ABSTRACT
In English the use of pronouns is mandatory. Although Korean also has pronouns, they are used less often than in English. Furthermore, in Korean, any element of the sentence that can be contextually inferred, including the subject and the object is often omitted. For example, in a conversation between two people, there is often no need for personal pronouns. The use of Korean second-person pronouns is more limited than that of English. In Korean, there is no second-person pronoun for addressing seniors or adults of equal status to the speaker. One possible explanation for this absence is that addressing someone by a personal pronoun sounds too direct and confrontational in Korean. As a result, Koreans avoid using the second-person pronoun unless they are talking to close friends or younger colleagues. Strictly speaking, Korean has no true third-person pronoun. Instead, Koreans use a demonstrative such as this, these, that, and those.
