Chinese-Korean Translation of the Discourse Marker ‘是(/si/)’ in Buddhist Scriptures

This paper focuses on how the discourse marker ‘是(/si/) of Chinese language is translated into the Korean language in 『般若心經(Prajñā-Paramitā Sutra)』 and 『千手經(Sahastra-Bhuja Sutra)』. The analysis of the discourse marker ‘是(/si/) in the two Buddhist scriptures reveals it is usually translated as a connective such as ‘therefore or ‘hereupon and as a demonstrative like ‘this day or ‘this month. Thus, it kept cohesion and coherence from previous utterances. This shows that it has a prototype meaning like ‘therefore, this, and as such and also displays the pursuit of a faithful meaning-based translation. However, the pragmatic approach on Buddhist scriptures through the research of this paper requires further systematic analysis because it suffers a lack of research materials and its evidences, which should be enhanced in the future research.