A high boundary tone as a resource for a social action: The Korean sentence-ender –ta

A high boundary tone as a resource for a social action:The Korean sentence-ender –ta§

Hye Ri Stephanie Kim *

Department of Applied Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, 3300 Rolfe Hall, P.O. Box 951531, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1531, USA

1. Introduction

This article uses the Korean sentence-ender –ta spoken with a high boundary tone (H%) as a case to explore the broaderissue of the Korean speakers’ use of prosody in achieving particular social actions in naturally occurring interaction.1 -TawithH% is chosen as a focus of analysis partly because it has not received the same attention in previous studies of Koreansentence-enders, and also because different boundary tones of –ta seem to be strongly associated with different pragmaticfunctions. Previous studies of –ta (Lee, 1991, 1993a; Choi, 1995; Kim, 2004) have noted its several different functions indiscourse, and some have even noted the potential relevance of prosody (Lee, 1991; Choi, 1995). However, none of theprevious studies have focused on the role of prosody as a primary topic of analysis. The present study complements andbuilds on the previous studies by (1) comparing –ta spoken in three different boundary tones (low boundary tone: L%, low-high-low boundary tone: LHL%, and high boundary tone: H%), and (2) examining, in particular, how –ta [H%] is used inconversational sequences that highlight its use. That –ta [H%] utterances frequently occur as news announcements in pre-telling sequences and as story enhancers in telling sequences provide strong evidence that H% mapped onto –ta callsattention to the conveyed information as ‘announceable’ and ‘newsworthy.’

Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 3055–3077

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history:

Received 22 December 2006

Received in revised form 13 April 2010

Accepted 16 April 2010

Keywords:

Korean sentence-ender

Korean sentence-ending suffix

Conversation analysis

Interactional linguistics

Prosody

Boundary tone

A B S T R A C T

The Korean sentence-ender –ta has been studied in linguistics as a grammatical element

marking declarative sentences. Contributing to recent studies that have proposed –ta’s

functions in discourse, this study examines –ta’s different boundary tones and argues that

they allow speakers to perform different social actions in naturally occurring conversation.

Based upon conversation analysis of video- and audio-recorded conversations, this article

demonstrates that speakers, by using –ta in a high boundary tone, display the conveyed

information as announceable and newsworthy, thereby highlighting newness of the

information. Due to these characteristics, -ta utterances are overwhelmingly found in pre-

telling sequences in which speakers announce news andwithin telling sequences in which

speakers provide information that they believe is tellable for the development of a telling.

By taking into account a boundary tone mapped onto a specific sentence-ender and

analyzing in detail naturally occurring interaction with access to non-verbal interaction,

the study contributes to amore comprehensive understanding of prosody and interaction.

� 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

§ The present study is developed from the author’s unpublished thesis (Kim, 2005) and was presented at the Joint Conference of the American and

Canadian Association for Applied Linguistics in Montreal, Canada, in June 2006.

* Tel.: +1 310 228 7786.

E-mail address: [email protected] Descriptions of the boundary tones used in my analysis can be found in section 2.2.

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doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.04.022

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Two previous studies have mentioned different pitch tones used for –ta. Lee (1991) observes in two segments that –ta isspoken with a rising pitch, used to ‘‘supplement the noteworthiness of the scene. (p. 423)’’ In addition, part of Choi’s (1995)developmental study separates –ta into two different types according to the speaker’s perception of information and desireofwhat to convey to the recipient.What she refes to as ‘the second type (Type 2) –ta’ (which, in this paper, is referred to as –ta[H%]) ‘‘expresses something that the child experienced directly and which the listener might not know’’ (p. 197). However,although Choi makes this distinction part of her framework, whether the distinction is systematically associated withdifferent uses remains unknown. In addition, Choi’s participants are children who are still developing grammar. Thus, theobservations by Lee and Choi, taken as a point of departure, are complemented by the present study. The primary focus ofmyanalysis is various boundary tones mapped onto the sentence-ender –ta, and particularly on the use of H%. With theconversation-analytic approach, I will be able to document the systematic deployment of the different boundary tones indifferent sequential environments and explicate for which social actions speakers use –ta and what roles boundary tonesplay in accomplishing such social actions. -Ta [H%] and –ta [L% or LHL%] seem to be in complementary distribution; that is,–ta [H%] does not occur in a sequential context in which –ta [L% or LHL%] occurs, and vice versa.2 Then what actions arespeakers performingwith –ta [H%] utterances?What are speakersmarkingwith H%, andwhat does it allow speakers to do ininteraction? The primary aim of this paper is to develop a solution to this problem.

The Korean sentence-ender –ta had been studied by formal linguists as a grammatical element marking declarativesentences. Only recently have Korean sentence-enders drawn scholarly attention from Korean sociolinguists and discourseanalysts. One of the first attempts to analyze the basic pragmatic meanings of sentence-enders was done by Lee (1993b).According to him, the pragmatic function of -ta is ‘‘to impart something new to the listener and [the speaker assumes] thatthe listener is not biased in any way’’ (p. 10). Although his data only include constructed examples, his definition of -ta,‘‘impart(ing) something new to the listener,’’ presents an important function of –ta,which holds regardless of its prosody. Inan attempt to offer a more functional analysis of sentence-terminal suffixes, Lee (1991, 1993a), using letters as well astelephone and face-to-face conversations as data, describes –ta as being used in four different contexts: (1) expressing newlyperceived information which has just been acknowledged by the speaker, (2) informing the hearer of having fulfilled anexpected and a long-waited task, (3) notifying the hearer some warning or caution that needs the hearer’s attention, and (4)reporting an intriguing experience of the speaker. Regardless of context, Lee (1991) characterizes -ta as ‘‘ha[ving] aspecialized function in informal discourse of informing the addressee of noteworthy information that has provoked thespeaker’s cognitive attention’’ (emphasis added, p. 423).

The distribution of L% and LHL% in this study roughly corresponds with the first three contexts described in Lee (1991,1993a), whereas that of H% corresponds particularly with the last context, ‘‘reporting an intriguing experience of thespeaker.’’ However, there is not a clear-cut correlation between the choice of boundary tone and Lee’s contexts. For example,swukcey ta hay-ss-ta [H%] ‘(I)’m all done with the homework-ta [H%]’ may be produced to ‘‘inform the hearer of havingfulfilled an expected and a long-waited task’’ (i.e., the second context) as well as ‘‘to inform an intriguing experience of thespeaker’’ (i.e., the fourth context). The latter context is specifically owing to H%, which implies that the conveyed informationis perceived by the speaker quite some time ago. On the contrary, when the same utterance is produced with L%, only thesecond context applies because L% indicates that the task has ‘just’ been achieved and perceived by the speaker.3 This topic of‘‘immediacy’’ will be discussed in section 4. As the goal of this article is to describe how different boundary tones contributeto the ways in which –ta is used in interaction, more attention will be placed on the sequential context in which–tautterances are used and actions that these utterances constitute. The article will first compare –ta [L% or LHL%] and –ta [H%],and then expand on the use of –ta [H%] with detailed analyses of conversational extracts.

The article is organized as follows: In Section 2, the Korean sentence-ender and intonation model are explained to helpthe reader understand Korean data. section 3 describes the data and methodology used for the study. Comparison of -ta [L%or LHL%] and –ta [H%] and analyses of –ta [H%] in naturally occurring data will be offered in section 4, taking into accountboth its sequential placements and their associated actions. Finally, a conclusion follows in section 5.

2. Background

2.1. Korean sentence-ender

Prior to investigating the Korean sentence-ender -ta, a brief examination of the grammatical structure of Korean in whichsentence-enders occur is in order. The following explanations of Korean syntactic structure are from Sohn (1994, 1999),unless otherwise stated.

Korean is a predicate-final language in which the predicate (verb or adjective) is placed at the end of a clause or asentence; therefore, the basic Korean sentence structure observes subject–object–verb (SOV). The stem of a verb or adjectiveat the end of a clause or sentence is inflected by various suffixes. Because these suffixes occur at the end of a sentence, theyare called ‘‘sentence-enders.’’ This term is interchangeably used in the literature with other terms, such as ‘‘sentence-endingmodal suffixes’’ and ‘‘sentence-terminal suffixes.’’

2 Park (2003b) also mentions that H% and L% are in complementary distribution.3 Such aminimal pair, differing only in prosody, can provide strong evidence for the differences of –ta [L%] and –ta [H%], but is hard to find from a limited

amount of data. In my data, I found one pair that is close to a minimal pair, which is presented as Segments (8) and (9).

H.R.S. Kim / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 3055–30773056

Although there are other approaches of describing Korean sentence-enders (see Hwang, 1975; Cho, 1982; Lee, 1991,among others), simply speaking, Korean sentence-enders are known to denote sentence types (such as declarative,interrogative, imperative, and propositive), speech styles/levels (plain, intimate, familiar, blunt, polite, and deferential), aswell as a number ofmoods (such as indicative, requestive, or retrospective). Table 1 shows how the verb stem –po (‘to see’) isinflected according to sentence-types and speech levels.

As shown above, –ta in the top left corner of the chart is declarative in terms of sentence type, and plain in terms of speechlevel, which denotes a speaker’s relationship to the addressee. This speech level is used among intimate friends and from anolder person to a younger person. Thus, all -ta utterances found in the data are between close friends who are comfortableenough with each other to use plain speech level.

2.2. Korean intonation (Jun’s model)

According to Park (2003b), two representative intonation models are currently available to describe Korean intonation:(1) Jun’smodel (1993, 1998) based on the intonational phonology (Pierrehumbert, 1980; Beckman and Pierrehumbert, 1986;Pierrehumbert and Beckman, 1988), and (2) Lee’s model (1990) based on the British tradition of intonational analysis (e.g.,O’Connor and Arnold, 1973; Cruttenden, 1997). In this paper, I follow Jun’s model because of the reliable model it providesbased on instrumental data using pitch tracks rather than auditory impressions.

Central to Jun’s model (1993, 1998, 2000) are two intonationally defined prosodic units in the standard dialect ofKorean: Intonation Phrase (IP) and Accentual Phrase (AP). As shown in Fig. 1, which schematically represents theintonational structure of Korean, an IP can have one or more APs and is marked by a boundary tone (%) and finallengthening. In an AP, one ormore Phonological words (W), defined as ‘‘a lexical item plus a casemarker or postpositions,’’can be included.

The boundary tone (%) is realized on the final syllable of the IP and conveys pragmatic meaning as well asinformation about the sentence type. At least nine boundary tones have so far been identified in Korean by Jun (2000),depending on the shape of the tonal contour. Fig. 2 shows eight different boundary tones (LHLHL% is not shown)marked on the last syllable of an IP. The vertical line in each boundary tone represents the beginning of the IP finalsyllable.

The -ta utterances found in my data exhibited either L% or LHL% or H%, except one instance in which the speaker wasasking a question with LH%. It should be noted that this article’s aim is not at analyzing the difference between L% and LHL%.In fact, I consider them to be in the same meaning category based on Park’s (2003b) description of boundary toneclassification. Park states that multitonals (i.e., having more than two tone units in one boundary tone), such as LHL%, are‘‘mostly used to convey affect only’’ (p. 38), and ‘‘the basic meaning of each boundary tone is conveyed within the finaltone element’’ (p. 39). As the analysis will show, this is found to be also true for the sentence-ender –ta; -ta [LHL%] and–ta [L%] essentially deliver the samemeaning, yet speakers use LHL%when conveying affect with the utterance. For example,

Table 1Verb inflections of Korean sentence endings (Sohn, 1994:8).

Declarative Interrogative Imperative Propositive

Plain po-n-ta Po-ni po-a-la Po-ca

Intimate po-a Po-a po-a Po-a

Familiar po-ney Po-na po-key Po-sey

Blunt po-o Po-o po-o –

Polite po-a-yo Po-a-yo po-a-yo Po-a-yo

Deferential po-p-ni-ta Po-p-ni-kka Po-si-p-si-o Po-p-si-ta

Fig. 1. Intonational structure of Seoul Korean (Reprinted from Jun, 2000).

H.R.S. Kim / Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 3055–3077 3057

-ta [LHL%] is often used when speakers assess, rather than plainly noticing, a local resource observed at the moment of talk.Examples of –ta [LHL%] are shown in Segments (2), (6), and (8).

Figs. 3–5 are examples of the three boundary tones used with -ta in the collected data.4 Fig. 3 demonstrates –ta spokenwith a low boundary tone (the pitch changes from 490 Hz to 230 Hz), Fig. 4 with a low-high-low boundary tone (the pitchbegins at 200 Hz, and changes to 240 Hz and then down to 190 Hz), and Fig. 5 with a high boundary tone (the pitch changes

Fig. 4. Pitch Track illustrating –ta [LHL%] from [Jen_Hee_060907].

Fig. 3. Pitch Track illustrating –ta [L%] from Segment (2).

Fig. 2. Korean intonation phrase boundary tones (Reprinted from Jun, 2000).

4 The pitch analyses were done using a speech analysis program called Praat. See www.praat.org for more information. The target phenomenon in the

figure is indicated by a circle.


http://www.praat.org

from 140 Hz to 250 Hz, continually rising to 270 Hz). What is apparent from these pitch analyses is that speakers varyboundary tones for –ta. The analyses in section 4 will illustrate that speakers perform different social actions with eachboundary tone, which leads each type to occur in distinct sequential positions.

3. Data and methodology

I used approximately nine hours of video data involving four different groups of participants, and two hours of telephoneconversations involving three groups of participants. [Sleepover 1 & 2] was videotaped in Korea with five female speakers intheir mid 20s. [Housewarming 1–4] and [Wedding night 1] were also videotaped in Korea with one male and four femalespeakers, and twomale and four female speakers in theirmid 20s, respectively. [Thai_dinner 1 & 2]was videotaped in the U.Swith Korean native graduate students: two male and three female speakers in their late 20s. Two telephone conversations[Jen_Hee_060907] and [Hee_Ara_060107] are between two female speakers in their late 20s. Lastly, [Yoo_Joo_031608] is afive-minute telephone conversation between twomale speakers in their late 20s. All conversationswere among close friendswho had knowneach other for at least ten years, or friendswhowere close enough to use plain/intimate speech levels to eachother. Table 2 shows the number of tokens of –ta [L% or LHL%] and –ta [H%] found in the data.

All data are transcribed using three-line transcription; the first line contains original Korean words rendered in YaleRomanization; the second line is morpheme-by-morpheme translation (see Appendix A); and the third is an idiomaticrendering of Korean in English. Because there are unnecessary words in Korean (e.g., a subject of a sentence), which areessential in English for smooth translation, such unspoken words are inserted in parentheses in English translation. Inaddition, as the focus of study is a boundary tonemapped onto the sentence-ender –ta, a boundary tone ismarked in brackets([H%], [LHL%], and [L%]) in the target turns.

As mentioned earlier, the analysis I present in this paper takes a different approach from the previous studies of –ta(except Kim, 2004). The method I use is Conversation Analysis (CA), which from its inception has focused on sequentiallyorganized activities in which actors are engaged in naturally occurring interaction. The focus on the ways in which actorsaccomplish particular social activities, specifically on participants’ understanding of one another’s conduct, is the primarycharacteristic that distinguishes CA from other approaches to language or discourse (Drew and Heritage, 1992:17). Schegloff(2007:1–3) highlights the importance of looking at talk-in-interaction in terms of action, if analysts want to understand howparticipants themselves understand each other:

. . .it is important to register that a great deal of talk-in-interaction – perhaps most of it – is better examined withrespect to action than with respect to topicality, more for what it is doing than for what it is about. . . Just as parties to

Table 2Number of tokens of –ta [L% or LHL%] and –ta [H%] for each data set.

Data Tokens

–ta (L% or LHL%) –ta (H%)

Housewarming 1–4 (4 h) 73 78

Sleepover 1 and 2 (2 h) 55 23

Thai dinner 1 and 2 (2 h) 49 14

Wedding night 1 (1 h) 16 45

Jen_Hee_060907 (35 min) 17 6

Hee_Ara_060107 (20 min) 12 13

Yoo_Joo_031608 (5 min) 1 2

Total 223 181

Fig. 5. Pitch Track illustrating -ta [H%] in Segment (9).


talk-in-interaction monitor the talk-in-a-turn in the course of its production for such key features as where it might bepossibly complete andwhether someone is being selected as next speaker (and, if so, who), so theymonitor and analyze itfor what action or actions its speaker might be doing with it. . .the parties monitor for action for the same reason theymonitor for the other features we investigate; namely, because the action that a speaker might be doing in or with anutterance may have implications for what action should or might be done in the next turn as a response to it.

These activities in interaction are organized sequentially in a turn-by-turnmanner (Schegloff, 2007). That participants orientto sequences is clearly shown by adjacency pairs, themost basic type of sequence organization. As participants are attendingto sequence and actions as such, analysts undertaking to unpack what goes on in interaction also need to understand‘sequence’ as a unit of analysis and attend to what the utterance is doing in interaction (Schegloff, 1984, 1996, 1997).

CA research, interaction and grammar research in particular (Schegloff, 1989b, 1996; Ford and Mori, 1994; Clancy et al.,1996; Ford and Fox, 1996; Ochs et al., 1996;Mori, 1999, among others) has confirmed that it is crucial that analysts attend tothe social actions accomplished through talk rather than focusing only on its propositional content. This shift of focus hasbeen fruitful; the studies have demonstrated that language, as well as grammar, is organizedwithin social action (Ochs et al.,1996) and the grammatical features of natural language are shaped by the interactional demands of conversation (Schegloff,1989b). In other words, like many other natural phenomena, language is a primordial tool of the human species, one that isconditioned by the social environment in which it emerges and is used. The present study is an attempt to further explicatethe way in which language is conditioned by its deployment in interaction.

Drawing upon studies fromCA (Sacks et al., 1974; Heritage, 1984), I focus on the question ofwhat kind of actions speakersundertake in which environment by using a -ta utterance with H%, rather than defining -ta as a grammatical element whichfunctions to impart newly perceived information. Moreover, I suggest that the use of H% (as well as L% and LHL%, althoughthis is another project that needs to be further investigated in its own, and thus will only be described for the purpose ofcomparison) is due to strategic interactionalmotivation of the speakers and their orientation to actions in situated activities.This study complements previous studies of Korean sentence-enders by considering boundary tones as key to understandingKorean sentence-enders in action (as has been demonstrated in Park and Sohn, 2002; Park, 2003a,b).

4. Analysis

As mentioned earlier, Lee (1991, 1993a) describes that speakers use the sentence-ender -ta to convey newly perceived,noteworthy information that requires the addressee’s immediate attention. The sentence-ender –e, the most frequentlyoccurring ender in informal discourse according to Lee’s data, is also used to convey new information assumed to be new tothe addressee; however, what distinguishes –e from –ta is that –e conveys factual information that is already part of thespeakers’ existing knowledge (Lee, 1993a). He thus concludes that the information conveyed with –ta is not assimilated inthe speakers’ existing cognitive network to the same extent as that with –e. Along with –ta, H. Lee describes two othersentence-enders that express newly perceived information: –kwuna and –ney. They differ in the degree to which theconveyed information is newly perceived; –kwuna is used to convey unassimilated information and –ney factual informationrealized at the time of speaking. However, unlike –ta, neither are not intended to be informative and noteworthy for theaddressee (Lee, 1993a). In short, -ta is found to have specialized functions that are not shared by either –e, or –kwuna, or –ney.This is also confirmed in my data. What becomes particularly noticeable in my data, however, are those –ta utterancesproducedwith H%. Although prosody is notmentioned in Lee since his example is from a letter,5 Example (43) in his study, inwhich Leah writes about a new person she met, is particularly relevant for the present study, and is reproduced below asSegment (1).

Segment (1) [Reproduced from Lee (1993a:160)]

a. iss-ci-ahn-a?

exist-NOML NEG:do-IE

‘You know what?’

b. oppa chinku-la-nun salam iss-ci-ahn-a?

big:brother friend-INTROS-ATTR person exist-NOML NEG:do-IE

‘You know your friend you mentioned?’

! c. na manna-ss-oss-ta

I:SG meet-ANT-ANT-DECL

‘[To my surprise and to yours as well] I met him.’ (Leah 8)

5 –Ta’s rising pitch is mentioned in Lee (1991:423), his dissertation from which his 1993 study is developed. In the dissertation, Lee analyzes a –ta [H%]

utterance’s occurrence in storytelling and concludes that this utterance highlights an important scene of the story.


According to Lee, Leah uses -ta in this letter ‘‘to report a past event that the speaker found intriguing’’ (p. 160). In myconversational data, such -ta utterances are consistently produced with H%. Thus, I argue that, by the use of H%, speakerspresent the information as ‘announceable,’ such that the newness of the information is made more prominent.6 As aconsequence, -ta [H%] is used overwhelmingly when speakers announce news. On the other hand, -ta [L%] or –ta [LHL%] isfrequently used when speakers convey new information that is occasioned in the immediate environment (cf. Lee,1991:423). In this context, speakers convey new, noteworthy information, but do so without highlighting itsannounceability. This difference is clearly demonstrated in the kind of actions or type of sequences in which theutterances are found. In the following I will first present representative cases that show the differences between -ta [L% orLHL%] and -ta [H%]. Then, two sequential environments in which -ta [H%] frequently occurs, as a result of its characteristics,will further be investigated in section 4.2.

4.1. Boundary tone selection for –ta: orientation to the immediacy of the reported event and its consequentiality

Howmuchsomeknowledge is integrated inone’s cognitivenetwork is sensitivelyattended toanddifferently realizedacrosslanguages. According toLee’s (1993a) explanationof recent studies onevidentiality, Asian languages, inparticular, havediverseways of linguistically coding the speaker’s knowledge status of whether the information is newly perceived or has alreadybecomepart ofhis knowledge. InKorean, the category ‘‘immediate’’ is realizedwith three sentence-enders, -kwun, -ney, and–tawith differing levels of factuality, informativeness, and immediacy of the conveyed information (Lee, 1993a).

My analysis suggests that speakers, when choosing a boundary tone for their –ta utterance, orient to whether theconveyed information has been perceived immediately. Including non-verbal interaction as part of the analysis, I provide aninteractional account of whether speakers themselves treat the information as newly perceived when using –ta [L% or LHL%]and –ta [H%]. Segment (2) first shows how a –ta [L%] utterance is used in reporting something in the immediate environmentto which the recipient can orient (or, is offered to orient, as Kim (2004) demonstrates) as soon as the utterance is produced.Three participants, Sun, Hee and Ara are present in the scene. Hee has given gifts to Sun and Ara, and Sun is opening a gift infront of Ara, who already opened her gift prior to this segment. The segment begins as Sun unwraps the gift.

Segment (2)

[butterfly:housewarming1:04:25]

01 Sun:–> "wa napi-ta [L%]

wow butterfly-ta [L%]

"Wow (it)’s butterfly-TA[L%]

02 (0.3)

03 Hee: [napi-ya?]

butterfly-INTERR

Is (it) butterfly?

04 Ara: [.hhhh ] cincca?

really

.hhhh Really?

05 Hee: hh co(h)h-aha(h)ko [i(h)ss-e. hh hhh hhh hhh]((pointing to Ara))

like-do-PROG exist-IE

hh (She)’s liking (it). hh hhh hhh hhh

06 Ara: [e:: >pw-a-pw-a pw-a-pw-a pw-a-pw-a<]

yes see-IMPER-see-IMPER see-IMPER-see-IMPER see-

IMPER-see-IMPER

Yeah::>let (me) see Let (me) see Let (me) see<

07 Sun:–> e: toy:key ippu-ta::[LHL%]

oh very pretty-ta [LHL%]

O:h (it)’s ve:ry pretty-TA[LHL%]

6 A similar description is provided by Lee (1991:423) inwhich he uses a different term, ‘‘noteworthiness.’’ In this article, I instead use ‘‘announceable’’ and

‘‘newsworthy’’ to refer to a similar pragmatic function.


08 Ara: pw-a-pw-a.

see-IMPER-see-IMPER

Let (me) see.

09 Sun [>kwiyep-ci anh-nya?< ]

cute-COMM NEG-INTER

>Isn’t (this) cute?<

10 Ara:–> [.hhh cin:cca ] ippu-ta:[LHL%]=

really pretty-ta [LHL%]

.hhh (It)’s re:ally pretty-TA[LHL%]

As soon as Sun opens the gift and discovers that the gift is a butterfly-shaped pendant, she states, ‘Wow, (it)’s a butterfly-ta [L%]’ in line 1. This –ta [L%] utterance is referring to a local resource, the gift, and is an immediate noticing of that resource. Twomore –ta [LHL%] utterances occur in lines 7 and 10; first, when Sun assesses the gift’s appearance as ‘very pretty’, and thenwhen Ara, who has been very interested in seeing the gift, sees it and agrees with a stronger favorable assessment, ‘(it)’sreally pretty-ta [LHL%].’ Like the utterance in line 1, these assessments have a local referent in the immediate environment,and are done as a local, immediate noticing of the gift’s appearance. These noticings are presented by the speakers as ‘‘newlyperceived, noteworthy information’’ in Lee’s (1991, 1993a) terms.

A -ta-marked noticing interactionally positions the recipient to attend to newsworthiness of the speaker’s noticing and toparticipate in the next relevant action (Kim, 2004). This is clearly demonstrated in Segment (2), in which Sunmakes public anoticing of the gift, thereby soliciting the recipients’ participation to orient to it and comment on it. In fact, this invitation istaken up by both recipients, as they actively react to the noticing in the subsequent lines by asking to see it and assessing it.When a –ta utterance is deployed to make such a noticing, the boundary tone chosen is always L%.

As illustrated above, noticing means that there is a referent present (whether tangible or abstract) in the participants’currently on-going environment. In other words, in order for it to be a noticing, the referent must be newly observed in themoment of interaction. This local resource that becomes an object of noticing may be a physical object as was the case inSegment (2), or prior talk, as Segment (3) will show. Hee, in talking about her ownwedding, has been telling Ria that becausemore people than expected came to the wedding, about a hundred people had to eat upstairs where they could not see theceremony.

Segment (3)

[buffet:sleepover3:07:35]

01 Hee: kulayse wi-ey pwuphey-eyse mek-ess-napwa.

so up-LOC buffet-LOC eat-PFCT-guess

So (they) had lunch upstairs at a buffet.

02 Ria: e.

yes

Yeah.

03 Hee: kulayse payk myeng cengto-ka pwuphey-eyse mek-ess-ci.

so hundred CL about-NOM buffet-LOC eat-PFCT-COMM

So about a hundred people (ended up) having buffet there.

04 Ria:! a, kulay-ss-kwuna. pwuphey-to kwaynchanh-ass-keyss-ta [L%].

oh like-PST-UNASSIM buffet-ADD okay-PFCT-DCT:RE-ta [L%]

Oh, that’s what happened. Buffet must’ve been okay, too-TA[L%].

05 Hee: e, pwuphey mas-iss-ess-ta kule-tela.

yes buffet tasty-exist-PFCT-DECL like-HEARSAY

Yeah, (people) said that the buffet was tasty.

06 Ria: e.

yes

Yeah.


After hearingHee’s explanation, Ria provides her own opinion of the event using a –ta [L%] utterance in line 4.7 This utteranceis not an assessment of a physical object in the environment, but that of the event talked about in the previous talk. It is alsoan assessment of the event that has just become known to the speaker in the moment of talk.

The use of -ta [H%] utterances, although also conveying new, noteworthy information, is quite different: the speakerneither publicly notices something immediately observed in the local environment, nor presents the conveyed informationas newly perceived. Instead, the information is what the speaker experienced in the past (and is thus believed to be factual).Moreover, the speaker presumes it to be a surprising fact for the recipient and thus expects recipient reaction to the news.The information’s announceability or newsworthiness is foregrounded and highlighted with H%. Segment (4), in which C isannouncing surprising news, is a case in point.

Segment (4)

[smoking:housewarming2:02:15]

01 C: tampay kkunh-ki (.) CENG"mal e"lye-we. cinCCA:::,

cigarette quit-thing very difficult-IE really

(It)’s very difficult to quit smoking. REAlly:::,

02 ! >.hh ya! nay namca-chinkwu-nun na tampay phi-nun ke molun-TA[H%]<

VOC my boy-friend-TOP I cigarette smoke-ATTR thing do:not:know-ta [H%]

>.hh Hey! My boyfriend doesn’t know that I’m smoking-TA[H%]<

((D looks up to C as soon as the utterance ends.))

03 B: .hhh[hhhhh ]=

.hhhhhhhhh

04 C: [>KKUNH-un cwul] al-e.<

quit-ATTR as:if know-IE

>(He) thinks that (I) quit.<

05 B: =.hh˚cin:[cca. ]

really

=.hh˚ really.

06 D: [kyay(.)] an kke- kyay an phye?

he NEG kke- he NEG smoke:INTERR

He doesn’t- he doesn’t smoke?

07 C: kyay PHYe. toy:key manhi phye.

he smoke:IE very much smoke:IE

He smokes. Smokes a lot.

08 D: kuntey (0.2) ne kkunh-un cwul al-e?

but you quit-ATTR as:if know-IE

But (0.2) (he) knows that you’ve quit?

09 C: e. >nay-ka< (0.3) KKUNH-ula kulay-ss-e.

yes I-NOM quit-QUOT say-PFCT-IE

Yes. >I-< (0.3) (He) told me to quit.

In line 2, C, suddenly shifting from a previous topic, declares an announcement using –ta [H%]. This shift is signaled in theturn-beginning: the sudden in-breath and the disjunct marker, ya (‘hey’). The announcement initiates a new topic that thespeaker believes is announceable to the recipients. And, this announceability of the news is manifested, I suggest, by the use

7 Also noticeable in the example is Ria’s use of –kwuna and –ta in line 4 in reaction to the prior talk. While both utterances indicate that the speaker has

just acknowledged the information, ‘Oh, that’s what happened-kwuna’ plainly acknowledges the prior event (cf. Kim, 2004), whereas ‘Buffet must’ve been

okay, too-ta’ assesses the prior event, which informs the recipient of her opinion, thereby new to the recipient. This difference between –kwuna and –ta is

illustrated in Lee (1991, 1993a).


of H%. In fact, one of the recipients B signals that the announcement is very surprising for her by inhaling a deep in-breath (.hhhhhhhh in line 3) and asking, ‘really?’ at the completion of this announcement (line 5), and another recipient D responds bylooking up at C (line 2). As soon as B’s in-breath is heard, the teller explicates the announcementmore accurately; that is, herboyfriend did know the fact she is a smoker but he now trusts that she quit (i.e., this explanation reduces her burden of beinga liar). In lines 3–8, there are expressions of surprise aswell as questions regarding the announcement from the recipients, allof which show their interest in the topic initiated by the speaker. This allows the speaker to extend her talk to go on with herstory in detail from lines 9 and on, not included in the article.

As clearly demonstrated in Segment (4), the information conveyed by -ta [H%] is not presented as newly perceived bythe speaker, but is notable information that invites immediate attention from the addressee. This is very similar toSegment (1) (i.e., Example (43) in Lee, 1993a) in that the conveyed information is the speaker’s experience that thespeaker believes will be surprising to his recipients. Such announcing is the most recurrent action of –ta [H%] utterancesin the data.

The difference discussed above is consequential for the kind of actions –ta utterances with different boundary tonesperform. As –ta [H%] utterances will be analyzed in detail in section 4.2, here I mainly focus on describing different socialactions performed with –ta [H%] and –ta [L% or LHL%]. First, -ta [L% or LHL%] utterances are recurrently found inreporting what the speaker just observed, or in assessing what the speaker just saw or heard. For example, ‘Wow (it)’sbutterfly’ in Segment (2) is a public reporting of what the speaker just saw (cf. Kim, 2004). For an example of the latter,in Segment (5), one female speaker is assessing the recipient’s hairdo, and in Segment (6), the recipient’s just presentedsituation.

Segment (5)

[hairdo:SO1:36:11]

01 Ria: Yun-i meli hay-ss-ney?

NAME-NOM hair do-PST-INTERR

Yun (I see that) you got (your) hair done?

02 Yun: ung na tto Seri-eyse hay-ss-e.

yes I again NAME-LOC do-PST-IE

Yeah I had (it) done at Seri again.

03 Ria:! kuntey kwaynchanh-ta [L%]

but okay-TA[L%]

But (it)’s okay-TA[L%]

04 ! kkalkkum-hakey hay-ss-ta [L%]

neat-RESULT do-PST-TA[L%]

(She)’s done (your hair) neatly-TA[L%]

05 Yun: twi-lo mal-a cwe-ss-e.

back-to roll-CONN give-PST-IE

(She) curled (it) backwards.

Segment (6)

[Jen_Hee:00:23:20]

01 Hee: cha-nun ettekhay? samchon-ney nwatwu-ko?

car-NOM how:do:INTERR uncle-at leave-and

How about (your) car? (Are you) leaving (it) at (your) uncle’s?

02 Jen: e, oy-samchon-ney cip-ey nwatwu-ko.

yes mother’s:side-uncle-at house-LOC leave-and

Yeah, (I)’m leaving (it) at (my) uncle’s house.

03 Hee:! coh-ta [LHL%]

good-ta [LHL%]

(That)’s good-TA[LHL%]


04 chinchek issu-nikkan, kulen ke twul tey-to iss-ko.

relative exist-so like:that thing leave place-also exist-and

Since (you) have a relative (in LA), (you) have a place to leave

things like that.

All three -ta [L%] utterances are speakers’ assessments of local resources in the environment (i.e., ‘hairdo’ in Segment (5), and‘having an uncle (in LA)’ in Segment (6)). In other words, the utterances assess an object or prior talk that has beenimmediately observed in the scene or in the preceding conversation. They, thus, are responses to the immediate scene. Onthe other hand, the -ta [H%] utterances, as was seen Segment (4) andwill be shown in Segments (9)–(14), are not in responseto a current observation in the moment of talk. This becomes consequential for the sequential positions in which theseutterances occur and for the actions they perform in these places. The most frequent action that a -ta [H%] utteranceperforms found inmy data is announcing news to launch a new sequence, which could potentially become a pre- to a longertelling sequence. Segment (4) is a clear example of this, and more instances will be shown in section 4.2.

In the remainder of this section, I present two segments in which a lexically similar assessment is spoken with twodifferent boundary tones, H% and LHL%, in order to demonstrate distinct actions each utterance performs, and summarizetheir central differences discussed so far. Both come from [Housewarming 1], Segment (7) occurring approximately 1 minand 30 s earlier than (8). Segment (7) demonstrates an example of a -ta [H%] utterance, and Segment (8) a -ta [LHL%]utterance.

Segment (7)

[tasty_high:hw1:10:04]

01 Ara: ((getting up from a couch to get beer in the fridge))

˚na-twu maykcwu.

I-ADD beer

I (want) beer, too.

((one side sequence by another speaker cut out))

02 Sun:! mas-iss-ta [H%] ((directed to Ara))

taste-exist-TA[H%]

(It)’s tasty-TA [H%]

Segment (8)

[tasty_low:hw1:11:38]

((Ara has finished drinking a beer a moment ago and now is looking at the beer whileproducing line 1))

01 Ara: -> e ike toykey mas-iss-ta [LHL%]::::::

oh this very taste-exist-TA[LHL%]

Oh this is very tasty-TA[LHL%]::::::

02 Sun: mas-iss-ci?

taste-exist-COMM:INTERR

Isn’t (it) tasty?

03 kamca- kwaca-lang mek-umyen te mas-iss-ta [H%]

potato- snack-together eat-if more tasty-exist-TA[H%]

If (you) eat (it) with potato-, snack, (it’s) tastier-TA[H%]

The similar ‘‘tasty’’ assessment utterance is produced with different boundary tones, H% and LHL% respectively. In Segment(7), Sun uses a -ta [H%] utterance to inform Ara (who is about to get the same beer as Sun, as shown in line 1) that the beer istasty. Sun’s experience comes fromhaving drunk the beer earlier. Thus, Sun is imparting her knowledge to Ara, which she hasrecalled fromher past experience (i.e., the fourth contextmentioned by Lee, 1993a).8 A completely different picture is shown

8 Also note, in Segment (8), Sun uses a -ta [H%] utterance at line 3 to inform Ara that it is tastier with a snack. This utterance is similar to the -ta [H%]

utterance in Segment (7) since Sun highlights that this must be new to the recipient.


with–ta [LHL%] in Segment (8). Ara uses the–ta [LHL%] utterance (line1) just after having tasted thebeer toassess its taste. Thisassessment occurs after immediately noticing the beer’s tastiness. By elongating the sentence-ender producedwith LHL%, shealso delivers her affect with the assessment. The addressee, Sun receipts the assessment by agreeingwith a rhetorical questionin line 2, ‘isn’t it tasty?’, which confirms that an immediate reaction is solicited by a –ta utterance (Lee, 1993a:159; Kim, 2004).

This pair of lexically similar assessments distinguished by boundary tones shows the following. First, the actionperformed by the -ta [H%] utterance is clearly different from that of the -ta [LHL%] utterance: the -ta [H%] informs of the pastexperience and highlights its being news to recipients, whereas the -ta [LHL%] notices and assesses a local resource that isimmediately observed. Second, by using the –ta [H%] utterance, the speaker highlights that her recipient does not haveequivalent access to the knowledge, whereas the speaker using the -ta [LHL%] utterance does not necessarily focus ondisplaying her assumption about the recipient’s knowledge. In sum, this pair provides evidence that a boundary tone alonecan be a contributing factor for the sentence-ender -ta to accomplish different social actions in interaction. With differentboundary tones, speakers (1) intricately manage to display their understanding of recipient’s knowledge statuses, and (2)manipulate the level of newness they want to highlight for the information. L% or LHL% are interactional resources whichspeakers deploy to present themselves to have ‘just’ noticed some event or object in the environment in which they aresituated. On the contrary, H% does not demonstrate such immediacy; rather, it draws attention to the news’ announceability.The presented informationwith H% is the speakers’ past experience that occurred to them quite some time ago (it is indexedas such regardless of whether it is so), and thus is not a noticing of a resource currently present in and around theirinteraction. The social actions –ta [H%] utterances perform reflect these characteristics, as will be illustrated in section 4.2.

4.2. A –ta [H%] utterance as a news announcement

In the present and following sections, -ta [H%] utterances’ sequential positions and actions in interaction are furtherdiscussed in detail. First, the data demonstrate that Korean speakers regularly employ a -ta [H%] utterance to make a newsannouncement (cf. Button and Casey, 1985), in which they highlight the newness of the information for the recipient,thereby contributing to ‘‘the makings of a conversation’’ (Sacks, 1992b:88). A news announcement is designed to grabrecipients’ attention. It highlights the headline for the information, and carries the initial characterization of the tellingwhich will follow (Sacks, 1974:340),9 leaving out its details. Thus, a news announcement, by definition, must be new andshould not already be accessible to the recipient. By announcing news, the speaker is showing his/her treatment of it asannounceable, thus claiming that the recipient does not share the knowledge. Thus, these features make a newsannouncement ‘a natural home’ for a -ta [H%] utterance in Korean conversation.

Two segments below illustrate how a –ta [H%] utterance serves as a news announcement. Prior to this sequence, the topicof conversationwas about amutual friendwho suddenly gotmarried to amanwhom she had been on a blind date with for ashort period of time. Then, Yun announces news in line 1, after a lapse, during which each participant was engaged in otheractivities, such as eating cake or sending text messages.

Segment (9)

[pregnant:so2:08:05]

01 Yun:! <ya, na ku hakwen chinkwu-nun imsinhay-ss-ta [H%]

hey I that academy friend-TOP be:pregnant-PFCT-TA[H%]

<Hey, my friend from the academy is pregnant-TA[H%]

02 Ria: .hhhhh c [incca?

really

.hhhhh Really?

03 Yun: [ya, ku-kes-to cincca wuski-n key::

hey that-thing-ADD very funny-ATTR thing

Hey, that’s also very funny beca::use

04 na-lang manna-ss-ul ttay mak:

I-with meet-PST-ATTR then DM

when (she) met with me (the other day)

05 caki imsinha-ko siph-tako

self be:pregnant-CONN want-QUOT

9 The features of a first turn in the minimal two turns in a preface sequence include ‘‘an offer to tell or a request for a chance to tell the joke or story, an

initial characterization of it, some reference to the time of the story events’ occurrences or of the joke’s reception’’ (Sacks, 1974:340).


06 kule-n yayki-lul hay-ss-e::.

like:that-ATTR story-ACC do-PST-IE

(she) talked about how she wanted to get pregnant::.

07 kuntey: ku tangsi-ey imsinha-ko iss-ess-te-n ke-ya.

but that that:time-TEMP be:pregnant-CONN exist-PST-RETRO-ATTR

thing-IE

bu:t at that time (she) was (actually/already) pregnant.

08 Bin: [eme, ememe::: kuntey ku-ke-l ]=

wow wow but that-thing-ACC

Wow, wo:::w But that- =

09 Ria: [.hh kulem kkway tway-ss-keyss-ney?]

then pretty do-PST-DCT:RE-FR:INTERR

.hh Then (it) must have been pretty long?

10 Bin: =molla-ss-te-n ke-ya, ku-ke-lul?

don’t:know-PST-RETRO-ATTR thing-INTERR that-thing-ACC

=(she) didn’t know about that?

11 Yun: ((to Bin)) um. ((to Ria)) han twu-tal.

yes about two-month

((to Bin)) Um. ((to Ria)) About two months.

12 Ria: twu-tal? [a:::::. ]

two-month oh

Two months?oh::::.

13 Yun: [ung ung ]

yes yes

Yeah yeah

In line 1, Yun’s –ta [H%] utterance nominates a topic by announcing news about her friend’s pregnancy to the recipients.We can make two observations based on previous findings of CA research. First, by constructing the utterance as anannouncement, Yun displays her stance that the recipients are not aware of the news (cf. Maynard, 1980:283; Schegloff,1989a:156; Terasaki, 2004:174) as well as her presumption that the recipients were not involved in the news that is tobe reported (cf. Button and Casey, 1985:20). The second observation is that Yun’s announcement opens up a newsequence, although the topic may have been triggered by the prior talk about marriage. A news announcement is oneof the apparatuses in nominating a topic that is disjunctive from the prior one, thus occurring in sequentialenvironments such as openings or following topical boundaries (Button and Casey, 1985). This is also noted by Sacks(1992b:88); one of the places that an announcement frequently appears is at the beginning of conversation. Yun’s -ta [H%] utterance functions as a news announcement in this sequential environment, nominating a new topic in the sequenceopening.

When the nominated topic is pursued, it is followed by itemized news inquiries from the recipients (Button and Casey,1985:37) or proceeds in the form of a story (i.e., a –ta [H%] utterance serves as a story preface; see Sacks, 1974, 1992b:3,222), thereby expanding into a larger sequence (see Terasaki, 2004:176–177). In other words, an announcement could bethe first turn inwhat Sacks (1974:340) calls ‘‘a preface sequence’’.10 This turn is takenby the intended storyteller to proposefurther telling, towhich the recipient can give a go-ahead response11 to permit telling of the story. One of the recipients, Riaresponds with an in-breath (transcribed as .hhhhh), which expresses surprise, followed by ‘really?’. This recipient action

10 Sacks (1974:337) describes a telling of a story as having three possible components, the preface, the telling, and the response sequence, the sequence of

which is ‘‘serially ordered and adjacently placed.’’11 Schegloff (2007:37–41) notes that go-ahead responses to news announcements include responses that encourage the teller to continue telling the

news, such as ‘really?’. On the other hand, ‘‘blocking’’ responses include ones that preempt the teller to continue telling of the news because the news is

already available to the recipients, and thus not ‘‘newsworthy’’. An example of such a response is ‘(I) know’, as will be seen in Segment (12).


demonstrates her receipt of the information as news, shows interest in the just-initiated topic, and asks the speaker tocontinuewith the subsequent background anddetails of this announcement (see ‘‘a newsmarker’’ in Terasaki, 2004; ‘‘newsreceipts’’ or ‘‘uptakes to news announcements’’ in Schegloff, 1992:203). Thus, in lines 3–7, Yun continues with a short storyabout the pregnant friend. This is again followed by Ria and Bin’s itemized news inquiries, which request to tell more details ofthe story.

The –ta [H%] utterance serving as a news announcement in Segment (9) clearly demonstrates the news announcer’sassumption that the news being delivered is unknown and inaccessible to the recipient. Exhibiting newness andannounceability of the news is caused by H% mapped onto –ta. A similar case of a –ta [H%] utterance below shows apronounced case of highlighting announceability and tellability. The news announcement in Segment (10) launches ‘‘asecond story’’, a story that is triggered by the prior story (for second stories see Sacks, 1992a:764 and 1992b:3, 249; for localoccasioning of stories, see Jefferson, 1978). Whether a news announcement that launches a second story is tellable or notinteractionally impacts the tellermore; that is, the newsworthiness of the second storymust essentially be upgraded relativeto the first story (Sacks, 1992b), and thus the second story teller would not, in principle, begin with the news that he believesis already known by his recipients. Prior to the segment below, Sung has just finished telling a story about how until recentlyshe thought her blood type was O, but it actually turned out to be B. In response, Woo begins a story about a friend’s bloodtype change. This second story is placed adjacently after Sung’s story and is topically coherent with Sung’s story; that is, thesecond story also involves blood type change and provides a rather dramatic case of blood type change, which is an upgradedversion of Sung’s story.

Segment (10)

[bloodtype_change:td2:07:57]

01 Woo:-> a, nay chinkwu:: A-hyeng-i-ess-taka:

oh my friend A-blood:type-be-PST-TRANS

02 –> hyelaykhyeng pakkwi-n ay iss-ta [H%]

blood:type change-ATTR person exist-TA[H%]

Ah, my frie::nd’s blood type was A bu:t (his) blood type

changed-TA [H%]

03 AB-hyeng-u"lo =

AB-blood:type-to

To AB blood type=

04 Ji: = [way?]

why

=Why?

05 Sue: = [eme]

wow

=Wow

06 Sung: ettehkey [pakkwi-e?]

how change-INTERR

How does (it) change?

07 Woo: [swuswul]-hay kaciko=

surgery-do because

Because (he) went through surgery=

08 Sue: =.hhhhhh

09 Ji: eme

wow

Wow


10 Sung: a:: swuhyel pat-ase?=

oh blood:tranfusion receive-because

Oh:: because (he) received a blood transfusion?=

11 Woo: =e, swuswul-ul hay-ss-nuntey,

yes surgery-ACC do-PST-but

=Yeah, (he) went through surgery, but

12 kyay::: <kath-un kyengwu-eynun

he like-ATTR case-TOP

13 swuswul-ul khukey pat-a kaciko::

surgery-ATTR big receive-CONN because

in a case like him::: because (he) had major surgery::

14 mak an-ey iss-nun ku-, (.)

DM inside-LOC exist-ATTR that

15 kolswu isik-ul hay-ss-ketun-yo?

bone:marrow transplant-ACC do-PST-CORREL-POL

the thing inside (him)-, (.) (he) had a bone-marrow transplant.

In announcing this surprising information to the recipients in lines 3 and 4, Woo uses a –ta [H%] utterance. By doing so, Woodisplays his presumption that this information is as yet unknown to the recipients. Receipting Woo’s announcement asannounceable news, the recipients, at the completion of the announcement, express their interest and surprise (lines 4–10);these reactions invite Woo to go on with the story. In particular, Ji and Sung provide itemized news inquiries for Woo toexplicitly elaborate on the news (lines 4, 6, and 10). Thus,Woo continues his story, taking extended turns from line 11 and onbeyond the transcript shown.

As shown in the two segments above, a news announcement is essentially designed to draw recipients’ attention because itshouldindexinformationthatisnewaswellasannounceable. Infeaturingthesecharacteristicsofanewsannouncement,Koreanspeakersuse-ta[H%],a linguisticresourceavailable inthelanguage.Thespeaker’suseofthispracticewhenquotingacharacterinstorytelling alsoprovidesuswith evidence that usingH%with–ta is a stabilizedpractice inKorean conversation (JohnHeritage,personal communication). Belowextract is fromaKorean TV showcalledHappyTogether. KimMinsun, oneof the guests in theshow, is aKoreanactresswhostarredasa leadingactress in themovie,Mi-in-to ‘Portrait of aBeauty’. Prior to the segment, oneoftheshowhosts askedherwhat themostdifficultpartofbeingonthemoviewas, andspecifically refers toher family’s reaction tothemovie. Another host commented that themoviewas a subject of conversationwhen it first screened because of the level ofexposure of her body in the movie. The following segment begins with Kim Minsun’s response to the question.

Segment (11)

[Happy together_090702_25:00]

01 Minsun: >kuntey< apeci-hanthey malssum-tuli-ki-ka

DM father-to word-give:SH-NOML-NOM

02 ceyil himtul-[ess-cyo:::

most difficult-PST-COMM:POL

>Well< (it) was most difficult to tell (my) father.

03 All: [o:::

oh

Oh:::

04 Minsun: keui:: (.) ccik-ki han il-cwuil cen-ey::,(0.1)

almost shoot-NOML about one-week before-TEMP

05 kacok-tul-ilang ilehkey pap-ul mek-u-myense

family-PL-with like:this meal-ACC eat-CONN-during


06 onul-un kkok yayki-lul "hay-ya[toy-keyss-ta:today-NOM definitely story-ACC do-CONN should-DCT:RE-DECL

Almost:: (.) one week before the shooting (0.1), while

eating with family, (I thought to myself) (I) should really

tell (him) about (it) today.

07 All: [a:

oh

Oh:

08 Minsun:– > ‘‘apeci,(0.7) na i-pen-ey bedusin iss-ta [H%]’’ (.)

father I this-time-TEMP bed:scene exist-ta [H%]

‘‘Father, (0.7) I have a bed scene this time-TA[H%]’’ (.)

09 ilay-ss-e-[yo:, ((smiling))

say-PST-IE-POL

(I) said (to him):, ((smiling))

10 MC1: [um

um

11 Minsun: apeci-ka siksa-l ha-si-taka (0.2) wumccilha-si-te [lakwu-yo,

father-NOM meal-ACC do-SH-while startled-SH-HEARSAY-POL

My father, while eating (0.2) startled

12 All: [o::

oh

[Oh::

13 Minsun: kuletaka tasi siksa-lul ha-si-taka? su-ce-lul ttak noh-ko?

Then again meal-ACC do-SH-while spoon-chopsticks-ACC DM

lay:down-and

Then again while eating? (he) laid down (his) spoon and

chopsticks?

14 (1.2)((during the pause, Minsun enacts her father slowly raising

his head from eating))

15 elmankhum pes-nuntey? ile-si-[telakwu-yo,

how:much take:off-but like:this-SH-HEARSAY—POL

‘‘How much do (you) take off?’’ said (the father),

16 MC3: [a:: elmankhum.

oh how:much

Oh:: How much.

17 MC4: [8kulehci, apeci ipcang-eyse-nun

right father position-from-TOP

[8Right, to a father

AfterKimMinsuncomments that itwasmost difficult to tellher father that shewill benude in themovie, shechooses to report itby telling a story about how she revealed the truth to her father beginning at line 4. Having provided backgroundof the scene inthe story (lines4–6), shedirectly quotes herself in line 8, thequotedutteranceproducedwith–ta [H%]. The conveyedmessage inthe quote is presented to be surprising news for her father, as Kim Minsun has been commenting prior to the quote. In this


example, –taproducedwithH% conjures up the effect of the information tobehighlighted as news. It indexes the informationasnew, announceable, and surprising, thereforemaking it an event that would stir up a reaction from the recipient, her father. Indoing so, Kim is automatically treating the father as a recipient who has no prior knowledge of the announcement to bemade.

It bears emphasis that -ta [H%] utterances reveal only the speaker’s presumption of the recipient’s knowledge status.Whether the conveyed information is indeed new to recipients may be negotiated in the subsequent interaction. In theoverheard conversation below in which newsworthiness is contested by recipients, it is shown that newness is achieved ininteraction not by the speaker alone, but by both parties.Minhee announces to the recipient that Kyungil, theirmutual friendand a semi-professional photographer, took pictures of her yesterday.

Segment (12)

[overheard conversation]

01 Minhee:–> ecey Kyungil-ika sacin ccik-e cwe-ss-ta [H%]

yesterday NAME-NOM picture take-CONN give-PST-ta [H%]

Yesterday Kyungil took pictures (of me)-TA[H%]

02 Suhwoo: al-a. Kyungil-i-hanthey tul-ess-e.

know-IE NAME-from hear-PST-IE

(I) know. (I)’ve heard from Kyungil.

03 Minhee: a, al-e?

oh know-INTERR

Oh, (you) know?

By using -ta [H%], the speaker presents the news as announceable and highlights its newsworthiness; however, herassumption is contested by Suhwoo in line 2. The news fails to receive a ratified response from the recipient because it isalready known to him and therefore is not news to him. Furthermore, the third turn by Minhee demonstrates that she hadnot previously known this not to be news to Suhwoo. In short, a -ta [H%] announcement, because of its proposal of theinformation as newsworthy and announceable is subject to ratification by the recipients in the response turn.

In the next section, I present an additional sequential environment in which -ta [H%] utterances frequently occur: insideand ongoing telling sequence.12 I will describe how speakers utilize -ta [H%] utterances in the course of a telling to mold thestory to be more effective and interesting.

4.3. Enhancing tellability: a –ta [H%] utterance inside a telling sequence

The two extracts examined in this section show instances of a -ta [H%] utterance occurring within a telling sequence.Segment (13), more specifically, exemplifies a -ta [H%] utterance occurring as a parenthetical insert. Speakers sometimesmomentarily shift out of main line of a story and insert a –ta [H%] utterance which provides a crucial piece of informationfor the ongoing story (cf. Goodwin, 1984:226), the knowledge which is necessary for recipients to understand the storyand/or which enhances tellability13 (or storyability) of the story (for tellability, see Sacks, 1992b:12–13, 233–234).During the shift, the on-going story is temporarily put on hold, and sometimes the turn constructional unit (TCU) ishalted before completion of the turn (Schegloff, 2007: 421–422; Mazeland, 2007). After the parenthetical insert iscompleted, speakers return to the story. –Ta [H%] utterances sometimes occur as such parenthetical comments, insertedin the midst of an on-going story for the provision of information that pre-empts recipients’ possible failure ofunderstanding of the story.14

As has been argued in previous sections, -ta [H%] mainly differs from -ta [L% or LHL%] in that it highlights the conveyedinformation as announceable to the recipients. This argument is supported more strongly when examining -ta [H%]utteranceswhich serve as parenthetical comments. This is so because speakers decide to include the information,which theybelieve their recipients do not yet have, even if it means halting the progressivity of the sequence (i.e., moving forward) (for

12 Refer to footnote 11 for a summary of the organization of storytelling.13 Storytellers usually ‘work’ to find components of ‘storyables’ from the events that have actually happened. Sacks (1992b: 233–234) notes that ‘‘. . . if

what happened was that from the things she [the storyteller] could have made a story of, she found what she should have made a story out of, then we can

see that of the possible events there are specific ‘storyables’ which turn out tomatter for, e.g. how the story events are then characterized. ... [W]e can start...

to see that tellability is restricted such that there are tellable parts of events. And we can begin to get an idea, then, about how it is that not anything is a

story, and that people don’t figure anything is a story, and see that even in a scenewhere there is a story, it’s not just any story that could bemade out of it...’’14 A similar analysis appears in Lee (1991:423) for one of his examples. He showed that the –ta utterance is used to highlight the described scene in story,

functioning to provide important information for the development of a telling. While in Lee’s analysis the rising pitch is not attributed as the contributing

factor to such pragmatic function, I argue that it is precisely the H% mapped onto–ta that highlights the announceability (and the importance) of the

conveyed information crucial for understanding the telling. Moreover, it is not possible to substitute the utterance’s boundary tone (H%) with L% or LLH%

when it functions in this way.


progressivity, see Schegloff, 2007:14–16). In other words, the inserted information is ‘that crucial’, yet believed to be not yetavailable to recipients. It is delivery of this knowledge for which a -ta [H%] is a tool.

The following example is an instance in which -ta [H%] is used to fill in the presumed missing information of the story.Earlier in the segment, Sue has offered advice to Yun that it is better not to have manymale consultants for her love life. As away of agreeing with Sue’s advice, Yun starts to tell a story about the last night’s meeting with one of her male consultants(line 6). For this story, Hee is a knowing recipient, whereas Sue is not.

Segment (13)

[counselor:so2:0:47:29]

01 Sue: ne- ne, ku namca counselor-lul manhi twuci-ma:.

you you DM male counselor-ACC many have-NEG:IMPER

02 (.)

03 Yuni-ya.

Yun-VOC

You- you shouldn’t have many male counselors:. (.) Yun.

04 <ku-ke pyello an coh-un ke kath-ay.

that-thing not:very NEG like-ATTR thing seem-IE

<That doesn’t seem like such a good idea.

05 (0.2)

06 Yun: .h kulay, ecey Bumseok-itwu:,

right yesterday NAME-ADD

.h Right, yesterday Bumseok also:,

07 ((to Hee))<nay-ka- >a,[ku yayki,> <nay-ka ne-hanthey]=

I-NOM oh that story I-NOM you-to

((to Hee)) <I- > oh, that story,> <I (told) you]=

08 Sue: [8nemwu heyskal-lye:. ]

very confusion-IE

(It makes you) very confused:.

09 Yun: =>yel nay-myense< yayki-hay-ss-cahna::? ((to Hee))

heat expose-while story-do-PST-COMM

=(You know) (I) told you the story >in a fury::?< ((to Hee))

10 ecey yel nay-myense-,

yesterday heat expose-while

yesterday, in a fury-,

11 pam- sa[ybyek-] saybyek-ey:::

night- midnight midnight-TEMP

(At) night- midnight- at midnight:::

12 Hee: [um::::]

13 (0.3)

14 Yun:–> Bumseok-ilako yocum tto com

NAME-called recently also little


15 –> chinhakey cinay-nun ay-ka iss-ta [H%]

chum:around get:along-ATTR person-NOM exist-TA[H%]

There is a guy called Bumseok, whom I’ve recently been

hanging out with-TA [H%]

16 Bumseok-i cip aph-ey wa-ss-ta kulay-[kaciko:,]

NAME-NOM house front-LOC come-PST-QT say-so

Bumseok (said) that (he)’s in front of (my) house, so:,

17 Hee: [um:::: ]

In lines 1–4, Sue has advised Yun that it is not such a good idea to have many male counselors for her love relationship. Yunagreeswith Sueby saying, kulay ‘right’, and explicates her account for agreementby telling about an incident thathappened thedaybefore betweenher andhermale counselor (line6). However, realizing that oneof the recipients,Heehas alreadyheard thestory, Yun directs her talk toHee andmakes several attempts to refreshHee’smemory in lines 7, 9, and 10. However, Yun is notsuccessful indoing so, as shownbyminimaluptake fromHee in line12, and thus re-beginsher story fromtheverybeginning (inline 11) initiating it with a time reference, pam-, saybyek-, saybyek-ey::: ‘(At) night-, midnight-, at midnight:::’.

Yun, however, appears to realize that the character in her story is unknown to both recipients. The problem which thisposes for the teller to continue her story is displayed in her talk with the last syllable stretched (marked in the transcript by:::) and then a (0.3) pause (line 13), both showing her hesitation to continue the telling. Temporarily abandoning the priorelement, saybyek-ey:::, Yun inserts a parenthetical comment, ‘There is a guy called Bumseok, whom I’ve recently beenhanging out with-ta [H%]’ (lines 14–15). In other words, she shifts out of her story to provide crucial information about theprincipal character of the story for the recipients. After the completion of the parenthetical insert, Yun returns to her story(line 16) by continuing the halted TCU (‘at midnight::: [insert] Bumseok (said) that (he)’s in front of (my) house. . .’). And,Yun’s story continues beyond the transcript shown.

In addition, the H% in -ta actively solicits participation from the recipients, whichwas also shown in Segments (9)–(10) inwhich the -ta [H%] utterances are used as news announcements. In the video, Sue and Hee are observed to respond to Yun’s–ta [H%] utterance by nodding, confirming Yun’s assumption of the information to be news and aligning themselves to beactive participants of the story.

A –ta [H%] utterance can also heighten tellability of a story by highlighting a crucial piece of the story. This occurs inSegment (14) towards the end of the story when the speaker introduces the time the event took place. Prior to the segment,the main teller, Joo, has been telling a story about her friend who got compensation for purchasing a bad product (i.e., an icecream stick that smelled), and the story has now reached a climax in lines 1–3.

Segment (14)

[icecream:wn1:37:40]

01 Joo: kulayse kuttay tangsi ton-ulo:::

so then at:the:time money-for

02 han i-payk-osip-man wen i-nka:

about two-hundred-fifty-ten:thousand won be:maybe

03 pwuchye cwe-ss-tay.

send give-PST-QUOT

So (she) said (they) sent (her) about 2,500,000 won: which is

money from that time:::.

04 Hee: e:::

oh

oh:::

05 Joo:–> ku-key han sip-myech nyen cen-i-ta [H%]

that-thing approx. ten-what year before-be-TA[H%]

That’s about ten something years ago-TA [H%]

06 Hee: e

yes


Yeah

07 Ara: .hhhhh 8ton [toykey manhi pat-ass-ta [LHL%]

money very a:lot receive-PST-ta [LHL%]

.hhhhh (she) received a lot of money-TA[LHL%]

08 Joo: [kunikkan cikum mak opaykman wen

so now DM five:hundred:ten:thousand won

09 mak kulen ton-i-ya::.

DM like:that money-be-IE

So the money is about 50,000,000 won worth now::.

10 kuntey ku-key kopal-i toy-myen

but that-thing sue-NOM become-COND

11 incey ku salam-tul maycang-tangha-nun ke-cahna::.

now that person-PL ostracism-receive-ATTR thing-COMM

But if (the ice cream company) was sued, they would have been

ostracized (from the society)::.

12 ku- ku:: ice cream-un kkuthna-nun ke-cahna:.

that that ice cream-TOP end-ATTR thing-COMM

(That) would have been the end of that- that:: kind of ice cream:.

By the –ta [H%] utterance, ‘That’s about ten or something years ago-ta [H%]’, Joo provides information which makes theoutcome of the story more successful and compelling (since the compensation’s worth is equivalent to doubled the actualamount received), that is, making the story more tellable. As the previous example has also shown, the –ta [H%] utterance inSegment (14) conveys her assumption that this piece of information is new to the recipients, and is also necessary in order tofully appreciate the outcome of the story. Indeed, one of the recipients, Ara explicitly indicates her recognition of thecompensation’s worth with a surprise token (.hhhhh) and assesses it ‘a lot of money’ (line 7). The teller also explicates herstory’s storyability by directly stating that the value of the money received from the companymust be twice as much, giventhat this occurred more than ten years ago, and thus the friend received big compensation for a smelly ice cream stick.

In sum, when used in a telling sequence, –ta [H%] serves as a linguistic resource in providing a crucial piece of a story thatcontributes to the story’s tellability and interest. Sometimes even the progressivity of the sequence is compromised for theprovision of such information (e.g., Segment (13)). This demonstrates speakers’ determination to convey the information,and their assumption that this information must be available to the recipients for successful delivery of the story. Inimparting this kind of information, H% in –ta is a crucial linguistic resource.

5. Conclusion

This article has examined the Korean sentence-ender –ta spoken with different boundary tones in naturally occurringconversation. The primary difference between the use of L% (or LHL%) and H% is immediacy in which the reported event isobserved by the speaker. –Ta [L% or LHL%] utterances are deployed to notice or assess newly perceived information in theimmediate environment, whereas –ta [H%] utterances to highlight newness and announceability for the recipient of thealready perceived information. In doing so, speakers’ presumption of their recipient’s access to the conveyed knowledge canbe exhibited and be subject to negotiation in the subsequent turns of talk.

The outcome of the difference between H% and L% is reflected in their distinct social actions and sequential positioning ininteraction. Taking into account sequential placements in analysis, this article has described the actions Korean speakersaccomplish with -ta [H%] utterances in talk-in-interaction. They are recurrently found in announcing news and providing acrucial piece of information of a story, to which the speakers believe that the recipient does not have access (even when itmeans halting the progression of their story). Therefore, it is clear that –ta [H%], the sentence-ender and the high boundarytone in combination, is a linguistic device that speakers utilize to present their news as announceable and their telling morestoryable.

The high boundary tone in -tamay appear similar to the phrasal-final high pitch among the sorority girls that McLemore(1991) studied. Although –ta [H%] is sometimes observed to have shared functions with the phrase-final high pitch inEnglish, which include eliciting participation, connecting the speaker to the recipients and showing their involvement in thegroup, -ta [H%] has more distinct usages as illustrated in this article because H% is mapped onto a particular sentence-ender


that has its own specific functions (as briefly shown in section 2).When a -ta [H%] utterance does achieve functions similar toEnglish phrase-final high pitch, H% per semay be the sole factor for such functions regardless of the kind of sentence-ender orphrase ending it is mapped onto. Hence, the phrase or sentence-final high pitch in Korean is a topic that should be pursued inits own right.

The implications of this study are two fold. First, it contributes to an understanding of the deployment and use of agrammatical form in Korean. Asmentioned earlier in the article, the Korean sentence-ender –ta had simply been described asmarking declarative sentences, a description that presumably stems from the studies of written discourse or constructedexamples. However, as an interest in the study of spoken discourse emerged, different pragmatic functions of –ta have beennoted and suggested in recent studies of spoken discourse (Lee, 1991, 1993a,b; Choi, 1995; Kim, 2004). Lee (1993a:157)specifically notes that –ta’s functions in ‘‘informal communication situations’’ are special. What these studies alldemonstrate is that –ta’s uses in spoken discourse differ vastly from those in written discourse. In other words, –ta’s usesfound in the studies seem to be exclusive to conversational situations inwhich participants are interactingwith each other toperform social actions (letters seem to be a hybrid form of spoken discourse since they are written for specific audience andpartly emulate conversational features). The present study advances and builds on the previous findings of –ta in explicatingthat the sentence-ender is a strategically deployed grammatical form which participants use in specific conversationalenvironments to achieve particular social actions. In other words, it has viewed the Korean sentence-ender –ta as agrammatical form that developed its pragmatic uses in interaction along with recent interactional linguistics studies, whichillustrate that grammar structures are greatly affected by interaction (e.g., Ford, 1993; Ochs et al., 1996; Couper-Kuhlen andSelting, 1996b, 2001). The features of interaction that become relevant when speakers construct an utterance to perform anaction are found to be consequential for which sentence-ender speakers choose. By exploring the case of the sentence-ender–ta, this article suggests that Korean grammar is affected and shaped by interaction.

More importantly, along with the earlier studies of intonation and interaction (Couper-Kuhlen, 1993, Couper-Kuhlen andSelting, 1996a; Selting, 1996; Park, 2003b)which illustrate that prosody is a resource deployed to achieve pragmatic actions,this article contributes a further understanding of the role that prosody playswithin interaction. The actions a boundary toneallows a particular grammatical form to achieve in a specific sequential environment are central to the analysis in this study.The case of the Korean sentence-ender –ta has clearly demonstrated that prosody mapped onto a particular grammaticalform can be an interactional resource that speakers deploy to signal dynamic relationships between conveyed information,speaker, and recipient.

As many conversation analysts and interactional linguists have shown, there is not always a direct form-meaningrelationship across contexts. In other words, the same grammatical form can be used in different sequential positions toachieve different social actions (Schegloff, 1984, 1996, 1997). The present study takes this argument one step further bydemonstrating that prosody can also play a role in it. It thus strongly suggests that, if one were to study language use ininteraction, it is necessary to attend to how a grammatical form in interaction is used in accomplishing social actions, takingsequential positions into account. In sum, the article suggests a new direction for studying interaction and grammar bybringing prosody in as an important feature for organizing social interactions as well as contributing new data from a non-Indo-European language to the area of prosody, grammar and interaction.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Chuck Goodwin and Hongyin Tao for valuable comments on earlier drafts, and Sun-Ah Jun forsharing her expertise on Korean intonationwithme. I am also indebted to the journal’s referees for their detailed, thoughtfulfeedback that have greatly informed the argument developed here, and Steven Clayman and Kyu-Hyun Kim for their kindhelp and valuable comments. However, any remaining errors, of course, are mine.

Appendix A

Abbreviations of grammatical morphemes

ACC Accusative NOM Nominative

ADD Additive NOML Nominalizer

ANT Anterior suffix PFCT Perfective

ATTR Attributive PL Plural suffix

CL Classifier POL Polite Speech level

COMM Committal PROG Progressive

CONN Connective PST Past suffix

CORREL Correlative QUOT Quotative particle

DECL Declarative RESULT Resultative


DCT:RE Deductive Reasoning RETRO Retrospective

DM Discourse Marker SG Singular

FR Factual Realization SH Subject Honorific

HEARSAY Hearsay evidential TEMP Temporal location

IE Informal Ending TOP Topic Marker

IMPER Imperative TRANS Transferentive

INTERR Interrogative UNASSIM Unassimilated

INTROS Introspective VOC Vocative particle

LOC Locative

NEG Negative

Appendix B

Transcription conventions (adapted from Ochs et al., 1996:461–465)

[or [] overlapping or simultaneous talk

= a ‘‘latch’’ sign, that is, the second speaker follows the first with no discernible silence between them.When the latch sign is between utterances by the same speaker, it indicates that the speaker’s talk iscontinuous even though there is another speaker in between.

(0.5) length of silence between utterances in tenths of seconds

(.) micropause

? rising intonation, not necessarily a question

, continuing intonation

?

the inverted question indicates a rise stronger than a comma but weaker than a question mark

- a cut-off or self-interruption

< the less than symbol indicates that the immediately following talk is ‘‘jump-started,’’ i.e., sounds asif it starts with a rush

> < the combination of ‘‘more than’’ and ‘‘less than’’ symbols indicates that the talk between them iscompressed or rushed.

˚ following talk is markedly quiet or soft

" # mark sharper rises or falls in pitch

::: indicates prolongation or stretching of the preceding sound (the more colons the longer the stretching)

hhh laughter

(hhh) laughter inside the boundaries of a word

.hhh inhalation

word some form of stress and emphasis, either by increased loudness or higher pitch

() uncertainty on the transcriber’s part

(()) transcriber’s description of event

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Hye Ri Stephanie Kim is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Applied Linguistics at UCLA. Her research interests include conversation analysis of ordinaryconversation and institutional talk, prosody, interaction and grammar, and second/foreign language learning and teaching. She is currently working on theconstruction of institution in student group meetings and the design of turn-beginnings in English and Korean.


A high boundary tone as a resource for a social action: The Korean sentence-ender –ta

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