국립강릉원주대학교

초록/요약 도움말

A Study on the contrastive English Tenses in Discourse Park Jung - Ha Department of English Language & Literature Graduate School, Gangnung Wonju National University (Supervised by Professor Park, No-Min) Abstract The goal of this study is to explicate differences between be going to V and will, used to V and would, and the present perfect and preterit or the simple past in authentic discourse in English. Each pair form encodes futurity in be going to V/will, past habituality in used to V/would and past situation in present perfect/preterit or the simple past. For each set, the meaning is the same or slightly different at the discourse-pragmatics level although the functions of all three forms are the same in semantics. The similarities explain why ESL/EFL students are often confused about when they should choose one form between multiple options. It is the main concern in this study to inquire closely why a specific form comes first when multiple forms are in the same discourse. In order to research the main goal, the difference of each pair will be located in various contexts of the utterance in which they occur. When we compare be going to V and will, used to V and would, the present perfect and preterit or the simple past, the former forms in each set appear to be connected with current relevance. When each of these three pairs are present in the same discourse, the sequence is related to current relevance. First, be going to V indicates future time in semantics, which is based in a present point of view or is represented by means of a present situation. Also, according to studies from various fields of English, although both used to V and would are used to express past habituality or events that happened always or regularly in the past, would is not used at the beginning of a story. Similarly, with would, it is necessary to have an already established past time-frame. Both forms of the last pair, both the present perfect and preterit or the simple past, express the past events or situations, even though both are the same in semantics. We choose the present perfect when a situation contains present time. The present perfect is found at a former position and then preterit or the simple past follows. The function of the present perfect is to introduce discourse and that of preterit describes a detailed story in the same discourse or in pragmatics. Another function of the present perfect is to link other tenses such as preterit or the simple past and present tense does not jump so when it is shifted within the same discourse the tense sharply or without premise. As a result, we explain that when be going to V and will occur sequentially to organize discourse describing future events or situations, be going to V provides a frame for the future event and then will appears for elaboration in subsequent sentences. Similarly, used to V becomes a basis for past events and would provides elaboration within a sentence when used to V and would appear sequentially to configure discourse describing past situations. Furthermore, when the present perfect and preterit occur sequentially to organize discourse describing past events, the present perfect makes a standard or frame for past time situations and then preterit is used for elaboration. This study suggests that the principal distinction among the competing forms could be obtained through the same attainment, that is current relevance or current orientation, when we consider the selection of one option.