Korean Modal Suffixes as Stance Markers:

Resources for Organizing Social Action and Speaker Alignment

 

Kyu-hyun Kim

Department of English, Kyung Hee University

 

 

Kyung-Hee Suh

Department of English, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

 

In this paper, we analyze the functions of three sentence-ending modal suffixes in Korean that are used to express newly perceived information, -ney, -kwun(a), and -ta, whose meanings have been characterized as ‘Factual Realization,’ ‘Unassimilative,’ and ‘Declarative’ respectively (H.-S. Lee 1993). As their names suggest, the three suffixes have been analyzed in previous research mainly from cognitive perspectives (H.-S. Lee 1993, S.-J. Choi 1995, K.-H. Chang 1985, K. Lee 1993). For instance, H.-S. Lee analyzes –ney as a marker of newly perceived information that is factual (i.e., not inference-based), which does not conform to the speaker’s background expectation. In contrast, the immediately perceived information marked by –kwun(a) is non-factual (i.e., inference-based) and non-informative, being based on some kind of evidence. The suffix -ta is used for expressing information that requires the hearer’s immediate attention.

While drawing upon H.-S. Lee’s ‘cognitively-oriented’ research, we take a conversation-analytic perspective (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974) and attempt to show that the distinct meanings of these suffixes can be most strikingly observed and analyzed in interactional terms, i.e., by looking at the ways in which they are used as stance markers constitutive of distinct types of social action and sequential structure in spontaneous conversational contexts.

We will show that the practice of ‘noticing’ involving the use of –ney has the sequential implication of having the hearer react to the speaker’s observation, which is presented as pertaining to something ‘newsworthy.’ It brings to the attention of the hearer an aspect of the current event as some noticeable/problematic matter to be subsequently addressed by the hearer, e.g., by establishing it as a subsequent topic and collaboratively sustaining it through a co-assessment sequence (Kim & Suh 2002). The hearer of -ney is thus constituted as a party to take a stance relevant to the speaker’s observation and react to it actively as a co-assessor/co-teller.

The suffix –kwun(a), in contrast, does not invite the hearer’s ‘active’ co-participation as such. Kwun(a)-marked observations tend to be about something which is congruent with (or at least not incompatible with) the interlocutors’ stance displayed in some prior context and/or with some commonsense knowledge evoked by the speaker at the moment of utterance. Thus the interactional task the hearer of -kwun(a) orients to is limited to ‘acknowledging (or sometimes disputing)’ the speaker’s inference-laden observation, which often draws upon the commonsense knowledge shared by the hearer.

As for –ta, the event that the speaker has just noticed provides a basis for some 'next' action (e.g., suggestion, warning, etc.) to be initiated by the speaker, with the hearer being aligned as the ‘recipient’ of that next action. This interactional feature of -ta is evidenced by the observation that the hearer of -ta tends to orient to the speaker's projected next action by withholding his/her turn and letting the speaker continue to talk.

These and other interactional features of the three suffixes are analyzed on the basis of the examination of face-to-face and telephone conversations. The interactional account offered in this paper is shown to complement the cognitive account presented in earlier research. It is suggested that the analysis of the speaker’s ‘displayed’ stance promises further findings illuminating the systematic ways in which these suffixes are used as grammatical resources for organizing social action and managing speaker alignment. Further implications of the findings are discussed with reference to how the deployment of suffixes bears upon turn-organization in general and also in relation to the comparable practice of noticing in English conversation, where negative or positive observations sequentially constitute various types of social action (Schegloff 2001).