Intergenerational Transmission of Cultural Values in Korean American Families: An Analysis of the Verb Suffix –ta, Part 2

Eunjin Park, University of Texas at Arlington

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Excerpt 5

Mother, Ha–Young (5;10) and Danielle (3;6) are watching the cartoon Tom and Jerry on television. Earlier, Ha–Young and her sister Danielle had been playing with colored clay that they could stretch and stick on flat surface. Mother had told the children not to stick it on the wall or furniture because it would leave a stain. The girls continued playing with the colored clay. When the show was on, they stopped playing and sat down to watch the cartoon. Mother finds a stain on the TV screen, which Ha–Young had made with the colored clay.

Discovering the stain on the TV, Mother tells Ha–Young that her father will scold her when he comes home and will not buy her a computer (Turn 5). By using the –ta suffix, Mother marks her certainty that if Ha–Young does not listen to her, there will be negative consequences. However, Ha–Young argues that the stain is not visible (Turn 6). Mother says that Daddy is good at finding stains (Turn 7), but Ha–Young argues that her father will not find it because he will come home late and go upstairs (Turn 8). Listening to Ha–Young and Mother's conversation, Danielle draws Mother's attention away to herself by tying the sticky toy around her ankles (Turns 9 and 11). Then Ha–Young changes the topic to the cartoon (Turn 12).

The linguistic markers highlight the different strategies used by Mother and Ha–Young to argue what they think would happen. While Mother marked the certainty of her negative assessment of Ha–Young's behavior with –ta, Ha–Young code–switched into English to disagree with her mother. According to Shin and Milroy (2000), this sort of code–switch builds up a contrast in two continuous stretches of talk to contextualize a speaker's disagreement with other interlocutors. In addition, Ha–Young's use of English, the socially stronger language, can be interpreted as an attempt to equalize her status to that of her mother (Shin, 2005).

Children's Use of –ta

As mentioned earlier, the children in the study produced very few –ta utterances (less than 10% of all –ta utterances in the data). When they did use –ta, it was mainly to state that they had completed their work (e.g., dahaet–ta [done]) or to describe what was happening at the time of the conversation (e.g., bubble nawat–ta [bubbles came out]). However, children also used–ta to compliment their own work. This occurred in Excerpt 1, and more clearly in Excerpt 6.

Excerpt 6

Natalie (4;10) is coloring in her coloring book. Her grandfather, sitting next to her, is coloring on the adjacent page. Grandfather says repeatedly that Natalie is coloring faster than he can.

Throughout this excerpt, grandfather repeatedly denigrates himself and states that Natalie can color better and faster than he can. This is similar to what we saw in Excerpt 1 where Helen's grandmother downplays herself in order to encourage Helen to do a good job making Play–doh figures. Encouraged by her grandfather's self–deprecating compliments, Natalie compliments her own work with a ta utterance in "jalhaet–ta" (I did it better.) (Turn 4). Similar to Helen's use of –ta to compliment her own work in Excerpt 1, Natalie uses –ta to contextualize her assertion that her work was superior to her grandfather's. What is interesting in both cases is that the child's use of –ta to compliment her own work is made possible only when the adult has explicitly allowed it.

In sum, children's lack of –ta utterances to compliment, criticize, or mention positive or negative consequences when conversing with adults demonstrates the discrepancy between adults' and children's language use in family settings. It also supports language socialization research, which argues that children not only reproduce what they hear from adults but also acquire the social expectations on proper speech (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984). The children in this study may have perceived the inappropriateness of using –ta in their speech with adults. Because children occupy the lowest rank of hierarchy within the family, they are not to use those –ta utterances that imply the speaker's higher status. The only exceptions are found in cases where the adult has purposefully chosen to take a lower status in order to encourage the child to do better and try harder.

Conclusion

This study has examined the use of the Korean verb suffix –tain intergenerational family interactions in Korean American homes. Analysis of the talk–in–interaction suggests that adults use this suffix mostly to compliment or criticize children's actions, or to warn children of the consequences of their misbehavior. The children in this study used –tainfrequently; when they did, usage was limited to complimenting their own work in the context of adults' self–deprecating comments. By internalizing family values, children construct their own "social identity" (Ochs, 1993, p. 288). Because they occupy the lowest rank within the family hierarchy, they are expected to respect their parents' and grandparents' authority and knowledge by using appropriate speech. These values become part of children's sense of self, and they present their public side of self –face – according to the rules they have learned at home. In this way, the young Korean American children in this study seem to have internalized conventions of socially appropriate speech to indicate hierarchical relationships.

In three–generation households, children can observe or participate in multi–status interlocutors' interactions. For example, children can learn how to speak with someone older by observing how their parents speak with their grandparents. In this study, although the adults never told the children not to use –ta utterances to compliment or criticize adults, the children seemed to have learned that it would be undesirable for them to do so since they rarely see their parents using it when speaking to the grandparents. Thus, observation of daily family interactions enables children to acquire the rules of polite speech and to understand what is acceptable when speaking with adults. Although heritage language classrooms can certainly teach the subtle nuances of the various linguistic markers in Korean, these markers are not usually fully grasped by non–heritage speakers. It is mainly through meaningful and sustained interactions with parents and grandparents that immigrant children learn socially appropriate speech.

Many writers note the importance of intergenerational transmission in heritage language maintenance and development (Campbell & Christian, 2003; Fishman, 1991, 2001; Shin, 2005, 2006; Skutnabb–Kangas, 1988). This study demonstrated that expectations of socially acceptable speech are transmitted to next generation through everyday interaction within three–generational families. To maintain heritage language that conveys the culture and ideologies of the speakers, our society must increasingly acknowledge and support the important role that parents and grandparents play in this regard.

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Sarah J. Shin and Dr. Jin Sook Lee for their insightful discussions and comments on this paper. I am responsible for any errors.

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