture. Positive customs, such as the importance of manners or proper respect for elders, allowed Koreans to be more humble. However, negative customs, such as letting only men to be an heir and host ancestral rites, changed Korean society away from gender equality before Joseon Dynasty, Korean society allowed both women and men to be heirs of their parents and women were also able to host ancestral rites. It was much gender equal society than current society (Kwon 115) to a notion of preferring a son to a daughter. Finally, this notion brought to the creation of sexual discrimination into the Korean language. Because of this background, we still have a lot of sexually discriminating words. Two of them are (Yamjeonhada) and (Jeomjanda). Both mean well behaved but behind (Yamjeonhada), there is the meaning of obedience, and behind (Jeomjanda), there is the meaning of being gentle or well-mannered. Which word applies to women? Since Korean society has wanted women to be obedient to people, especially to

Purpose of this assignment was to look into one aspect of human language or language use. Through this assignment, I was able to have ability to understand, summarize and communicate current understanding of an area of my personal interest.

men, (Yamjeonhada) is only used for women. Also, because people have thought that men are more gentle and well-mannered than women by being more educated, (Jeomjanda) is only used for men. Another example are (Bu-Mo) and (Aemi-Aebi). Both means parents, but (Bu-Mo) has a positive meaning, and (Aemi-Aebi) has a negative meaning. At this point, we need to look at the word order. In (Bu-Mo), (Bu) means father, and (Mo) means mother; father comes first, and mother comes second. However, in the word (Aemi-Aebi), (Aemi) is mother, and (Aebi) is father; mother comes first in the negative word. Among a lot of sexual discriminating proverbs, I want to introduce this proverb, (Yeoja Set-i Mo-i-myeon Jeob-si-ga Ggae-jin-da), which means Three women make a market in English. According to the Jeon, the proverb contains the meaning that women are talkative and loud when they talk (Jeon 14). Superficially, it is possible that this proverb does not seem like a sexually discriminating proverb. However, because Korean society thinks that being silent is one of the good personalities that people should have, and there is no such proverb about mens talking, it is one of the sexually discriminating proverbs in Korean. Another proverb that I want to introduce is (AmTak-i Ul-myeon Jib-An-i Mang-han-da), which translates to when the sun comes up, if a hen crows instead of a rooster, a family goes down in English. Jeon indicates that behind this proverb, there is a meaning that a wife should not interfere with what a husband does, a family goes down (Jeon 15). Through this, we can see that women in Korean families and their social lives have been placed lower than men. There are sexual discrimination expressions in the Korean language. For example,

Purpose of this assignment was to look into one aspect of human language or language use. Through this assignment, I was able to have ability to understand, summarize and communicate current understanding of an area of my personal interest.

when men drive, if there is a car with a woman driver in front of them, they frequently roll down the window and yell at the woman saying, What is that women doing up in front of me? What bad luck! Do you want to kill yourself? (Han). Also, we can frequently hear that owners of stores say Todays such an unlucky day because the first call this morning was from a female (Han), because they think that if they received the first phone call from a woman, their business for the day is ruined. Moreover, people do not hesitate about saying Hey, stop eating, you pig!(Han) to women who look overweight the problem is, people in Korea only prefer skinny women but they do not say it to men even though they look overweight. These expressions show the status of women in Korean society again. It is easily found that sexual discrimination is applied into language choice and use. For example, while watching the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, and True Crime, I found that the Korean translation of the movie was showing different language usage between a husband and a wife. In the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, the husband says I just saw that Sam got an F in Calculus, and the wife gives him a response, Im aware, Jack. I get a copy of his report card too (Emmerich). Also, the husband in this movie, True Crime, says Its me, sweetheart, and his wife says Steve, thank God. Where are you? (Eastwood). Since English does not have honorifics, we cannot distinguish who is using honorific and who is not. However, when I watched the movie with the Korean translated version, the husband was talking down to his wife and the wife was using honorifics to her husband. We can find another example in the textbooks that students in Korea use. Kim indicates that In the textbook, men mostly talk down to women; on the other hand, women mostly use honorific to speak with men during the conversation (Kim). Through this, we can see that the sexual discrimination of language use is a serious problem in Korean society. In conclusion, sexual discrimination, which started from the Joseon Dynasty, exists in words, proverbs, and expressions in the Korean language. Moreover, sexual discrimination

Purpose of this assignment was to look into one aspect of human language or language use. Through this assignment, I was able to have ability to understand, summarize and communicate current understanding of an area of my personal interest.

affects language choice and use. I have no doubt that there are more discriminating words, proverbs, and expressions in the world that hurt women or put down the status of women. Since everybody is equal and should be treated equally, we should put more effort into not using words, proverbs, or expressions with sexual discrimination, and be careful of our language choice and use.

Bibliography

Emmerich, Roland, dir. The Day After Tomorrow. Fox Film, 2004. Film. Eastwood, Clint, dir. True Crime. Warner Bros., 1999. Film. Han, Heungsik. "Gender Discrimination in the Korean Language." Society for Gender Studies in Japanese. 6.4 (2001): n. page. Web. 9 Apr. 2012. <http://www.gender.jp/journal/no6/04Han.html>. Jeon, Chisoo. (Korean Proverb Dictionary). Seoul: (Maewaldang), 2011. 14, 15. eBook. Kim, LockHwan. " , '' ." [Seoul] 27 12 2010, early n. pag. Web. 9 Apr. 2012. <http://www.mdtoday.co.kr/mdtoday/index.html?no=147090>. Kwon, SoonHyung. . Seoul: , 2006. 115. eBook.