A sociolinguistic study of honorific speech among Korean-English bilingual children in the Los Angeles area

This study presents a sociolinguistic analysis of the use of honorific speech among Korean-English bilingual children living in the United States. It deals with the children's speech patterns in relation to language maintenance and attempts to highlight some of the social factors which condition their knowledge and use of honorific forms of speech. Twenty-four Korean children (12 boys and 12 girls) living in the Los Angeles area, ages 10 to 13, participated in the study; they were divided into three groups according to the length of their stay in the u.s. and the amount of schooling they had in Korea. Data collection through structured questionnaires and interviews was followed by a correlational analysis of linguistic and social variables.