An ERP study on the pragmatic processing of Korean honorifics and politeness

Abstract This study investigates Korean honorific processing, specifically examining whether it is rule-based or lexicon-based. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured in a group of twenty native Korean speakers to explore their responses to honorific mismatches. Participants were presented with eight variations of Korean sentences, differing in formality, honorific usage, and address form categories. The results revealed the presence of the N400 effect, indicating sensitivity to honorific mismatches in Korean. However, no P600 effect was observed. These findings suggest that Korean honorific concord relies on a semantic-pragmatic cognitive mechanism rather than strict rule-based processing, as supported by the N400 effect. Notably, the N400 effect was more pronounced when non-honorific verbal marking was combined with honorific address terms and in formal style sentences. These results suggest that honorific concord in Korean is influenced by both social context and grammar rules, particularly among individuals of higher social status in formal situations. Overall, this study contributes valuable insights into the neurological basis of pragmatic concord across diverse languages.