This article presents a comparative linguocultural study of kinship-based terms of address in Karakalpak and Korean, examining how these linguistic forms function not only as labels for family members but as complex social tools that negotiate hierarchy, intimacy, respect, and relational proximity. Drawing on a combination of descriptive linguistic analysis, ethnographic observation, and sociolinguistic interpretation, the study investigates both semantic and pragmatic dimensions of address terms [2; 3; 12]. In Karakalpak, kinship nouns such as apa (“older woman”), ağay (“older man”), ini (“younger brother”), and bala (“child”) are employed flexibly in everyday interaction to convey respect, familiarity, and emotional closeness, often extended to non-relatives [10; 11]. The language’s agglutinative morphology allows for diminutives, possessives, and plural forms, further enriching expressive capacity [8; 13]. Korean, in contrast, reflects Confucian cultural norms, with kinship-based address terms like hyung, eonni, and oppa functioning as essential markers of politeness, age distinction, and gendered relational roles. Honorific markers at the sentence level modulate the pragmatic force of these forms, allowing speakers to navigate hierarchical and affective dimensions simultaneously [4]. By analyzing these systems comparatively, the study highlights convergences and divergences in how unrelated languages encode social values, revealing the influence of cultural traditions, nomadic versus Confucian family structures, and collectivist ethics on linguistic practice [2; 5; 12]. The article also considers sociolinguistic variation across age, gender, urban/rural environments, and formal versus informal contexts, as well as the effects of intergenerational change and digital communication [7; 9]. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that kinship-based terms of address serve as a lens for understanding broader cultural worldviews, social organization, and pragmatic strategies in human interaction. The findings underscore the inseparability of language, culture, and social norms, offering insights into cross-cultural pragmatics, affective linguistics, and comparative sociolinguistics [3; 12].                                                                                                                                                      

kinship terms of address; Karakalpak; Korean; linguoculturology; politeness; pragmatics; sociolinguistics.

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