Responding with ‘really’ in Korean conversation

Abstract

This study examines two responses both glossed as the English newsmark really in Korean: 진짜 cincca and 진짜야 cincca-ya, which are among the most prevalent ways of responding to news in Korean conversational data. The structural distinction between the two forms is the attachment of copula -ya ‘be’ to the noun cincca ‘real’. At a glance, they appear interchangeable. However, a closer investigation of the sequential and interactional environments in which they emerge shows that they implement separate action formats that pursue different responses, resulting in divergent interactional trajectories. Cincca-ya treats the information as a matter that requires further verification from the news deliverer, thereby questioning and problematizing the validity of the informing and mobilizing confirmation and an account. In contrast, cincca displays that the information is new or significant in some way but does not necessarily make confirmation relevant, as the information is accepted as is. We argue that the addition of the copula transforms cinnca, a particle response, into a minimal clausal response, which allows the response format to carry out a distinct action. Overall, this study contributes to our understanding of how responses to informing are constructed across languages with data from Korean.