ABSTRACT
One salient feature of the Korean language is its elaborate honorific system. In Korean a speaker/addresser indicates his/her attitudes about the status and intimacy of the interlocutor and the referent. The proper grammatical forms are thus chosen on the basis of criteria established by social convention - such as relative age, parentage, social status, and sex - that also govern other systems of social behaviour. Indeed, an important part of Korean language acquisition is apprehending its honorific system.
