Choosing a Register for a Class Speech
A student must give a two-minute speech in Korean at a school Korean-language evening. The audience includes teachers, parents, and younger students. The student's draft opens: "여러분, 안녕! 오늘 내가 하고 싶은 얘기는 우리 반이 한 프로젝트에 대한 거야. 진짜 힘들었는데 다들 열심히 해서 잘 됐어. 다음에도 또 하고 싶어." The student wants the speech to sound friendly and not stiff, but the teacher has flagged the draft as unsuitable for the occasion. The student has 250–300 words of speaking time and must keep the content essentially the same.
1. Explain why the draft is unsuitable for this audience, identifying the specific register features that cause the problem.
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The draft is unsuitable because it uses 반말-style casual speech and informal vocabulary that clash with a mixed, public audience that includes teachers and parents.
1. Speech level. "안녕!" "거야," "했어," "싶어" are 해체/반말 endings. Addressing an audience that includes teachers and parents in 반말 is inappropriate regardless of how friendly the student wants to sound. The opening 안녕 is a greeting for peers, not for a formal school event.
2. First-person pronoun. "내가" is the plain/casual form of "I." In a public speech to a mixed audience, 저 or 저희 반 is expected. Using 내가 foregrounds the speaker in a way that reads as informal.
3. Vocabulary. "얘기" (instead of 이야기/말씀), "진짜" (instead of 정말/무척), and "다들" (instead of 여러분/학생들) are all colloquial. 진짜 in particular is strongly associated with casual conversation.
4. Omitted honorific framing. The draft refers to the class's effort without any acknowledgment of the teachers or parents present. In a speech at a school event, briefly acknowledging them is conventional.
5. The requested tone is achievable without 반말. Friendliness can be carried by content, pacing, and warmth rather than by casual endings. The student has conflated "friendly" with "casual," which is the core error.
2. Rewrite the opening in a register suitable for the audience while keeping the same content, and explain the choices that preserve friendliness without informality.
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Model rewrite:
존경하는 선생님, 학부모님, 그리고 학생 여러분, 안녕하십니까. 저는 오늘 저희 반이 함께한 프로젝트에 대해 말씀드리고자 합니다. 솔직히 말씀드리면 쉽지 않은 과정이었습니다. 하지만 학생들 모두가 끝까지 최선을 다해 주었고, 그 덕분에 좋은 결과를 얻을 수 있었습니다. 저는 이 경험을 통해 함께한다는 것의 의미를 배웠습니다. 기회가 된다면 이런 프로젝트를 다시 해 보고 싶습니다.
How friendliness is preserved without informality:
- 솔직히 말씀드리면 - a conversational, candid phrase that creates warmth and directness while remaining in formal style. This is the key move: candour, not casual endings, produces friendliness.
- 쉽지 않은 과정이었습니다 - admits difficulty honestly (like 진짜 힘들었는데) but in 합니다체.
- 학생들 모두가 끝까지 최선을 다해 주었고 - the particle -까지 and the auxiliary 주었고 convey appreciation and warmth toward classmates, replacing 다들 열심히 해서.
- 그 덕분에 - credits others explicitly, which sounds generous rather than self-focused.
- 저는 … 배웠습니다 - a reflective closing thought appropriate to a speech, keeping the speaker modest.
- 기회가 된다면 … 해 보고 싶습니다 - preserves the original's "I'd like to do it again" in formal style.
Register choices: 안녕하십니까 for the greeting; 저/저희 for self-reference; 말씀드리다 for humble verbs; 합니다체 throughout; and an explicit acknowledgment of teachers and parents at the start.