Abstract
By comparing understandings of politeness based on metapragmatic data, this study examined how politeness is conceptualized in Korea and the US. The data for the study consisted of responses to open-ended questionnaire by one hundred female undergraduates and graduates (fifty from each group). The data analysis divides into two parts: one exploring abstract conceptualizations of politeness in the US and Korea and the other discussing situated instances of polite behaviors in the respective cultures. The findings emerging from the contrastive analysis showed that there are similarities as well as some differences. A notable similarity between the two groups was that both groups conceptualized politeness mainly as ‘consideration’ and ‘appropriate behavior’. The main difference was that the American participants related politeness to public settings involving strangers while the Koreans provided many private examples as well as public ones. Findings seem to be in line with current approaches to politeness which view politeness as relational and concerns for others rather than strategic use of linguistic performance underlying earlier theories of politeness. (Kongju National University)
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