An Analysis of Korean and American Presidential Addresses

The object of this study is to show some features of English, focused on such mechanics as punctuation and transition, in Korean presidential addresses transcribed in English which are different from those of the United States. Towards that end, the presidential addresses of the United States and Korea from January, 2010 to June, 2010 are collected, made into corpora, and analyzed. Through analyzing the corpora, this paper is to address the following research questions: (1) What features can be regarded as different in terms of punctuation and transition? (2) If there are any differences between the corpora, are they significant enough to pose any problems for Korean and American English users to communicate with each other? (3) If so, what can be done to solve the problems in regard to pedagogical implications? Overall, as for punctuation, both Presidents’ addresses share a lot in common, even with some idiosyncratic variations though. However, there are some noticeable differences in transitional devices. It is not clear whether those should be taken as a sign of personal preference, though. Transitional markers are meant to be part of wording in writing.