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A Pragmatic Study of Agentive and Time Expressions in Korean

Jeong Khn Ahn

Pages : 143-161

DOI :

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Abstract

Ahn, Jeong Khn. (2021). A pragmatic study of agentive and time expressions in Korean. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 29(2), 143-161. The present study undertook four surveys to examine 1) how Koreans describe incidents using agentive or non-agentive expressions, 2) how they are affected by agentive or non-agentive expressions when they blame someone for an incident, and 3) how they express time and interpret it in certain contexts. The surveys were given to two online undergraduate classes at a Korean university in 2020. Based on the responses, the study found that 1) Koreans used agentive expressions more often than non-agentive ones when they described incidents which occurred intentionally, 2) they generally used passives rather than agentive or non-agentive expressions when they described incidents which occurred unintentionally, and 3) they were more affected by agentive expressions than non-agentive ones when they called someone to recount an incident. The study also found that Koreans generally saw time proceed from the past to the future uni-directionally and horizontally on a time-line, and they expressed time in spatial terms rather than in temporal terms on the one hand and in time-moving metaphors rather than ego-moving metaphors on the other.

Keywords

# ergative # agentive and non-agentive expressions in Korean # time in spatio-temporal terms for Koreans # time in metaphors for Koreans

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