Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal influences CLKs' awareness of the need to be pragmatic and the relational affordances they could draw on were significant. The RIs from TS & ZL, for example mentioned their relationships with their local professors as the primary reason for their rational decision to avoid criticism of a strict professor (see examples 2).
This article examines all local research on Korean published until 2020. 프라그마틱 홈페이지 focuses on pragmatic fundamental topics like:
Discourse Construction Tests
The Discourse Completion Test (DCT) is widely used in the field of pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but it also has a few disadvantages. For example, the DCT is unable to account for cultural and individual differences in communication. Additionally it is also the case that the DCT is prone to bias and may lead to overgeneralizations. This is why it should be analyzed carefully prior to using it for research or assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a valuable instrument to study the relationship between prosody, information structure and non-native speakers. Its ability in two or more stages to influence social variables that affect politeness could be a benefit. This characteristic can be utilized to study the effect of prosody in various cultural contexts.
In the field of linguistics, the DCT has become one of the primary tools for analyzing learners' behavior in communication. It can be used to analyze numerous issues, like politeness, turn-taking, and the use of lexical terms. It can be used to determine the level of phonological sophistication in learners in their speech.
Recent research utilized the DCT as an instrument to test the skills of refusal among EFL students. The participants were given a list of scenarios and asked to select an appropriate response from the options provided. The authors discovered that the DCT to be more effective than other refusal methods 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 can be designed with specific language requirements, like design and content. These criteria are intuitive and based on the assumptions of the test designers. They are not necessarily precise, and they could incorrectly describe the way in which ELF learners actually refuse requests in real-world interactions. This issue requires further studies of alternative methods of assessing the ability to refuse.
A recent study examined DCT responses to requests submitted by students through email with the responses gathered from an oral DCT. The results revealed that the DCT promoted more direct and traditionally indirect request forms and made a less frequent use of hints than the email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study explored Chinese learners' choices in their use of Korean through a variety of experimental tools, such as Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), metapragmatic questionnaires, and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate who participated in MQs, DCTs and RIs. They were also asked to consider their evaluations and refusal performance in RIs. The results showed that CLKs were more likely to reject native Korean pragmatic norms, and their decisions were influenced by four major factors: their identities, their multilingual identities, ongoing life histories, and relational benefits. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data was analyzed in order to identify the participants' choices in practice. The data were classified according to Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared their selections with their linguistic performance on DCTs to determine if they were indicative of pragmatic resistance. The interviewees also had to explain why they chose a pragmatic behavior in certain situations.
The results of the MQs and DCTs were then examined using descriptive statistics and Z-tests. The CLKs were found to employ euphemistic phrases such as "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 revealed that CLKs' preference for converging to L1 or dissociating from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varied by the DCT situations. For instance, in Situations 3 and 12 the CLKs would prefer to diverge from both L1 and pragmatic norms whereas in Situation 14, they favored converging to L1 norms.
The RIs revealed that CLKs were aware of their logical resistance to every DCT situation. The RIs were conducted in a one-to-one manner within two days of the participants completed the MQs. The RIs were transcribed and recorded by two coders independent of each other who then coded them. The coders worked in an iterative manner by the coders, re-reading and discussing each transcript. The results of coding are compared with the original RI transcripts to determine whether they captured the underlying pragmatic behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
One of the most important questions in pragmatic research is the reason why learners choose to resist the pragmatic norms of native speakers. Recent research attempted to answer this question with several experiments, including DCTs MQs 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 first language and to complete the MQs either in their L1 or L2. Then they were invited to a RI where they were asked to consider their responses to the DCT situations.
The results showed that, on average, the CLKs resisted native-speaker pragmatic norms in over 40% of their responses. They did this despite the fact that they were able to create patterns that closely resembled natives. Furthermore, they were clearly aware of their pragmatism. They attributed their decisions to learner-internal factors such as their personalities, multilingual identities, and ongoing life histories. They also referred external factors, like relationship benefits. For instance, they outlined how their relationships with professors facilitated an easier performance in relation to the linguistic and intercultural standards of their university.
The interviewees expressed their concern about the social pressures or consequences they could face in the event that their local social norms were not followed. They were concerned that their native interactants might think they are "foreigners" and believe that they are not intelligent. This was a concern similar to the concerns expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker practical norms are no longer the norm for Korean learners. They may still be useful as a model for official Korean proficiency tests. But it is advisable for future researchers to reassess their relevance in specific scenarios and in various cultural contexts. This will help them better understand the impact of different cultural contexts on the classroom behavior and interactions of students from L2. Furthermore, this will help educators create more effective methods for teaching and testing korea pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor for Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is a method that employs deep, participatory investigations to explore a particular subject. This method utilizes numerous sources of information like documents, interviews, and observations to prove its findings. This type of investigation is useful for examining complicated or unique subjects which are difficult to assess using other methods.
The first step in a case study is to clearly define the subject and the goals of the study. This will help you determine what aspects of the subject are important to investigate and which ones can be skipped. It is also beneficial to study the literature to gain a general understanding of the subject. It will also help place the case within a larger theoretical framework.
This study was conducted 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 particularly vulnerable to the influence of native models. They were more likely to choose incorrect answers that were literal interpretations of the prompts, deviating from the correct pragmatic inference. They also had an inclination to add their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, further detracting from their quality of response.
The participants of this study were all L2 Korean students who had achieved the level of four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their third or second year of university and were hoping to reach level six by their next attempt. They were questioned about their WTC/SPCC, pragmatic awareness, understanding and knowledge of the world.
The interviewees were presented two situations, each involving a hypothetical interaction with their interlocutors and were asked to choose one of the following strategies when making a request. They were then asked to explain the reasoning behind their choice. Most of the participants attributed their rational opposition to their personalities. TS, for example, claimed that she was difficult to get along with and refused to inquire about the health of her co-worker when they had a heavy work load, even though she thought native Koreans would.