COMPARISON OF HONORIFIC FORMS IN KOREAN AND LATVIAN LANGUAGES AND THE IMPLICATIONS ON LANGUAGE LEARNING

The question of honorifics in the Korean language is difficult to grasp and it has been a subject of scrutiny in the field of comparative linguistics and Korean language education for a long time. This paper examines the differences and similarities of the Korean and Latvian language from the perspective of honorifics systems and their usage in everyday life. The very complex system in Korean and the much subtler system in Latvian make for a case study that could be used to improve the understanding of how to showcase these differences in a way that makes it easier for Latvian learners of Korean to grasp them and put them to use both while learning the language in a classroom setting and while using them outside of it. The paper is divided into sections that examine both of the systems separately and then compare them in the section on usage. Finally, conclusions are made on how to introduce this to students of Korean language and how this topic could be expanded in the future.