KJCKorea
Journal Central

The Journal Hangeul comprises a wealth of linguistic materials gathered and organized between 1927 and 1948. Aimed at conducting scientific research on the Korean language through comparisons between standard and regional speech varieties, the project involved linguists, teachers, and local residents from across the country. Materials on the Pyeongan dialect were intensively collected between 1936 and 1940, and were later finalized through the compilation of linguist Jeong Tae-jin between 1947 and 1948. The Pyeongan dialect materials reveal several distinctive phonological phenomena. Word-initial aspiration is actively realized, and the initial consonant “ㄴ” is retained rather than dropped. Additionally, t-palatalization, k-palatalization, and h-palatalization are rarely observed. Front vowelization shows both realized and non-realized forms, while umlaut and high vowelization (ㅗ>ㅜ) are particularly active. Among these features, word-initial aspiration is considered a unique characteristic of the Pyeongan dialect. Furthermore, the realization of front vowelization and umlaut (e.g., ㅗ > ㅚ, ㅜ > ㅟ) can be considered noticeable changes. In this paper, the characteristics and changes of the Pyeongan dialect were examined through materials published in a Hangeul journal from the 1930s.

This study investigates the pragmatic functions of interjective expressions such as ‘inja, jeogeo, and mwo’ in the Gwangju dialect of Korean, using corpus data. Unlike standard Korean interjections, which are typically speaker-oriented fillers, these dialectal expressions retain some lexical meaning and serve primarily interactional, hearer-oriented purposes. The analysis identifies two main functions. First, they serve as utterance boundary markers, with ‘inja’ in particular acting as a ‘scene-setting’ device in narrative discourse to guide the listener's attention. Second, they function to build empathy among participants. These expressions activate common ground, transforming a personal narrative into a shared experience. This is empirically confirmed through sequential analysis of listener backchannels, which demonstrates successful empathetic engagement. This research contributes to the field by shifting the focus of interjection studies from speaker-internal processes to their crucial role as interactional devices in regional dialects, used strategically to structure discourse and build intersubjectivity.

This study examines Jagirok, the autobiographical record of Cho of the Pungyang clan (1772-1815), a woman from a military yangban family in late Joseon Korea. After the death of her husband, she struggled with the Confucian demand of widow suicide but ultimately chose survival, naming her continued life a “stolen life” (tusaeng, 偸生). This choice, initially burdened with guilt, was later ethically justified through filial duties toward her parents-in-law, responsibility for her natal family, and the preservation of her household. By interpreting this narrative through the philosophical concepts of Spinoza’s conatus, Hobbes’s right of self-preservation, and Newton’s law of inertia, this paper argues that Jagirok should not be read merely as a record of grief or resistance to patriarchal norms, but as an active text that constructs the ethics of self-preservation. Cho’s writing demonstrates a rare case of a Joseon woman who transformed survival into an ethical practice, reconstituting the meaning of life amidst loss. Ultimately, Jagirok reveals not only the lived reality of women in late Joseon but also the universal human will to endure and to reconfigure existence through writing.