A Comparative Study of the Discourse Marker But in Korean High School English Textbooks and Naturally Occurring Conversations

초록

This study investigates the use of the discourse marker but in the dialogue sections of high school Common English 1 and 2 textbooks developed under the 2022 Revised National Curriculum and compares its frequency, functional distribution, and positional distribution with those observed in the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English (SBCSAE). The analysis shows that but occurs less frequently in the textbooks and displays a narrower functional and positional range than in the SBCSAE. Functionally, whereas topic management is the most frequent function in the SBCSAE, the textbook dialogues are dominated by denial of expectation, with turn management entirely absent. Positionally, turn-initial uses are substantially underrepresented in the textbook dialogues. These findings suggest that textbook dialogues provide learners with only limited opportunities to encounter the broader functional and positional range of but found in naturally occurring spoken interaction. In light of the 2022 Revised National Curriculum’s emphasis on communicative competence and contextually appropriate language use, the findings point to the value of textbooks that more closely reflect authentic spoken discourse.

키워드