article

Teknonymy and geononymy in Korean kinship terminology

Ethnology12 (1)Published In 1973 • Pages: 31-46

By: Yi, Kwang-gyu, Harvey, Youngsook Kim.

AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this article, Lee and Harvey describe the Korean kinship terminology with a focus on the widely-practiced custom of teknonymy and geononymy. Korean kinship terms are based on relative age, sex, generation, and degree of relatedness. The practice of teknonymy reflects the hierarchical order of Korean kinship and the avoidance of personal names as a show of respect. The name of the first child in a household is used as the referent for all household members, i.e., members are addressed as either the grandparent, parent, brother or sister of 'X.' Teknonymy is usually limited to the immediate extended family of three generations. The use of place names in kinship terms, or geononymy, helps unambiguously to identify individuals. For example if there is more than one older brother of the parent of 'X,' then they are distinguished by a place name either associated with a change of residence, or the place where a spouse comes from. Geononymy helps to identify and distinguish households, whereas teknonymy is used to indicate status.
SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
Place names
Personal names
Kinship terminology
Rule of descent
cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
Korea
HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
1998
RegionThe area the document pertains to
Asia
Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
East Asia
Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
article
Evaluation
Creator TypesThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
Ethnologist
Indigenous Person
Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
4: Excellent Secondary Data
5: Excellent Primary Data
AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
Ian Skoggard ; 1997
Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
not specified
Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
not specified
Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
Republic of Korea
NotesAdditional notes
Kwang-Kyu Lee, Youngsook Kim Harvey
Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-46)
LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
64005713
LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
Koreans