The semantic and pragmatic analysis of South Korean and Australian English apologetic speech acts  

Oleh:

Kim, Heesoo

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of Pragmatics: An Interdiciplinary Journal of Language Studies vol. 40 no. 2 (Feb. 2008), page 257-278.
Topik: Apology; Speech act; Discourse-completion task; Natural semantic metalanguage; South Korean; Australian English; Mianhada; Sorry
Fulltext: Kim_Heesoo.pdf (232.52KB)

Isi artikel

The aim of this study is the semantic and pragmatic analysis of South Korean apologetic speech acts, in particular with respect to how South Korean apologetic speech act expressions differ conceptually from Australian English expressions of apology. I use the natural semantic metalanguage proposed byWierzbicka (1987) to find out how the main South Korean apologetic speech act expression mianhada differs conceptually from Australian English sorry; in the process, I will illustrate some distinguishable features of South Korean culture. Next, I investigate South Korean apology speech act strategies in seven situations; this investigation is modeled on the work of Blum-Kulka and her collaborators (1989). The findings of my study are that the attitudinal meanings of mianhada and sorry, as well as the range of illocutionary acts associated with the two expressions are different. Decomposing mianhada and sorry into their illocutionary components provides a fine-grained description of what I assume to be the attitudes and states of mind of South Koreans and Australians, respectively, when performing the apologetic speech act. My study further suggests that conceptualizing speech act expressions, using semantically simple words, may help second language learners acquire the proper ways of carrying out speech acts (including non-verbal expressions) in the target language and culture.

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