English Hedge Expressions and Korean Endings: Grammar Explanation for English-Speaking Leaners of Korean

영어 완화 표지와 한국어 종결어미 비교 - 영어권 학습자를 위한 문법 설명 -

This study investigates how common English hedge expressions such as 'I think' and 'I guess' appear in Korean, with the aim of providing explicit explanation for English-speaking leaners of Korean. Based on a contrastive analysis of spoken English and Korean corpus, this study argues three points: Firstly, 'I guess' appears with a wider variety of modalities in Korean than 'I think'. Secondly, this study has found that Korean textbooks contain inappropriate use of registers regarding the English translations of '-geot -gat-': although these markers are used in spoken Korean, they were translated into written English. Therefore, this study suggests that '-geot -gat-' be translated into 'I think' in spoken English, and into 'it seems' in the case of written English and narratives. Lastly, the contrastive analysis has shown that when 'I think' is used with deontic modalities such as 'I think I have to', Korean use '-a-ya-get-': the use of hedge marker 'I think' with 'I have to', which shows obligation or speaker's volition turns the deontic modalities into expressions of speaker's opinion.