Revisiting “polite” –yo and “deferential” –supnita speech style shifting in Korean from the viewpoint of indexicality

• Korean public speech features shifts between “polite” –yo and “deferential” –supnita.
• Previous research fails to account adequately for –yo/–supnita shifting.
• Analysis of talk show reveals that –supnita indexes a “formal presentational stance”.
• Affective meanings of –yo are mediated by interactional particles.
• –supnita and –yo are syntactically distinct.

This article revisits the question of why Korean speakers switch between two different speech styles (“polite” –yo and “deferential” –supnita) in public speech. Although two recent articles ( Eun and Strauss, 2004 and Strauss and Eun, 2005) have approached this problem, their explanations that –yo/–supnita shifting is grounded in the marking of information status and the indexing of stances of inclusion/exclusion have some underlying problems, which I address in the opening sections. I then analyze a Korean talk show to arrive at a more appropriate model for describing –yo/–supnita shifting. The data shows that participants in this talk show use –supnita as a resource for indexing presentational and performative stances of authority and to mark talk as public or ritualistic. From this, I posit that the underlying direct indexical meaning of –supnita is “formal presentational stance.” Although –yo tends to occur in more casual and emotionally unrestrained sequences of the talk show, I argue that affective stances are only indirectly indexed by this form when it occurs in opposition to –supnita in public speech. Crucially, these affective meanings are mediated by the co-occurrence of –yo with interactional particles.