A Corpus Based Analysis of Korean and English Science Popularization Texts in Terms of Reader-Involvement

Abstract

In the present research, Korean and English science popularization texts in newspapers are compared from the perspective of the writer's management of the strategies for the reader's involvement in the text. The concept of involvement in discourse was originally regarded as relevant to spoken discourse. However, the notion is extended to the writer's linguistic attempts to evoke the reader's involvement in text. I argue that by employing resources such as the 1st person plural and the 2nd person pronouns, questions, and modal expressions of obligation in particular ways, the writer may evoke the reader's involvement in the text. Through the analysis, I explore how these linguistic resources are employed differently in the Korean and the English texts.