한국어 선어말 어미 ‘-시-’의 사물 존대 기능 : 백화점, 대형마트, 재래시장 판매원의 발화를 중심으로

The new feature of prefinal ending ‘-si-’: Inanimate object honorific marker-Focusing on speech comparison of department stores and local markets-

The aim of this study is to research the new function of Korean honorific prefinal ending ‘-si-’ by field survey as well as to emphasize the need to be discussed this circumstance in Korean education. The object of this study ‘-si-’ is the most representative Korean subject honorific marker. It had been only used to person, but is now also used for inanimate object. Especially, it could be found in luxury service industries such as hotel, department store, and restaurant. Therefore, this language variation can be connected with social class. In order to research the new feature of ‘-si-’, Labov(1966)’s methodology which is modified for this study was applied. Then, dialogues between employees and customers from the department store and local market were collected. In addition, this study surveyed to find out Korean native speakers’ awareness about new feature of ‘-si-’. Thus, this research has significance by finding the new features of ‘-si-’ through field surveys and questionnaires as well as making realistic mention about ‘-si-’ in Korean linguistics.