Strategically Acknowledging Roughness: The Tale of the Two Preemptive Discourse Markers in Korean
Issued Date
2025-09-01
Resource Type
ISSN
17984769
eISSN
20530684
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-105015487313
Journal Title
Journal of Language Teaching and Research
Volume
16
Issue
5
Start Page
1464
End Page
1474
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Journal of Language Teaching and Research Vol.16 No.5 (2025) , 1464-1474
Suggested Citation
Rhee S. Strategically Acknowledging Roughness: The Tale of the Two Preemptive Discourse Markers in Korean. Journal of Language Teaching and Research Vol.16 No.5 (2025) , 1464-1474. 1474. doi:10.17507/jltr.1605.03 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/112092
Title
Strategically Acknowledging Roughness: The Tale of the Two Preemptive Discourse Markers in Korean
Author(s)
Author's Affiliation
Corresponding Author(s)
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Abstract
Korean has two mitigating discourse markers sharing the source lexeme mak ‘coarse(ly)’, i.e., makilay and makmallo. The DM makilay, literally meaning ‘X rashly says like this’, presents a negative comment on the speaker’s own statement, thus signaling that they are aware of the inappropriateness of their own utterance (Rhee, 2013). Similarly, the DM makmallo, literally ‘with crude words’, prefaces an unrefined expression, conveying the message: ‘I already know my word choice in the following statement is crude, so don’t criticize me’, the strategy being to preempt criticism from the addressee who would likely find the question or statement too extreme and inordinate (Rhee, 2019). The development of these DMs reveals intriguing cognitive and discursive strategies: (i) meta-discursive strategies in which the speaker is monitoring their own utterances, (ii) shifted perspectivization wherein an imaginary third-party’s negative evaluative viewpoint is adopted, (iii) rhetorical strategies of presenting assertions or questions that are extreme to the point of inordinateness but thus more forceful and persuasive, and (iv) elaborate intersubjectification in that the speaker is attenuating their own talk in a face-threatening act via self-deprecation.