Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' understanding and ability to make use of relational affordances as well as learning-internal factors, were significant. For instance, RIs from TS and ZL both have cited their relationships with their local professors as a major reason for them to choose to avoid criticising the strictness of a professor (see the example 2).
This article examines all local pragmatic research on Korean published up to 2020. It focuses on the most important practical issues, including:
Discourse Construction Tests
The discourse completion test (DCT) is a widely used instrument in pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages, but also a few disadvantages. For example the DCT cannot account for cultural and personal differences in communicative behavior. The DCT can also be biased and can lead to overgeneralizations. It is essential to analyze it carefully before it is used for research or assessment.
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 of the DCT in two or more stages to influence social variables that affect politeness can be a strength. This characteristic can be utilized to study the role of prosody in different cultural contexts.
In the field of linguistics, DCT is among the most useful tools to analyze the communication habits of learners. It can be used to examine various aspects that include politeness, turn-taking, and lexical choices. It can also be used to assess the phonological complexity of learners speaking.
A recent study used the DCT to assess EFL students' refusal skills. Participants were presented with a variety of scenarios to choose from and then asked to select the appropriate response. The authors found the DCT to be more efficient than other methods of refusal like the use of a questionnaire or video recordings. However, the researchers warned that the DCT should be employed with caution and include other data collection methods.
DCTs are often developed with specific linguistic criteria in mind, such as the content and the form. These criteria are intuitive and is based on the assumptions made by the test developers. They aren't always exact and could be misleading in describing how ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue requires further studies of different methods of assessing the ability to refuse.
A recent study compared DCT responses to requests made by students via email versus the responses gathered from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCT was more direct and traditionally indirect request forms and a lower use of hints than email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study examined Chinese learners' decisions regarding their use of Korean by using a range of tools that were tested, including Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) as well as metapragmatic questionnaires and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs with intermediate or higher ability who responded to MQs and DCTs. They were also asked to reflect on their evaluation and refusal performances in RIs. The results showed that CLKs are more likely to reject native Korean pragmatic norms. Their choices were influenced by four factors that included their personalities and multilingual identities, their ongoing life histories and their relationship affordances. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment.
First, the MQ data were analysed to determine the participants' choices in terms of their pragmatics. The data were classified according to Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared the choices made by the participants with their linguistic performance on DCTs to determine if they were indicative of pragmatic resistance. Interviewees also had to explain why they chose a pragmatic behavior in certain situations.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analyzed with descriptive statistics and Z tests. The CLKs were discovered to employ euphemistic phrases such as "sorry" or "thank you". This is likely due to their lack of experience with the target languages, leading to an inadequate knowledge of korean's pragmatic norms. The results showed that the CLKs' preferences for converging to L1 or diverging from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varies according to the DCT situations. For example, in Situation 3 and 12, the CLKs preferred to diverge from both L1 and pragmatic norms whereas in Situation 14 they preferred converging to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed that the CLKs were aware of their own pragmatism in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-toone within two days after the participants had completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribing, and then coded by two coders from different companies. The coding was an iterative process, in which the coders read and discussed each transcript. The coding results are then contrasted with the original RI transcripts to determine if they captured the underlying pragmatic behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
The most important issue in research on pragmatics is: Why do some learners decide to not accept native-speaker norms? Recent research attempted to answer this question by using various experimental tools including DCTs MQs and RIs. Participants included 46 CLKs and 44 CNSs from five Korean Universities. They were asked to perform the DCTs in their first language and complete the MQs either in their L1 or their L2. They were then invited to an RI where they were required to reflect on and discuss their responses to each DCT scenario.
The results showed that CLKs, on average, did not conform to the pragmatic norms of native speakers in more than 40% of their responses. They did this despite the fact that they could produce native-like patterns. They were aware of their practical resistance. They attributed their choice to learner-internal factors such as their personalities and multilingual identities. They also mentioned external factors, like relationship advantages. For instance, they outlined how their relationships with professors led to an easier performance with respect to the intercultural and linguistic standards of their university.
The interviewees expressed their concern about the social pressures or consequences they could be subject to if their local social norms were not followed. They were worried that their native friends might perceive them as “foreignersand believe that they are incompetent. This worry was similar to that expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are no longer the default preference of Korean learners. They could still be useful for official Korean proficiency tests. However, it is prudent for future researchers to reassess their usefulness in particular situations and in various contexts. This will enable them to better comprehend how different environments can affect the pragmatic behavior of L2 learners in the classroom and beyond. Moreover this will allow educators to develop more effective methodologies to teach and test korea pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi, principal advisor at Stratways Group in Seoul, is a geopolitical risk consultancy.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigative strategy that employs participant-centered, in-depth studies to study a specific subject. This method uses numerous sources of information like documents, interviews, and observations to prove its findings. This kind of research is useful when analyzing unique or complex subjects that are difficult to quantify using other methods.
In a case study the first step is to clearly define the subject and the goals of the study. This will help determine what aspects of the subject matter are crucial for research and which are best left out. It is also helpful to study the research to gain a broad understanding of the subject. It will also help place the situation in a wider theoretical context.
This case study was based on an open source platform, the KMMLU leaderboard [50] and its specific benchmarks for Korea, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this study revealed that L2 Korean learners were extremely vulnerable to the influence of native models. They tended to select wrong answer choices that were literal interpretations of prompts, which were not based on accurate pragmatic inference. They also exhibited a strong tendency to include their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, which further hampered their quality of response.
프라그마틱 공식홈페이지 in this study were all L2 Korean students who had attained level four on the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their third or second year at university and hoped to reach level six by their next attempt. They were asked to answer questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, as well as comprehension and pragmatic awareness.
Interviewees were presented with two scenarios involving an interaction with their co-workers and asked to choose one of the strategies listed below to use when making a demand. They were then asked to explain the reasoning behind their choice. Most participants attributed their pragmatic opposition to their personality. TS for instance, claimed that she was difficult to get along with and refused to ask about the wellbeing of her colleague when they had a lot of work despite the fact that she thought native Koreans would.