The Leave-Taking View of Kkunhe(yo) ‘Hang Up’ in Korean Telephone Call Conversations

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Clark and French (1981) proposed viewing the goodbye exchange in English telephone conversation closings as a leave-taking rather than as a termination. Under their framework, the current study as a sequel to Kim (2014b), which explored the kkunhe(yo) exchange in Korean telephone call closings under the termination view, illustrates that kkunhe(yo) also functions as a leave-taking between the telephone conversationalists who need to reaffirm their ongoing relationships despite a temporary break in their contact. To do so, the study explores its distribution and functions in both interpersonal and transactional corpora of Korean telephone call conversations. The two types of corpora demonstrate a sharp distributional contrast. The kkunhe(yo) exchange emerges only in the interpersonal calls between telephone conversationalists, whose contact stays ongoing. In contrast, never once does it appear in the transactional calls between those, whose contact lasts only through a few calls. The distributional contrast highlights that the exchange serves as a leave-taking between those whose relationship needs a reaffirmation despite a temporary break. Synthesizing the findings of the prequel, the study concludes that kkunhe(yo) operates at two different levels. Interactionally, it serves as a leave-taking, while sequentially functioning as a termination.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Theoretical Background
• 3. Data and Method
• 4. Distributions of the Kkunhe(yo) Exchange in the Data
• 5. Conclusion and Discussion
• References