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Epistemic stance in Korean assessment pairs: The role of evidential and non-evidential sentence-ending suffixes

Studies in conversation analysis (CA) have shown that in assessments, various linguistic resources are used to express epistemic stance in ordinary conversation. In Korean conversation, although the evidential and non-evidential functions of sentence-ending (SE) suffixes are well recognized, little research has been done on their relation to epistemic stance and their use in assessments. In this study, using naturally-occurring conversation data and the CA framework, I analyze 59 cases of a speaker’s first assessment regarding his/her interlocutor and 49 responses to these first assessments (second assessments). I argue that in Korean assessment pairs, the evidential and non-evidential SE suffixes are used as a resource for expressing epistemic stance. The results show that 74.4% of the first assessments were marked with an evidential SE suffix whereas 71.4% of the second assessments were marked with a non-evidential SE suffix. Furthermore, certain evidential SE suffixes are used as a resource to convey a downgraded epistemic stance in first assessments whereas certain non-evidential SE suffixes are used to express epistemic primacy in second assessments.