Cover not available
Article published In:
Korean Linguistics
Vol. 18:1 (2022) ► pp.48–75

Discourse functions of Korean ‘yes’ words

 | The Ohio State University
 | University of Maryland, Baltimore County
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) acknowledgement, (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.
Keywords: Korean, Korean yes, discourse marker, discourse functions, interactional approach
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 3.The data
  • 4.Discourse functions of Korean ‘yes’ tokens
    • 4.1Affirmative answer to a ‘yes/no’ question
    • 4.2Confirmation
    • 4.3Acceptance of offer, suggestion, or request
    • 4.4Agreement
    • 4.5Answer to a summons
    • 4.6Acknowledgement
    • 4.7Change-of-state
    • 4.8Change-of-activity
    • 4.9Response solicitation
    • 4.10Reinforcement
    • 4.11Other-initiation of repair
    • 4.12Closing of phone call
    • 4.13Continuer
    • 4.14Proposal to discontinue the on-going action for the sake of a larger course of action
    • 4.15Hesitation marker
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Closing remarks
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations used in the interlinear gloss
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 28 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/kl.00013.pyu
References (39)
References
Angles, Jeffrey, Ayumi Nagatomi, & Mineharu Nakayama. 2000. Japanese responses hai, ee, and un : Yes, no, and beyond. Language and Communication 201: 55–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beach, Wayne A. 1993. Transitional regularities for ‘casual’ “okay” usage. Journal of Pragmatics 191: 325–352. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1995a. Conversation analysis: “okay” as a clue for understanding consequentiality. In The Consequentiality of Communication, ed. Stuart Sigman, 121–161. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 121–161.Google Scholar
1995b. Preserving and constraining options: “okays” and ‘official’ priorities in medical interviews. In The talk of the clinic: Explorations in the analysis of medical and therapeutic discourse, ed. George H. Morris and Ronald J. Cheneil, 259–289. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Cho, Young-mee, Hyo Sang Lee, Carol Schulz, Ho-min Sohn & Sung-Ock Sohn. 2009. Integrated Korean: Beginning 1. 2nd ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
. 2012. Integrated Korean: Intermediate 1. 2nd ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Drummond, Kent & Robert Hopper. 1993. Back channels revisited: Acknowledgement tokens and speakership incipiency. Research on Language and Social Interaction 26 (2): 157–177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ford, Cecilia & Johannes Wagner. 1996. Interaction-based studies of language: Introduction. Pragmatics 6 (3): 277–279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gardner, Rod. 2001. When listeners talk: Response tokens and listener stance. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givon, Talmy. 1979. From discourse to syntax: grammar as a processing strategy. In Syntax and semantics. Vol. 12: Discourse and syntax, ed. Talmy Givon, 81–112. New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984. A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis, ed. J. Maxwell Atkinson and John C. Heritage, 299–345. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. 1979. Aspect and foregrounding in discourse. In Syntax and semantics. Vol. 12: Discourse and syntax, ed. Talmy Givon, 213–241. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
1988. Emergent grammar and the a priori grammar postulate. In Linguistics in Contact, ed. Deborah Tannen, 117–134. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56 (2): 251–299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1984. The discourse basis for lexical categories in universal grammar. Language 60 (4): 703–751. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1984. Notes on a systematic deployment of the acknowlegement tokens yeah and mm hm. Papers in Linguistics 171: 197–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Kyu-hyun. 1993. Other-initiated repair sequences in Korean conversation as interactional resources. In Japanese/Korean Linguistics 3, ed. Soonja Choi, 3–18. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar
. 1999. Phrasal unit boundaries and organization of turns and sequences in Korean conversation. Human Studies 221: 425–446. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Kyu-Hyun & Kyung-Hee Suh. 1998. Confirmation sequences as interactional resources in Korean language proficiency interviews. In Talking and testing: Discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency, ed. Richard Young and Agnes W. He, 297–332. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kitagawa, Chisato. 1980. Saying ‘yes’ in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 41: 105–120. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Sandra A. Thompson. ed. 1996. Interaction and grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita. 1984. Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis, ed. J. Maxwell Atkinson and John C. Heritage, 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff & Gail Jefferson. 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. Language 501: 696–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1982. Discourse as an interactional achievement: Some uses of ‘uh huh’ and other things that come between sentences. In Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk, ed. Deborah Tannen, 71–93. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
2000. When ‘others’ initiate repair. Applied Linguistics 21 (2): 205–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007. Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis, Volume 11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. & Harvey Sacks. 1973. Opening up closings. Semiotica 71: 289–327. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A., Gail Jefferson & Harvey Sacks. 1977. The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 531: 361–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Selting, Margaret & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 2001. Studies in interactional linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sohn, H.-M. 1999. The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena. 1996. On repeats and responses in Finnish conversations. In Interaction and grammar, ed. Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Sandra Thompson, 277–327. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya. 2004. No no no and other types of multiple sayings in social interaction. Human Communication Research 30 (2): 260–293. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A. & Elizabethe Couper-Kuhlen. 2005. The clause as a locus of grammar and interaction. Discourse Studies 7 (4–5): 481–505. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wouk, Fay. 2001. Solidarity in Indonesian conversation: The discourse marker ya . Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2): 171–191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yoon, Kyung-Eun. 2010. Questions and responses in Korean conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 421: 2782–2798. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, Don H. 1993. Acknowledgement tokens and speakership incipiency revisited. Research on Language and Social Interaction 26 (2): 179–194. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Choe, Hanwool
2024. “할미 마음이 아파요”: Korean Honorific Speech Level Markers as Contextualization Cues in Family Instant Messages. In Exploring Korean Politeness Across Online and Offline Interactions [Advances in (Im)politeness Studies, ], ► pp. 35 ff. DOI logo
Hasin, Hanafiah , Anita Jamil, Herlina Helmy & Yang Chik Johari
2024. The Influence of Prayer, Al-Quran Recitation, Physical Exercise, and Holidays on Positive Thinking: Exploring Stress Coping Strategies for Mental Well-Being. Information Management and Business Review 16:3(I) ► pp. 500 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.