Discourse functions of Korean ‘yes’ words
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Pyun, Danielle O. and Kyung-Eun Yoon. Discourse functions of Korean ‘yes’ words. Korean Linguistics 18 (Mar 2022) Issue 1,, p. 48 - 75. https://doi.org/10.1075/kl.00013.pyu
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Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
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This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
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Abstract
This study examines discourse functions of Korean ‘yes’ words from an
interactional perspective based on naturally-occurring conversation data.
Tokens of yey, ney, ey, ung, um, and e in Korean are widely recognized as
affirmative responses. A close examination of these tokens, however, reveals
wide-ranging interactional functions through which speakers express active
engagement, share information, negotiate meaning, and maintain discourse
coherence. The present study identifies a total of fifteen discourse-pragmatic
functions of Korean ‘yes’ words: (1) affirmative answer, (2) confirmation,
(3) acceptance, (4) agreement, (5) answer to summons, (6) acknowledge ment, (7) change-of-state, (8) change-of-activity, (9) response solicitation,
(10) reinforcement, (11) other initiation of repair, (12) closing of phone call,
(13) continuer, (14) proposal to discontinue the on-going action for the sake
of a larger course of action, and (15) arguably hesitation marker. This study
demonstrates that the interactional approach enables the discovery of varied
discourse functions of a type of linguistic items, which may not be readily
available in dictionaries or grammar reference guides.