Abstract

Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism, being by-products of socio-political and educational developments at various stages of Chinese history, have permeated to a varying degree several aspects of life in East Asian societies. China itself, along with its neighbouring states—such as Vietnam and Korea—despite political changes, globalization, and adoption of non-traditional systems of governance, have retained hierarchic models of communication derived from NeoConfucianism. The nature of the doctrine and the transformative processes it underwent in the course of history are still widely discussed issues, just like the degree to which the societies in China and Korean Peninsula consciously follow the ethnolinguistic, philosophical, and moral principles of Confucianism. The goal of this paper is therefore not to focus on purely metaphysical aspects of Confucianism, but rather to examine communication patterns and modes of behaviour in various aspects of daily life in China and Korea introduced in processes of Confucianisation or influenced by Confucian philosophy, by means of the combination of qualitative method and comparative analysis.