Disagreement as an interactional resource for affiliation in South Korean conversation

Authors

  • Kyoungmi Ha California State University, US Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36505/TheLinguisticProceedings/2025/17/02/006/000692

Keywords:

disagreement, South Korean conversation, conversation analysis, preference organization

Abstract

This study investigates how South Korean speakers employ expressions of disagreement to promote social solidarity and convey affiliation. Using a conversation-analytic (CA) approach, it examines expressions of disagreement in naturally occurring Korean conversation drawn from the LDC CallFriend Korean telephone corpus. Prior CA research has generally treated disagreement as a dispreferred action, typically associated with resistance, opposition, or rejection in conflictual contexts. The present study explores how disagreement can be interactionally mobilized as a preferred action in South Korean conversation. By foregrounding the affiliative uses of disagreement in a specific cultural context, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of disagreement as a culturally variable and socially adaptive interactional resource.

References

Ha, K. 2018a. The social actions of the sentence-ending suffixes -ney, -ci, and -kwuna in Korean conversation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

Ha, K. 2018b. Native and non-native speakers’ expression of disagreement in Korean conversation. The International Journal of Korean Language Education, 4(2), 29-48.

Heritage, J. 2012. Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 1-29.

Mori, J. 1999. Negotiating agreement and disagreement in Japanese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Pomerantz, A. 1984. Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In Atkinson, M., Heritage, J. (eds.), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, 57-103. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E.A. 2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sidnell, J. 2010. Conversation Analysis: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley.

Speer, S.A. 2019. Reconsidering self-deprecation as a communication practice. British Journal of Social Psychology, 58(4), 806-828.

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Published

01-12-2025

How to Cite

Disagreement as an interactional resource for affiliation in South Korean conversation. (2025). Linguistic Proceedings Series, 17(2), 21-24. https://doi.org/10.36505/TheLinguisticProceedings/2025/17/02/006/000692

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