Corpus-based analysis of Korean's use of intensifiers across age and social class

Abstract

This study is an attempt to investigate the differential usage of intensifiers by age and social class in Korean. Data was collected from 17 episodes of Korean television show The Heirs, aired from 9 October to 12 December 2013. Ten types of intensifiers were carefully chosen and examined to see its relationship with the social factors. Frequency counts and the Chi-square test were used to analyse the data. The results showed that the teen group and the lower social class use more intensifiers in their speech than the older and the higher social groups.

They also revealed that the younger the speaker and the higher the social class, the more variety of intensifiers were used. As well as age, the higher the social class of the speaker, the higher formality level of intensifiers were used. In terms of preference, the teen’s favourite intensifiers were ‘cincca’ and ‘toykey’, whereas ‘nemwu’ and ‘acwu’ were favoured by the older group, although social class was irrelevant when it came to the ‘favourite’ intensifier.