Park, Yong-han. 2016. “A Study on the Institutional Characteristics of Military Language”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 24(3). 125~155. The military is a societal device established to systematically address the citizens' needs for assured national security. Thus, the military language used internally shares three common characteristics with institutional languages. The aim of this paper is to examine the institutionality of the military language by marginally introducing the concept of military as an institution, and military language as an institutional language. The military conducts various training to maximize the combat capability of its service members, and such training aims to raise combat abilities as well as to foster steadfast militaristic spirits. As a result, the instructors and their assistants appear to be task-oriented during training. And along with the trainees or recruits, they bear the certain communicational restrictions in accordance with their institutional positions. There are different frames of inference suitable to particular circumstances. The breadth of military rhetoric in such institutional interactions - such as lexical choice, turn design, sequence organization, overall structural organization, and social epistemology and social relations well convey the definitive institutional characteristics well. As an institutional device with the significant societal portion of weight, the military can have considerable effects on the society as a whole. However, a systematic and comprehensive study regarding the military society and its language has yet to be conducted. In recent times, the closed-nature of the military appears to be gradually weakening; more active research regarding the military language correlated to such contemporary trend can be expected in the near future.

• 박용한(해군사관학교) | Park, Yong-han