대화에 나타난 감탄사 ‘아’의 담화 기능

Abstract

The perspective that considers ‘Ah’ just as an exclamation showing an admiration or a surprise of a speaker has limitations in explaining the use of ‘Ah’ in conversational situations made of interactions of participants. This study examines what functions ‘Ah’ performs in conversations by dividing the situations into when ‘Ah’ performs a function as a giving word and when ‘Ah’ does so as a receiving word. This study assumes the basic meaning of ‘Ah,’ which is an exclamation, to be ‘suddenly coming to mind/being realized,’ and suggests that ‘Ah’ is able to express an emotion of the speaker such as admiration and surprise about a suddenly realized fact or subject, and to work as a starting signal and an acceptance signal of a conversation. When ‘Ah’ is a giving word, it serves as a signal to notify that there is something to be spoken that suddenly came to the speaker’s mind to the conversation partner, and allows the partner to prepare to listen to the speech of the speaker. In addition, when ‘Ah’ is a receiving word, it notifies that there is something the speaker has suddenly remembered or realized in the speech of the partner, serving as a signal that the speaker has listened to the speech of the partner carefully. The functions of ‘Ah’ as a starting signal when it is a giving word and as an acceptance signal when it is a receiving word enable the participants, who compose conversations in turn, to perform a cooperative communication with each other.