Swearing granny restaurants: an international perspective on rudeness in Korean

Linguistic politeness is considered a salient emblem of Korean culture and society, including the use of the epithet Tongbang yeŭi chi kuk “The Nation of Propriety in the East” for referring to Korea (Kim in Language and politeness in the'Nation of Propriety in the East': A history of linguistic ideologies of Korean honorification, 2018). In contrast to previous research that has focused on polite language as an expression of Korean identity, this study looks at rude and abusive language as a linguistic emblem of South Korea. We focus on the phenomenon of yokchaengi halmŏni ŭmshikchŏm “swearing granny restaurants,” eating establishments where the restaurant proprietors routinely swear at and trade insults with their customers. To gain an international perspective on this phenomenon, we analyze video data of a mixed-nationality group visiting one of these establishments in South Korea, and also of a Korean male visiting a restaurant in Chicago, USA, which has been identified in the Korean media as an American equivalent. The analysis shows that the use of rudeness in these restaurants, rather than being used to create conflict and disharmony, actually becomes a marker of interpersonal identity, and of culture-specific modes of sociality. In addition, the cross-cultural aspects of the data confirm previous claims that the emotional intensity of rude language may be interpreted differently across different cultures.