Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' awareness and ability to draw on relational affordances, as well as learning-internal factors, were significant. For instance, RIs from TS and ZL both cited their local professor relationships as a significant factor in their pragmatic choice to not criticize the strictness of a professor (see example 2).
This article examines all local pragmatic research on Korean published until 2020. It focuses on pragmatic fundamental topics like:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The discourse completion test (DCT) is a widely used instrument in research that is based on pragmatic principles. It has many advantages, but it also has some disadvantages. The DCT, for example, is unable to account for cultural and individual differences. Additionally the DCT can be biased and could cause overgeneralizations. As a result, it is important to analyze it carefully before it is used for research or assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a valuable tool for analyzing the connection between prosody, information structure and non-native speakers. The ability of the DCT in two or more stages to alter social variables that affect politeness could be a benefit. This feature can help researchers to study the role played by prosody in communicating across cultural contexts, a major challenge in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics DCT is one of the most useful tools for analyzing communication behaviors of learners. It can be used to investigate various issues, including manner of speaking, turn-taking, and the choices made in lexical use. It can be used to evaluate the phonological complexity of learners in their speech.
A recent study used an DCT to assess EFL students' ability to resist. Participants were presented with various scenarios and were required to choose a suitable response from the options offered. The authors found that the DCT was more effective than other refusal measures, including a questionnaire and video recordings. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be used with caution and should include other types of methods for collecting data.
DCTs can be developed using specific requirements for linguistics, such as form and content. These criterion are intuitive and based on the assumptions of the test developers. They aren't always accurate and may misrepresent the way ELF learners actually respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further research on alternative methods of assessing the ability to refuse.
A recent study examined DCT responses to requests submitted by students via email versus those obtained from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCT encouraged more direct and traditionally indirect request forms, and a lesser use of hints than email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study looked at Chinese learners making pragmatic choices when using Korean. It employed a variety of experimental tools including Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions and Refusal Interviews. Participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate level who responded to MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also asked to consider their evaluations and refusal performance in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs frequently chose to resist native Korean pragmatism norms. Their choices were influenced by four factors: their personalities and multilingual identities, their current life experiences as well as their relationship affordances. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data was first analyzed to determine the participants' actual choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the responses were compared with their linguistic performance in DCTs to determine if they were a reflection of pragmatic resistance or not. The interviewees were asked to explain their decision to use pragmatic language in a given situation.
The results of the MQs and DCTs were then examined using descriptive statistics and z-tests. The CLKs were discovered to use euphemistic words like "sorry" or "thank you". This could be due to their lack of familiarity with the target languages, leading to an inadequate understanding of korean pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs' preferences to diverge from L1 and L2 norms or to converge toward L1 differed based on the DCT circumstances. For instance, in Situations 3 and 12 the CLKs would prefer to diverge from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms whereas in Situation 14, they favored converging to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed the CLKs were aware of their pragmatism in every DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-to-one basis within a period of two days of the participants completing the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribing, and then coded by two coders who were independent. The coders worked in an iterative manner by the coders, re-reading and discussing each transcript. The results of coding were evaluated against the original RI transcripts, which gave an indication of how the RIs captured the underlying pragmatic behaviors.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
One of the most important questions in pragmatic research is why some learners decide to rescind native-speaker pragmatic norms. A recent study sought to answer this question employing a range of experimental tools, including DCTs MQs, DCTs, and RIs. Participants included 46 CLKs and 44 CNSs from five Korean Universities. Participants were asked to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or L2 levels. 프라그마틱 무료 슬롯 were then invited to an RI, where they were asked to reflect on and discuss their responses to each DCT scenario.
The results showed that on average, the CLKs rejected native-speaker pragmatic norms in over 40% of their responses. They did this even though they could create native-like patterns. In addition, they were conscious of their own pragmatism. They attributed their actions to learner-internal factors like their personalities, multilingual identities, and ongoing lives. They also mentioned external factors such as relational advantages. They also discussed, for instance, how their relations with their professors enabled them to function more easily in terms of the linguistic and cultural norms at their university.
The interviewees expressed concerns about the social pressures or penalties they could be subject to if their local social norms were violated. They were concerned that their native counterparts might 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 are not the norm for Korean learners. They could still be useful as a model for official Korean proficiency tests. Future researchers should reassess the validity of these tests in different cultural contexts and in specific situations. This will allow them to better know how different cultures can affect the pragmatic behavior of L2 learners in the classroom and beyond. This will also assist educators to create better methods for teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor at Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based out of Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigative strategy that relies on participant-centered, deep investigations to investigate a particular subject. It is a method that makes use of numerous sources of data to support the findings, including interviews or observations, documents and artifacts. This kind of research can be used to study specific or complicated issues that are difficult to other methods to assess.
In a case study, the first step is to define both the subject and the purpose of the study. This will allow you to identify what aspects of the subject are important to investigate and which can be omitted. It is also beneficial to study the literature that is relevant to the subject to gain a greater understanding of the topic and place the case within a wider theoretical framework.
This study was conducted on an open source platform that is the KMMLU leaderboard [50] and its specific benchmarks for Korea, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the study showed that L2 Korean learners were highly dependent on the influence of native models. They were more likely to choose incorrect answers that were literal interpretations of the prompts, which were not based on accurate pragmatic inference. They also showed a strong tendency of adding their own words or "garbage" to their responses. This also lowered the quality of their answers.
Moreover, the participants of this case study were primarily L2 Korean learners who had reached level 4 on the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at the end of their second or third year of university and were hoping to achieve level 6 on their next attempt. They were asked to respond to questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, as well as pragmatic awareness and comprehension.
The interviewees were presented two situations, each involving an imagined interaction with their interlocutors and asked to choose one of the following strategies to employ when making a request. Interviewees were then asked to justify their choice. Most participants attributed their pragmatic opposition to their personality. For example, TS claimed that she was difficult to talk to, and so she refused to ask about the well-being of her friend with an intense workload, even though she believed that native Koreans would ask.