공손한 언어 학습의 필요성: 다운튼 애비에 나타난 공손의 거리를 중심으로

This paper emphasizes that a student needs to understand and develop ‘posh’ language based on distance in politeness in English communication. To communicate means to respond appropriately to match a specific situation or context as well as to answer a speaker with correct expressions. To improve students’ communicative competence using movies this paper focuses on ‘posh’ language. The use of polite terms can make both speakers and addressees feel better, which is helpful for establishing and maintaining social relationships. This paper categorizes the characteristics and functions of ‘posh’ language as using the past forms of auxiliary verbs, having formal patterns, and relying on implied expressions. It analyzes their use in the British TV drama Downton Abbey by considering the aspects of proximity and distance in politeness. Proximity and distance present perceptible differences in linguistic expressions depending on the speaker, listener, context, and social and cultural background. Correspondence between distances produced by a speaker and a listener is considered to be ‘polite’ but a discrepancy between them as ‘impolite’ generally. Teachers need to explicitly teach polite expressions and should ask students to notice polite expressions in learning materials, while students should learn the expressions consciously and explicitly.