earticle

영어

The aim of this study is to compare passive expressions in the Korean language and Chinese language in order to help Chinese learners who study Korean to better understand Korean passive expressions. Fore mostly, building on previous studies, this study offers a comparative analysis of the meaning of and realization conditions for the passive expressions in Korean and Chinese and reorganizes what these two languages have in common and how they differ from each other. Korean passive expressions are found to be more complicated in terms of their realization conditions and are more diverse in their meanings. Based on these findings, the discourse functions of the passive expressions in Korean and Chinese were analyzed. The passive expressions in both Korean and Chinese shows the focalization of the patient at the level of sentence. During discourse, both the Korean and Chinese passive expressions serve the function of “maintaining the topic of discourse.” While the passive expressions are often adopted in Korean when the speaker is trying to “express politeness,” “obscure responsibility,” and “avoid humiliation,” such discourse functions were not found in the passive expressions in Chinese. It is hypothesized that the findings from such a contrastive analysis will facilitate the understandings of Chinese learners who study Korean.