Formulaic Hedging Expressions in Korean:Focusing on-을 수 있- -ul su -iss- and -을 것-이- -ul kes-i-

Abstract

This study provides a corpus-based analysis of the linguistic distribution and function of formulaic hedging expressions in Korean academic texts. We focus on hedging expressions that convey possibility and uncertainty and examine their properties in academic discourse in comparison with other registers. In analyzing formulaic expressions extracted from an academic corpus (Lee et al. 2018), we find that the hedging expression -을 수 있- -ul su iss- ‘can/may’ -을 것-이- -ul kes-i- ‘will/may’ occurs more than twice as often in academic texts in comparison with a balanced written corpus. We examine linguistic distribution and function of hedging sequences containing -을 수 있- -ul su iss- by utilizing formulaic sequences of extracted n-grams. In contrast with English, much more complex morpho-syntactic patterns of hedging are observed in Korean. We explore how the hedging unit -을 수 있- -ul su iss- expands based upon agglutinative properties of Korean. Indirect quotations subcategorized by lexical verbs of speaking, cognition, and judgment form a complex sequence by taking -을 수 있- -ul su iss- (as in -tako ha-l su iss- [quotation particle + say + can]). In addition, more than two hedging expressions formulate another hedging sequence (-ul su iss- + -ul kes-i- ‘will be the case’). The dynamic functions of complex hedging patterns indicate cultural conceptualization of indirectness associated with politeness in Korean academic discourse