KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study moves beyond previous discussions that have treated the Korean sentence-final ending -ji and the Chinese sentence-final particle ba merely as modal markers or mitigation devices, and examines how the two expressions may perform pragmatic functions related to illocutionary force adjustment in discourse. Previous studies have tended either to describe -ji and ba separately within each language or to discuss them mainly in terms of functional correspondence. In particular, ba has often been understood primarily as a marker of mitigation. Against this background, the present study draws on discussions in speech act theory as its theoretical background and, from the perspective of illocutionary force adjustment, investigates how -ji and ba regulate the directness, assertiveness, and demand of utterances in major interactional contexts, especially in confirmation requests and suggestions or exhortations. Based on data from the BCC spoken corpus together with examples from previous studies, the study further explores what kinds of adjustment patterns the two expressions exhibit in major interactional contexts and how their modes of realization differ. Based on BCC spoken corpus data and examples from previous studies, this study qualitatively analyzes the illocutionary force adjustment patterns of -ji and ba in major interactional contexts, focusing on mitigation while also including some strengthening-related adjustment patterns. The results show that both expressions share the tendency to weaken the assertiveness and directive force of utterances in speech acts such as conjecture, confirmation, suggestion, and exhortation, but they differ in the way this adjustment is realized and in its interactional effects. More specifically, -ji tends to move the utterance toward the domain of epistemic agreement on the basis of shared knowledge or normative expectations between speaker and hearer, and this mitigating effect is realized through shared presuppositions. In contrast, ba tends to make the responsibility and decision-making authority of the utterance more fluid through the speaker’s suspension of certainty and relational negotiation, and this mitigating effect is realized through the negotiation of responsibility and decision-making authority. In the case of -ji, patterns are also observed in which the naturalness of the utterance and the hearer’s likelihood of agreement are strengthened through the reaffirmation and highlighting of shared understanding. By contrast, in some uses of ba, especially in constructions such as hao ba and shi ba, patterns related to stance expression or discourse closure become salient; these are better understood not as prototypical illocutionary force strengthening but as peripheral adjustment patterns related to illocutionary force adjustment. These contrasting patterns are observed relatively consistently across major sentence types and interactional contexts. On the basis of these analytical and contrastive findings, this study confirms that -ji and ba are not merely hedging devices, but can exert adjustment effects on the directness, assertiveness, and demand of utterances in major interactional contexts. In this respect, the study is theoretically significant in that it supplements existing mitigation-centered discussions and suggests the possibility of reinterpreting the functional patterns of -ji and ba from the perspective of illocutionary force adjustment. More specifically, Korean -ji tends to regulate the directness of utterances on the basis of shared understanding or normative expectations between speaker and hearer, whereas Chinese ba tends to be more closely related to the speaker’s suspension of certainty, the distribution of responsibility, and the adjustment of the possibility of negotiation with the interlocutor. These findings suggest that in the pragmatic teaching of Korean and Chinese, the two expressions should be presented not merely as semantically corresponding forms, but as expressions that regulate the nature of utterances and response relations within interactional contexts.

This study reviews research trends on missionary bilingual dictionaries in nineteenth-century China and Korea, identifying achievements, limitations, and gaps in existing scholarship. Western missionaries served as linguistic intermediaries who compiled bilingual dictionaries—most notably Morrison's Huaying Zidian (1815–1823), Medhurst's Yinghan Zidian (1847–1848), and Lobscheid's Yinghua Zidian (1866–1869)—which functioned as experimental sites of language contact between Western and East Asian languages. Research in both countries is examined across five axes: bibliographic documentation, phonological and dialectal studies, lexical and conceptual history, lexicography, and translation history. Despite substantial achievements, both traditions share common limitations: the absence of explicit language contact theory, the lack of systematic cross-dictionary comparison at the item level, and uneven distribution of research subjects. This study argues that the two traditions are positioned to develop in a mutually complementary direction.

This study reexamines the patterns of correspondence among the Jiang rhyme(江韻) of the Jiang rhyme group(江攝) and the Tang(唐韻) and Yang(陽韻) rhymes of the Dang rhyme group(宕攝) based on fanqie data from Xuanying Yinyi(玄應音義) and Huilin Yinyi(慧琳音義). It further analyzes the existence of inter-rhyme variation and its distributional patterns. Previous studies have generally assumed that these three rhymes were maintained as independent categories, and cases of variation among them have rarely been discussed. However, this study identifies limited cases of exceptional cross-rhyme correspondences among the three rhymes. Such instances of variation are not confined to a specific tonal category, but tend overall to concentrate in entering-tone syllables. This tendency suggests a possible correlation with particular phonological environments. Nevertheless, rather than interpreting these phenomena as evidence of systematic sound change, a cautious approach is required, since the possibility of scribal variation or isolated exceptional cases arising during textual transmission must also be taken into consideration. Nevertheless, the repeated attestation of such limited variation in both texts merits attention. These phenomena may be understood as evidence that limited variation could emerge under specific phonological environments while the overall contrast among the three rhymes remained largely stable during the transition from Early Middle Chinese to Late Middle Chinese.