Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' understanding and ability to tap into the benefits of relationships as well as learning-internal factors, were significant. For instance, RIs from TS and ZL both cited their local professor relationships as a major factor in their decision to avoid expressing criticism of the strictness of a professor (see the example 2).
This article reviews all locally published pragmatic research on Korean up to 2020. It focuses on the practical core topics such as:
Discourse Construction Tests
The test for discourse completion (DCT) is an instrument that is widely used in the field of pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but it also has its disadvantages. The DCT, for example, does not take into account individual and cultural variations. click to investigate can also be biased and can lead to overgeneralizations. This is why it must be carefully analyzed before it is used for research or assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a valuable instrument to study the connection between prosody, information structure, and non-native speakers. Its ability in two or more stages to manipulate the social variables that are related to politeness is a plus. This can assist researchers study the role of prosody in communicating across cultural contexts, a key issue in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics, DCT is among the most effective tools used to study the behavior of communication learners. It can be used to analyze many issues, such as manner of speaking, turn-taking, and the use of lexical terms. It can be used to assess the level of phonological sophistication in learners speaking.
A recent study utilized the DCT to evaluate EFL students' ability to resist. Participants were presented with a range of scenarios to choose from and then asked to choose the appropriate response. The authors concluded that the DCT was more efficient than other methods of refusal, including a questionnaire and video recordings. However, the researchers 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 linguistic criteria, such as design and content. These criteria are intuitive and are based on the assumptions of the test designers. They are not always precise and could misrepresent how ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue requires more research into different methods to assess refusal ability.
In a recent research study, DCT responses to student requests via email were compared with the responses from an oral DCT. The results revealed that the DCT encouraged more direct and traditionally indirect request forms and made a less frequent use of hints than email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study looked at Chinese learners making pragmatic choices when using Korean. It used various tools for experimentation including Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions, and Refusal Interviews. Participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate who participated in MQs, DCTs and RIs. They were also asked to reflect on their evaluation and refusal responses 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 such as their personalities, their multilingual identities, ongoing life histories, and relational benefits. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data were analysed to determine the participants' choices in terms of their pragmatics. The data were categorized according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the choices were compared with their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine whether they reflected pragmatic resistance or not. Additionally, the participants were asked to justify their decision to use pragmatic language in a given scenario.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and Z tests. The CLKs were found to employ euphemistic phrases such as "sorry" or "thank you". This was probably due to their lack experience with the target languages, leading to a lack of understanding of the korean pragmatic norms. The results showed that the CLKs' preferences for converging to L1 norms or diverging from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varies according to the DCT situations. For example, in Situation 3 and 12 the CLKs would prefer to diverge from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms whereas in Situation 14 they preferred converging to L1 norms.
The RIs showed that CLKs were aware of their pragmatic resistance to each DCT situation. RIs were conducted on a one-to-one basis in the space of two days of participants having completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, and then coded by two coders from different companies. The coding was an iterative process in which the coders listened and discussed each transcript. The results of coding are evaluated against the original RI transcripts to determine if they reflected the actual behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
A key question of pragmatic research is the reason why learners decide to rescind the pragmatic norms of native speakers. A recent study sought to answer this question employing a variety of research instruments, including DCTs, MQs, and RIs. The participants consisted of 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs, and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. Participants were required to complete the DCTs and MQs in their L1 or L2 levels. They were then invited to an RI, where they were required to think about and discuss their responses to each DCT situation.
The results showed that, on average, the CLKs resisted the pragmatic norms of native speakers in more than 40% of their responses. They did this even though they were able to create patterns that resembled natives. They were aware of their practical resistance. They attributed their choices to learner-internal factors like their personalities, multilingual identities, and ongoing life experiences. They also referred external factors, such as relational affordances. They described, for example how their relationships with their professors allowed them to function more easily in terms of the cultural and linguistic norms at their university.
The interviewees expressed their concern about the social pressures or penalties they could be subject to when their social norms were violated. They were concerned that their native counterparts may view them as "foreignersand consider them incompetent. This concern was similar to those voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are not the default preference of Korean learners. They could still be useful for official Korean proficiency testing. But it is advisable for future researchers to reassess their applicability in specific situations and in various cultural contexts. This will help them better understand how different cultural environments can affect the pragmatic behavior of L2 learners in the classroom and beyond. Moreover this will allow educators to create more effective methods to teach and test korea pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor for Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is a research method that focuses on deep, participatory investigations to study a specific subject. It is a method that utilizes various sources of information to back up the findings, such as interviews, observations, documents, and artifacts. This type of investigation is ideal for studying complicated or unique subjects that are difficult to quantify using other methods.
In a case study, the first step is to define both the subject and the purpose of the study. This will allow you to determine which aspects of the subject matter are crucial for investigation and which ones can be omitted. It is also helpful to review the existing literature to gain a better knowledge of the subject and place the case in a larger theoretical context.
This study was based on an open-source platform, the KMMLU Leaderboard [50], and its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X, and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this experiment revealed that L2 Korean learners were particularly susceptible to the influence of native models. They tended to select wrong answer options that were literal interpretations of prompts, deviating from precise pragmatic inference. They also exhibited an unnatural tendency to add their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, further detracting from their quality of response.
The participants of this study were L2 Korean students who had reached level four on the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their second or third 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.
The interviewees were given two scenarios, each involving a hypothetical interaction with their co-workers and asked to choose one of the following strategies when making an inquiry. They were then asked to explain the reasoning behind their choice. The majority of the participants attributed their pragmatic resistance to their personalities. For example, TS claimed that she was difficult to connect to, and so she refused to ask about her interactant's well-being with a heavy workload despite the fact that she believed that native Koreans would ask.