The Sentence-Ending Suffix -Ketun in Spoken Korean Discourse: Sequential Organization of Informing as Account-Giving

Kim, Kyu-hyun. 2010. The Sentence-Ending Suffix - Ketun in Spoken Korean Discourse: Sequential Organization of Informing as Account-Giving. The Sociolinguistic journal of Korea 18(1). From a conversation-analytic perspective, this paper examines the ways in which the Korean sentence-ending suffix (SES) -ketun is used in naturally occurring spoken Korean discourse. Focusing on the question of how the practice of informing implemented by the ketun-utterance provides a basis for the sequentially implemented action of account-giving (Kim & Suh 2009), it analyzes (i) the nature of the information marked by -ketun in terms of how it is grounded, (ii) the sequential contexts where the informing sequence that -ketun generate i embedded, and (iii) features of the ketun-marked account with reference to the practices of formulating non-negotiable upshot, evoking positionaJly relevant identities, unpackaging information geared to enlightening the addressee. and stance-shifting. These practices are anaJyzed as being constitutive of the action-organizational features of the ketun-marked account, whose upshot is proposed to be that of evoking and managing the information gap or disparity in knowledge asserted by the speaker to exist between the participants.