Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal factors CLKs' awareness of pragmatic resistance and the relationship advantages they were able to draw from were crucial. For instance the RIs of TS and ZL both cited their local professor relationships as a major factor in their pragmatic choice to not criticize a strict professor (see the second example).
This article examines all local pragmatic research on Korean published up to 2020. It focuses on core pragmatic topics including:
Discourse Construction Tests
The discourse completion test is a popular tool in the field of pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but also some disadvantages. For instance, the DCT cannot account for the cultural and individual differences in communication. The DCT can also be biased and can lead to overgeneralizations. It is important to carefully analyze the data before it is used for research or assessment.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a useful instrument to study the relationship between prosody and information structure in non-native speakers. Its ability in two or more stages to manipulate social variables related to politeness can be a strength. This characteristic can be utilized to study the role of prosody in different cultural contexts.
In the field linguistics, DCT is one of the most effective tools used to analyze the communication habits of learners. It can be used to examine various issues such as politeness, turn taking, and lexical selection. It can be used to determine the level of phonological sophistication in learners speaking.
Recent research utilized the DCT as an instrument to test the skills of refusal among EFL students. Participants were given various scenarios and were required to choose a suitable response from the choices provided. The authors concluded that the DCT was more effective than other measures to stop people from refusing, including a questionnaire and video recordings. However, the researchers cautioned that the DCT should be employed with caution and include other types of data collection methods.
DCTs are typically created with specific linguistic requirements in mind, like content and form. These criteria are based on intuition and is based on the assumptions made by the test developers. They are not always accurate and may misrepresent the way ELF learners actually reject 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 with those gathered from an oral DCT. The results revealed that the DCT encouraged more direct and conventionally form-based requests and made a less frequent use of hints than email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study examined Chinese learners' pragmatic choices in their use of Korean by using a range 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 required to provide reflections on their opinions and their refusals to participate in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs often resisted native Korean pragmatic norms, and that their choices were influenced by four primary factors: their personalities, their multilingual identities, their ongoing lives, and their relational advantages. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment.
First, the MQ data were analyzed 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 selections with their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine if they were indicative of a pragmatic resistance. The interviewees also had to explain the reasons for choosing a pragmatic behavior in certain situations.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were examined using descriptive statistics and z tests. It was discovered that the CLKs frequently resorted to phrases like "sorry" and "thank you." This could be due to their lack of familiarity with the target language, which resulted in an inadequate knowledge of korea pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preferences for converging to L1 norms or dissociating from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varied by the DCT situations. In situations 3 and 12, CLKs preferred diverging from both L1pragmatic norms and L2 norms, while in Situation 14 CLKs favored convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs further revealed that 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 transcribed and recorded by two independent coders and then coded. The coding process was an iterative process in which the coders read and discussed each transcript. The results of the coding process are contrasted with the original RI transcripts to determine if they reflected the actual behavior.
Interviews with Refusal
One of the major questions in pragmatic research is why some learners are hesitant to adhere to native-speaker pragmatic norms. A recent study sought to answer this question by employing a range of experimental tools, including DCTs MQs, DCTs, and RIs. The participants comprised 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs, and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. The participants were asked to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or L2 levels. They were then invited to an RI where they were required to reflect and discuss their responses to each DCT situation.
The results showed that on average, the CLKs disapproved of native-speaker pragmatic norms in more than 40% of their responses. They did this even though they were able to produce patterns that resembled native speakers. In addition, they were aware of their pragmatism. They attributed their decision to learner-internal variables such as their personality and multilingual identities. They also mentioned external factors, such as relational benefits. For instance, they outlined how their relationships with professors led to more relaxed performance with respect to the linguistic and intercultural rules of their university.
However, the interviewees also expressed concerns about the social pressures and penalties that they could be subject to if they violated their local social norms. They were worried that their native friends might perceive them as "foreigners" and think they were unintelligent. This concern was similar to the concerns voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are not the default preference of Korean learners. They may still be useful for official Korean proficiency tests. But it is advisable for future researchers to revisit their applicability in specific situations and in various cultural contexts. This will allow them to better understand how different cultural environments may impact the pragmatic behavior of learners in the classroom and beyond. This will also aid educators improve their methods of teaching and testing Korean 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 investigations to explore a specific subject. This method uses multiple data sources like interviews, observations and documents to prove its findings. This kind of research is useful when analyzing unique or complex subjects that are difficult to measure with other methods.
In a case study, the first step is to define the subject and the objectives of the study. This will help determine which aspects of the subject are important for research and which can be omitted. It is also useful to study the literature to gain a general understanding of the subject and put the issue within a larger theoretical framework.
This case study was based on an open source platform that is the KMMLU leaderboard [50], and its Korean-specific benchmarks, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this study showed that L2 Korean learners were extremely vulnerable to the influence of native models. They were more likely to select incorrect answer choices that were literal interpretations of the prompts, thereby ignoring accurate pragmatic inference. They also showed an inclination to add their own text, 프라그마틱 슬롯버프 or "garbage," to their responses, which further hampered the quality of their responses.
The participants of this study were L2 Korean students who had achieved the level of four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their second or third university year and were aiming to reach level six by their next attempt. They were asked questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, pragmatic awareness and understanding understanding of the world.
The interviewees were presented with two situations, each involving an imagined interaction with their co-workers and asked to choose one of the following strategies when making a request. They were then asked to provide the reasons behind their decision. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatism to their personalities. TS for instance, claimed that she was difficult to approach and refused to ask about the wellbeing of her colleague when they had a lot of work, even though she believed native Koreans would.