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Culture and Interdiscursivity in Korean Fricative Voice Gestures
Author(s) -
Harkness Nicholas
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of linguistic anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.463
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1548-1395
pISSN - 1055-1360
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1395.2011.01084.x
Subject(s) - gesture , utterance , prosody , linguistics , psychology , focus (optics) , optics , philosophy , physics
This paper explores the cultural significance of a type of audible gesture in Korean speech that I call the Fricative Voice Gesture (FVG). I distinguish between two forms of this gesture: the reactive FVG, which serves as a self‐standing utterance that signals personally felt intensity, and the prosodic FVG, which can be superimposed upon an utterance as a form of intensification. Based on an ethnographically informed analysis of interviews, Christian sermons, and advertisements for soju, a Korean spirit, in South Korea, I view the interdiscursive link between reactive and prosodic FVGs in terms of the ongoing cultural revalorization of the sound shape. I focus in particular on the shift from harsher to softer FVGs—and their omission altogether—according to different, but related, paradigms of social differentiation such as class, gender, and age. [voice, gesture, prosody, intensification, korean, South Korea]