Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' awareness and ability to tap into the benefits of relationships and learner-internal elements, were important. The RIs from TS and ZL for instance mentioned their relationship with their local professor as a major factor in their pragmatic decision to avoid criticising a strict prof (see examples 2).
This article examines all local pragmatic research on Korean published until 2020. It focuses on practical fundamental topics like:
Discourse Construction Tests
The test for discourse completion (DCT) is an instrument that is widely used in pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages but it also has some disadvantages. The DCT, for example, is unable to account for cultural and individual differences. Additionally it is also the case that the DCT is susceptible to bias and can result in overgeneralizations. Therefore, it should be analyzed carefully prior to using it for research or assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT can be a valuable instrument to study the relationship between prosody and information structure in non-native speakers. Its ability to manipulate the social variables that are relevant to politeness in two or more steps could be a strength. This feature can help researchers understand the role of prosody in communicating across cultural contexts, a major challenge in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics the DCT is now one of the most important tools to analyze learners' communication behaviors. cool training can be used to study many issues, such as politeness, turn-taking, and lexical choices. It can be used to evaluate the level of phonological sophistication in learners' speech.
Recent research utilized an DCT as tool to evaluate the refusal skills of EFL students. Participants were presented with a range of scenarios to choose from and were then asked to select the appropriate response. The authors found the DCT to be more efficient than other methods of refusal like videos or questionnaires. However, the researchers warned that the DCT should be used with caution and should include other methods for collecting data.
DCTs are often designed with specific linguistic criteria in mind, like content and form. These criteria are based on intuition and is based on the assumptions made by the test creators. They may not be correct, and they could misrepresent the way that ELF learners actually refuse requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further research on alternative methods of measuring refusal competence.
A recent study examined DCT responses to requests made by students via email versus those obtained from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCTs favored more direct and conventionally-indirect requests and utilized hints less than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study explored Chinese learners' pragmatic choices when it comes to using Korean through a variety of experimental tools, such as Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), metapragmatic questionnaires, and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs of intermediate or higher ability who responded to DCTs and MQs. They were also asked for reflections on their assessments and refusals in RIs. The results showed that CLKs were more likely to reject native Korean pragmatic norms, and that their choices were influenced by four primary factors that included their identities, their multilingual identities, ongoing lives, and their relational benefits. These findings have implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data was analyzed first to determine the participants' practical choices. 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 using DCTs to determine if they are indicative of pragmatic resistance. In addition, the interviewees were asked to justify their decision to use pragmatic language in a specific situation.
The results of the MQs and DCTs were then analysed using descriptive statistics and Z-tests. The CLKs were discovered to use euphemistic words like "sorry" or "thank you". This is likely due to their lack experience with the target languages, leading to an inadequate understanding of the korean pragmatic norms. The results showed that the CLKs' preference for converging to L1 or departing from both L1 as well as L2 pragmatic norms varied by the DCT situations. For example, in Situation 3 and 12 the CLKs would prefer to diverge from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms while in Situation 14 they favored a convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed that CLKs were aware of their pragmatic resistance in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-to-one within two days after the participants completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed by two coders independent of each other and then coded. The code was re-coded repeatedly by the coders, re-reading and discussing each transcript. The results of the coding process are contrasted with the original RI transcripts to determine if they captured the underlying pragmatic behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
The most important problem in the field of pragmatic research is: Why do some learners refuse to accept native-speaker norms? A recent study sought to answer this question employing a variety of research tools, including DCTs MQs, DCTs, and RIs. The participants consisted of 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs, and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. They were asked to complete the DCTs in their native language and complete the MQs in either their L1 or their L2. They were then invited to an RI where they were asked to reflect on and discuss their responses to each DCT situation.
The results showed that on average, the CLKs rejected native-speaker pragmatic norms in more than 40% of their responses. They did this even when they could produce patterns that closely resembled native speakers. They were also aware of their pragmatism. They attributed their choice to learner-internal factors such as their personalities and multilingual identities. They also referred to external factors, like relationship benefits. For instance, they discussed how their relationships with professors helped facilitate an easier performance in relation to the intercultural and linguistic norms of their university.
The interviewees expressed concerns about the social pressures or penalties they might face when their social norms were violated. They were concerned that their native interlocutors might view them as "foreignersand believe that they are incompetent. This is similar to the one expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker practical norms are not the norm for Korean learners. They could still be useful for official Korean proficiency testing. But it would be prudent for future researchers to reconsider their relevance in specific scenarios and in various cultural contexts. This will allow them to better understand the impact of different cultures on the classroom behavior and interactions of students in L2. This will also help educators improve their methods of teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor at Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigative strategy that relies on participant-centered, deep investigations to investigate a particular subject. This method makes use of various sources of data, such as interviews, observations, and documents, to support its findings. This kind of research is useful when analyzing specific or complex subjects that are difficult to quantify using other methods.
The first step in a case study is to define the subject and the objectives of the study. This will help determine what aspects of the subject are important for research and which can be omitted. It is also helpful to read the literature on to the topic to gain a better understanding of the topic and place the case within a larger theoretical context.
This case study was based on an open source platform that is the KMMLU leaderboard [50], and its benchmarks that are specific to Korea, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this study showed that L2 Korean learners were highly dependent on the influence of native models. They tended to select wrong answers that were literal interpretations of the prompts, thereby ignoring precise pragmatic inference. They also had an unnatural tendency to include their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, which further hampered the quality of their responses.
The participants in this study were all L2 Korean students who had reached 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 respond to questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, as well as comprehension and pragmatic awareness.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations involving an interaction with their interlocutors 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 of the participants attributed their pragmatic resistance to their personality. For example, TS claimed that she was difficult to connect to, and so she was reluctant to inquire about the health of her interlocutors despite having a heavy workload, even though she believed that native Koreans would ask.