Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' awareness and capacity to tap into the benefits of relationships and the learner-internal aspects, were crucial. RIs from TS and ZL, for example were able to cite their relationships with their local professors as the primary reason for their rational decision to avoid criticising a strict prof (see the example 2).
This article reviews all local pragmatic research on Korean published up to 2020. It focuses on the practical core topics such as:
Discourse Construction Tests
The test for discourse completion is a popular instrument in pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages, but also a few disadvantages. For example, the DCT cannot take into account the cultural and individual differences in communication. The DCT can also be biased and lead to overgeneralizations. It should be carefully analyzed before it is used for research or evaluation.
Despite its limitations, the DCT can be a valuable tool to study the relationship between prosody and information structure in non-native speakers. The ability to alter the social variables that are relevant to the manner of speaking in two or more steps could be a strength. This feature can help researchers study the role of prosody in communication across different cultural contexts, which is a major issue in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics, DCT is among the most effective tools to analyze the communication habits of learners. It can be used to analyze various issues, including the manner of speaking, turn-taking and the choices made in lexical use. It can be used to determine the level of phonological sophistication in learners' speech.
A recent study employed a DCT to test EFL students' refusal skills. Participants were presented with various scenarios and were asked to choose the appropriate response from the choices provided. The authors found that the DCT was more effective than other refusal measures that included a questionnaire as well as video recordings. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be employed with caution and include other types of methods for collecting data.
DCTs can be designed with specific language requirements, like design and content. These criteria are intuitive and based upon the assumptions of test creators. They aren't always precise, and they could misrepresent the way that ELF learners actually refuse requests in real-world interaction. This issue calls for further research on different methods to assess refusal ability.
A recent study has compared DCT responses to requests submitted by students via email with those gathered from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCTs favored more direct and conventionally indirect request forms and utilized less hints than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study explored Chinese learners' pragmatic decisions regarding their use of Korean by using a range of tools that were tested, including Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), metapragmatic questionnaires, and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate level who responded to DCTs, MQs, and RIs. They were also required to provide reflections on their assessments and their refusals to participate in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs frequently chose to resist native Korean pragmatic norms, and that their choices were influenced by four main factors: their personalities, their multilingual identities, ongoing life histories, and relationship affordances. These findings have implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
First, the MQ data were analyzed to identify the participants' rational choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the choices were compared with their linguistic performance in the DCTs to determine whether they reflected pragmatic resistance or not. In addition, the interviewees were asked to explain their decision to use pragmatic language in a particular scenario.
The results of the MQs and DCTs were then analysed using descriptive statistics and z-tests. The CLKs were found employ euphemistic phrases such as "sorry" or "thank you". This could be due to their lack of experience with the target languages, which led to a lack of knowledge of korean's pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preference to diverge from L1 and L2 norms or to move towards L1 norms varied based on the DCT situations. For instance, in Situations 3 and 12, the CLKs preferred to diverge from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms, whereas in Situation 14, they favored converging to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed CLKs were aware of their pragmatism in every DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-toone within two days of the participants completed the MQs. The RIs, which were recorded and transcribed by two independent coders who then coded them. Coding was an iterative process in which the coders read and discussed each transcript. The results of coding were evaluated against the original RI transcripts, which provided an indication of how the RIs were able to capture the fundamental behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
A key question of pragmatic research is why some learners are hesitant to adhere to native-speaker pragmatic norms. A recent study attempted to answer this question employing a range of experimental instruments, including DCTs, MQs, and RIs. Participants comprised 46 CLKs and 44 CNSs from five Korean Universities. Participants were required to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or L2. Then they were invited to a RI where they were asked consider their responses to the DCT situations.
The results showed that CLKs, on average, did not adhere to the norms of native speakers in more than 40 percent of their responses. They did this even when they were able to create patterns that closely resembled native speakers. In addition, they were conscious of their own pragmatism. 프라그마틱 무료슬롯 attributed their decisions to learner-internal factors such as their personalities, multilingual identities, and ongoing life histories. They also spoke of external factors like relational advantages. For instance, they discussed how their relationships with professors facilitated more relaxed performance with respect to the intercultural and linguistic norms of their university.
However, the interviewees also expressed concerns about the social pressures and punishments that they might face if they flouted their social norms. They were concerned that their native interlocutors may view them as "foreigners” and think they were unintelligent. This worry was similar to that expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native speakers pragmatic norms aren't the default preference for Korean learners. They may still be useful for official Korean proficiency testing. But it is advisable for future researchers to revisit their applicability in specific situations and in different cultural contexts. This will allow them to better comprehend how different environments can affect the pragmatic behavior of learners in the classroom and beyond. Moreover this will allow educators to develop more effective methodologies for teaching and testing the korea-based pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi, principal advisor at Stratways Group in Seoul, is a geopolitical risks consultancy.
Case Studies
The case study method is a research method that focuses on in-depth, participant-centered investigations to study a specific subject. This method makes use of various sources of data like interviews, observations, and documents, to confirm its findings. This kind of investigation can be used to analyze specific or complicated subjects that are difficult for other methods to assess.
The first step in the case study is to define the subject and the goals of the study. This will help determine what aspects of the subject are important to study and which are best left out. It is also helpful to read the literature to gain a better understanding of the subject and put the issue in a wider theoretical context.
This case study was built on an open-source platform called the KMMLU Leaderboard [50], as well as its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X, and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this experiment revealed that L2 Korean learners were particularly dependent on the influence of native models. They were more likely to choose incorrect answer options that were literal interpretations of prompts, deviating from precise pragmatic inference. They also showed an unnatural tendency to include their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, further detracting from their quality of response.
Moreover, the participants of this case study were primarily L2 Korean learners who had attained level 4 in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at their second or third year at university and were hoping to achieve level 6 for their next test. They were asked to answer questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, as well as understanding and pragmatic awareness.
The interviewees were presented with two scenarios, each involving a hypothetical interaction with their co-workers and were asked to select one of the following strategies when making an inquiry. The interviewees were asked to justify their decision. The majority of participants attributed their lack of a pragmatic response to their personality. For instance, TS claimed that she was difficult to talk to, and so she did not want to inquire about her interactant's well-being with an intense workload despite her belief that native Koreans would ask.
