2012년 9월 20일 목요일

Monthly TOEFL Essay #1: Different way of saying


10b1
조형우
121132
     As George Santayana said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, introspection of past events is a crucial aspect of progression. Therefore people maintain some past rules that are helpful to society, and modify several laws which they regard unnecessary or harmful. Some systems which are proved to be utile, as a result, are succeeded until today. Remaining rules or life patterns are called tradition when they are indigenous. There are numerous traditions in my county Korea, and using honorific is one of it. An honorific is an expression with connotations conveying esteem. I would like other countries to adopt tradition of using honorific for three reasons: horrific enables citizens to maintain good social relationship, effective conversation and maintain the order of the society.
     To begin with, using honorific promotes social harmony. Using honorific shows respect to elderly and people in higher social status. Since most of the conflicts occur when people believe that their opinions are not respected, using honorific lowers the chance of conflict occurring. There are numerous situations when people’s opinions differ. When a person’s opinion is contradicted by other, one might feel uncomfortable. Sometimes this uncomfortable feeling is connected to conflict. However honorific mitigates this uncomfortable feeling since it ensures that a person is not looking down on others. As a result, using honorific stimulates amicable relationship.        
     Furthermore, using honorific allows one to effectively convey opinion. This is because using honorific shows respect and not using honorific shows friendliness. For instance, politicians use honorific in public announcement to show that they not only respect the audience but that they are serious. On the other hand, people sometimes intentionally does not use honorific. Close friends usually does not use honorific to show sense of closeness. This is because honorific is conventionally used in public place or to a person in higher social status. This also means that conversation without honorific is private and intimate. As the example shows, honorific allows one to effectively convey opinion by using it in different situations.
      Last but not least, honorific contributes to orderly society. When majority ignores the rank of the society, chaos occurs in the society. This is because the society requires leader and follower to effectively finish the major project. If project does not have a leader, it will consume a long time to allocate parts. Using honorific, however, stimulates people to maintain the rule of the society. When a person uses honorific to boss, it clearly shows that one not only respects boss but also one is on the lower rank. As a result, honorific prevents chaos of the society.
     In conclusion, I would like to introduce the custom of using honorific to foreigners because it helps to establish methodical, harmonic society and enables diverse expressions. Some people say that Korea should stop using honorific since it deters creativity and leads to excessively perfunctory society. As a matter of fact, honorific is Korea’s proud tradition which made people to call Korea, the country of courteous people in the East.

댓글 3개:

  1. Most of all, I recommend to use honorifics or honorific language instead of honorific. To me the hook sentence was impressive, as you quoted a maxim. I was disappointed at the fact that the first reason contains the second reason. If people have good relationship each other, it is quite obvious that they can have an effective conversation. Also, the logic in the third body paragraph is bit weird. Is the vertical order of people really needed in the modern democratic society? The thing that was significant is that the body paragraph lacked examples and details. For instance, the reason that supports honorific prevents chaos is not clear.

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  2. I think the essay is really good. The hook sentences are impressive and every each paragraphs have enough and relevant examples and explanations. In addition, unlike Jun Sun Choi's opinion, I think promoting social harmony and making one's word persuasive are different things.

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  3. Reasonable arguments and good format! Also, all the exemples help the readers to understand this Korean culure better. The one thing I want to say is that honorific is a reaslly good clture of Korea. However, suggesting this to other countries might have a slight problem because honorific is one of the features of Korean language. In order to use honorific, other countries might have to reconstruct their language itself. But still, it was a very well organized essay!:)

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