Lee, Hye-Kyung. (2023). “The Speech Act of Explanation in Closure Signs”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea, 31(4), 1-32. This study investigates the speech act of explanation within a corpus of approximately 243 closure signs posted during the Covid-19 pandemic in Korea. Using a classification system derived from Bella and Ogiermann (2022), the explanations are categorized into four distinct groups. Category 1 explanations are further divided into three subcategories: signs revealing the relationships between government decisions and closures, those with expressions of support for official mandates, and those presenting dissent with closure directives. A comparative analysis between the third sub-category and pandemic-related activities (i.e., My Body My Choice Activities) is also conducted, highlighting similarities and differences. Category 2 centers on safety concerns, emphasizing public health and safety as the primary justification for closures. Notably, this category showcases an elevated sense of agency among sign authors. Explanations in Category 3 combine Categories 1 and 2. Category 4 explanations, which attribute closure to Covid-19, necessitate an investigation of terms referring to Covid-19. It is observed that the naming closely adheres to normative and public guidelines, reflecting a collective awareness of the crisis and a commitment to cooperation. The findings contribute valuable insights into the linguistic and cultural characteristics of explanations within Korean business closure signs, indicating phenomena specific to Korean communities.

We examined how North Korean refugees (NKRs) residing in South Korea and South Korean natives (SKs) perceive expressive speech act with message-oriented utterances and relationship-oriented utterances. Unlike most previous literature, we focused on the pragmatic heterogeneity and illustrated possible pragmatic failures that NKRs may encounter in South Korea. The 47-SKs and 43-NKRs responded to the survey with videoclips that shows combinations of the speech acts (thanking, compliment/response, and apology) and the utterance type (message-oriented and relationship-oriented). Each video entails three survey questions asking for participant's perception of conversations and their evaluation on the speaker's personality. The analysis revealed that SKs' perception of relationship-oriented utterances is more positive than NKRs. Also, NKRs' evaluations did not change significantly over time, showing that explicit instruction on the difference may be required. These findings suggest that for successful communication between two groups with different sociocultural backgrounds, instruction in language use can be helpful.

본 연구는 1920년대 중국어 교재인 『支那语集成』에서 나타나는 인물 간 권력의 차이를 화행분석을 통해 고찰하였다. 이를 위해 Searle의 화행 유형 중 단언형, 지시형, 언약형, 선언형 화행을 분석하고, 간접화행의 함축을 추론하였다. 권력의 차이를 살펴보기 위해 단언형은 진술형/주장형 단언, 지시형은 상향형/ 지시와 비상향형 지시, 언약형은 自愿형/他愿형 언약으로 분류하였다. 분석을 통해 대화 상황 내 상대적인 권력을 도출할 수 있었다. 권력이 직접 드러나는 지시화행과 선언화행 외에도 단언 화행이나, 언약화행의 인물의 권력에 따른 다른 특성을 고찰한 점이 본 연구의 의의라고 할 수 있다.

The main purpose of this paper is to determine refusal differences of people from different cultural backgrounds while using English. The data were collected from three groups of subjects - Americans, Koreans, and Japanese - to compare the ways they perform refusals in terms of three dimensional approaches in semantic formulas: order, semantic contents, and frequency. DCT (Discourse Completion Test) was given in conditions where the subjects had a different status such that the refuser is lower, equal, or higher to the refugee in social status. The research proved that differences in recognizing speech acts of refusals in different cultures could posit problems to L2 learners when producing speech acts in English. The result of the research shows that the refusals depending on the subjects from different cultures had a different order of semantic formula, semantic context, and frequency of apologies, excuses and thanks in refusal contexts. In conclusion, the research suggests that L2 teachers need to teach students to enhance their knowledge of the proper use of speech acts in English. Having enhanced speech acts in the target language in terms of sociolinguistic competence is necessary for avoiding communication errors as well as for establishing a productive ground for various interactions between native and non-native interlocutors of English.

본고에서는 한국어능력시험 듣기 텍스트에 나타난 비동 의 화행 전략의 출현 빈도 및 구체적 양상을 다각도로 분석하여 전략 사용의 효용성 및 교육적 함의를 고찰하였다. 비동의 화행 전략 실현 빈도는 ‘간접 비동의 전략’, ‘직접 비동의 전략’, ‘부가 전략’의 순으로 나타났으며, 세부 전략들은 다른 전략과의 결합을 통해 실현되는 경우가 많았다. 세부 전략 실현 빈도의 경우 ‘간접 비동의 전략’ 에서는 ‘설명’, ‘직접 비동의 전략’에서는 ‘완곡한 주 장’, ‘부가 전략’에서는 ‘부분 수용’이 가장 높게 나타났다. 비동의 화행의 전략적 사용은 한국어 학습자의 정교한 대화 협력을 위한 중요한 요소가 될 수 있다. 따라서 한국어능력시험에서도 실제성 이 반영된 비동의 화행을 제시할 필요가 있으며 교육 현장에서도 학습자들이 비동의 상황에서 성공적인 화행을 수행할 수 있도록 다양한 비동의 화용 전략을 교육할 필요가 있을 것이라 본다.