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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 rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 28 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/kl.00013.pyu
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