Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal factors, CLKs' awareness of their own resistance to change and the relational affordances they had access to were important. For instance the RIs of TS and ZL both cited their local professor relationships as an important reason for them to choose to avoid expressing criticism of an uncompromising professor (see the second example).
This article reviews all local pragmatic research on Korean published until 2020. It focuses on pragmatic fundamental topics like:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The discourse completion test is a popular tool in pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages however, it also has a few disadvantages. The DCT for instance, is unable to account for cultural and individual variations. The DCT can also be biased and result in 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 useful 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 plus. 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 the DCT is now one of the most significant instruments for analyzing learners' behavior in communication. It can be used to study numerous issues, like the manner of speaking, turn-taking and the choices made in lexical use. It can be used to evaluate the phonological difficulty of learners speaking.
A recent study utilized an DCT to evaluate EFL students' refusal skills. Participants were presented with a list of scenarios and required to choose a suitable response from the options provided. The researchers found the DCT to be more effective than other refusal methods like the use of a questionnaire or video recordings. Researchers warned, however, that the DCT should be employed with caution. They also suggested using other data collection methods.
DCTs are often created with specific linguistic requirements in mind, like content and form. These criteria are intuitive and based upon the assumptions of test creators. They are not always exact and could be misleading in describing how ELF learners actually respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further research on different methods of assessing refusal competence.
In a recent study, DCT responses to student requests via email were compared to the responses of an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCT promoted more direct and traditionally indirect request forms and made a less frequent use of hints than email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study examined Chinese learners' decisions regarding their use of Korean through a variety of experimental tools, such as Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) Metapragmatic Questionnaires, Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs at the upper intermediate level who answered MQs, DCTs and RIs. They were also asked to consider their evaluations and refusal responses in RIs. The results showed that CLKs often chose to reject native Korean pragmatic norms. Their decisions were influenced primarily by four factors such as their personality and multilingual identities, their current life histories as well as their relational affordances. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
First, the MQ data were analysed to identify the participants' pragmatic choices. The data was classified according to Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the responses were compared to their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine whether they were a reflection of pragmatic resistance or not. The interviewees were asked to justify their choices of behavior in a particular scenario.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and Z tests. It was found that the CLKs frequently resorted to euphemistic responses such as "sorry" and "thank you." This is likely due to their lack of experience with the target language which led to an insufficient understanding of korea pragmatic norms. 프라그마틱 환수율 showed that CLKs' preference to diverge from L1 and L2 norms or to converge towards L1 norms varied based on the DCT situations. In the scenarios 3 and 12 CLKs favored diverging from both L1pragmatic norms and L2 norms, while in Situation 14 CLKs preferred a convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed CLKs were aware of their pragmatic resistance in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-toone within two days after the participants completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribing, and then coded by two independent coders. The coding process was iterative, with the coders re-reading and discussing each transcript. The results of the coding process are compared with the original RI transcripts to determine whether they reflected the actual behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
A key question of pragmatic research is why some learners decide to rescind pragmatic norms that native speakers use. A recent study sought to answer this question employing a range of experimental instruments, including DCTs, MQs, and RIs. Participants comprised 46 CLKs and 44 CNSs from five Korean Universities. Participants were asked to complete the DCTs and MQs in their L1 or L2. Then they were invited to attend a RI where they were asked to think about their responses to the DCT situations.
The results showed that CLKs on average, did not follow the patterns of native speakers in more than 40% of their responses. They did this despite the fact that they could produce patterns that closely resembled native speakers. In addition, they were conscious of their own pragmatism. They attributed their actions to learner-internal factors such as their personalities and multilingual identities as well as ongoing life experiences. They also mentioned external factors such as relational benefits. For instance, they outlined how their relationships with professors helped facilitate a more relaxed performance in regards to the intercultural and linguistic standards of their university.
The interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures or penalties they could face if their local social norms were not followed. They were concerned that their native counterparts may view them as "foreignersand consider them ignorant. This worry was 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 as a model for official Korean proficiency tests. However, it is prudent for future researchers to revisit their applicability in specific situations and in various contexts. This will allow them to better comprehend how different environments may impact 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, principal advisor at Stratways Group in Seoul, is a geopolitical risk consultancy.
Case Studies
The case study method is a strategy that utilizes intensive, participant-centered research to study a specific subject. This method utilizes numerous sources of information, such as interviews, observations and documents to prove its findings. This type of investigation is ideal for studying unique or complex subjects that are difficult to quantify using other methods.
In a case study the first step is to define the subject and the purpose of the study. This will allow you to determine which aspects of the topic are important to investigate and which ones can be skipped. It is also beneficial to review existing literature related to the topic to gain a better understanding of the subject and place the case study in a broader theoretical context.
This case study was based upon an open-source platform, the KMMLU Leaderboard [50], and its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the study revealed that the L2 Korean students were highly susceptible to native models. They were more likely to choose incorrect answer choices that were literal interpretations of the prompts, thereby ignoring the correct pragmatic inference. They also showed a strong tendency of adding their own text or "garbage" to their responses. This further reduced the quality of their answers.
Moreover, the participants of this study were L2 Korean learners who had attained level 4 on the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) in their third or second year of university and were aiming for level 6 on their next attempt. They were asked questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, their pragmatic awareness and understanding and understanding of the world.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations that involved interaction with their counterparts and asked to select one of the strategies listed below to use when making demands. They were then asked to provide the reasoning behind their choice. Most participants attributed their pragmatic opposition to their personalities. TS, for example, claimed that she was difficult to get along with and would not ask about the wellbeing of her colleague when they had a heavy work load, even though she believed native Koreans would.