The Korean Punctuation Systems

Abstract

Currently, the concept of punctuation marks organized by the National Institute of Korean Language involves minimum punctuation marks that help communication between a writer and a reader. There are no traditional marks and instead, all of them reflect the Western punctuation marks. The former reflects the writer’s situation and functions in a sentence unit while the latter functions in a text unit which is related to the reading activity. The Korean traditional punctuation marks indicate the result of understanding the text. This means that Korean punctuation marks were developed in connection with learning. The punctuation was developed, at first, from making the punctuation marks in order to understand Chinese when the Koreans accepted Chinese letters. Further, whenever they faced new letters, they developed several kinds of marking. This is why there is a conceptual gap between the traditional punctuation and the current punctuation marks. This research thoroughly examines Korean traditional punctuation marks and discusses how Korean traditional punctuations can be classified in the same category with the current punctuation marks.