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 the RIs of TS and ZL both cited their local professor relationships as a major factor in their pragmatic choice to not criticize an uncompromising professor (see the second example).
This article reviews all local pragmatic research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on core practical issues, including:
Discourse Construction Tests
The discourse completion test is a common tool in the field of pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but also a few disadvantages. The DCT, for example, cannot account cultural and individual differences. The DCT can also be biased and lead to overgeneralizations. It should be carefully analyzed before it is used in research or evaluation.
Despite its limitations, the DCT can be a valuable instrument to study the relationship between prosody and information structure in non-native speakers. Its ability to manipulate social variables that affect the manner of speaking in two or more steps can be a benefit. This ability can aid researchers study the role of prosody in communication across cultural contexts, a key issue in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics, the DCT has become one of the primary instruments for analyzing learners' behavior in communication. It can be used to analyze many issues, such as politeness, turn-taking, and the choices made in lexical use. It can be used to assess the phonological complexity of learners' speech.
A recent study utilized an DCT to test EFL students' ability to resist. Participants were presented with a range of scenarios to choose from and then asked to select the appropriate response. The authors found the DCT to be more efficient than other methods of refusal, such as a questionnaire or video recordings. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be employed with caution and include other methods for collecting data.
DCTs are often designed with specific linguistic criteria in mind, like content and form. These criteria are intuitive and based on the assumptions of the test creators. They may not be exact and could be misleading in describing the way ELF learners respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for more research into different methods to assess refusal ability.
프라그마틱 플레이 examined DCT responses to requests made by students through email with those gathered from an oral DCT. The results revealed that the DCT encouraged more direct and conventionally indirect request forms, and a lesser use of hints than email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study explored Chinese learners' pragmatic choices when it comes to using Korean through a variety of experimental tools, including Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) Metapragmatic Questionnaires, Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs at the upper-intermediate who participated in MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also asked to reflect on their evaluation and refusal performance in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs frequently chose to resist 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 affordances. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment.
The MQ data was analyzed in order to determine the participants' actual choices. The data was categorized according Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared their choices made by the participants with their linguistic performance using DCTs in order to determine if they are indicative of pragmatic resistance. The interviewees were asked to justify their choice of pragmatic behavior in a given situation.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analyzed with descriptive statistics and Z tests. The CLKs were found use euphemistic words like "sorry" or "thank you". This was probably due to their lack experience with the target languages, which led to an inadequate understanding of korean pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs' preference for converging to L1 norms or diverging from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varies according to the DCT situations. In situations 3 and 12 CLKs preferred diverging from both L1- and L2-pragmatic norms, while in Situation 14 CLKs preferred a convergence 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 within two days of the participants completing the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, then coded by two independent coders. The coding process was an iterative process in which the coders listened and discussed each transcript. The results of the coding process are compared with the original RI transcripts to determine whether they captured the underlying pragmatic behavior.
Refusal Interviews
The most important problem in the field of pragmatic research is: Why do some learners decide to not accept native-speaker norms? Recent research sought to answer this question using a variety of experimental tools including DCTs MQs and RIs. The participants were comprised of 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. Participants were asked to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or their L2. 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 CLKs on average, did not conform to the patterns of native speakers in more than 40 percent of their responses. They did this despite the fact that they could produce native-like patterns. They were also aware of their pragmatism resistance. They attributed their choices to learner-internal factors like their personalities and identities that are multilingual, as well as ongoing life histories. They also referred external factors, like relational benefits. For example, they described how their relationships with professors led to more relaxed performance in regards to the linguistic and intercultural standards of their university.
The interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and 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 unintelligent. This is similar to the concerns expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are no longer the default preference of Korean learners. They may still be useful for official Korean proficiency testing. However, it is prudent for future researchers to revisit their usefulness in particular situations and in various contexts. This will help them better understand the effect of different cultural environments on the classroom behavior and interactions of students from L2. Additionally it will assist educators to create more effective methods for teaching and testing the korea-based pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi, principal advisor at Stratways Group in Seoul, is a geopolitical risks consultancy.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigative technique that employs participant-centered, in-depth investigations to investigate a particular subject. This method makes use of multiple data sources like interviews, observations, and documents, to support its findings. This kind of research is ideal for studying specific or complex subjects that are difficult to quantify using other methods.
In a case study, the first step is to clearly define both the subject and the goals of the study. This will help determine what aspects of the subject matter are crucial to study and which could be left out. It is also useful to study the research to gain a broad understanding of the subject and put the issue within a larger theoretical framework.
This case study was based upon an open-source platform called the KMMLU Leaderboard [50], along with its Korean-specific benchmarks HyperCLOVA X and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the experiment showed that L2 Korean students were extremely vulnerable to native models. They tended to select wrong answers that were literal interpretations of prompts, which were not based on the correct pragmatic inference. They also had a strong tendency of adding their own words or "garbage" to their responses. This also lowered the quality of their answers.
The participants in this study were L2 Korean students who had reached the level of four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their third or second year at university and hoped to achieve level six on their next attempt. They were asked to answer questions about their WTC/SPCC as well as pragmatic awareness and comprehension.
Interviewees were presented with two scenarios which involved interactions with their counterparts and asked to choose one of the strategies below to use when making a demand. Interviewees were then asked to justify their decision. Most participants attributed their pragmatic opposition to their personality. For instance, TS claimed that she was difficult to connect to, and so she was reluctant to inquire about the health of her interlocutors despite having a heavy workload despite her belief that native Koreans would do so.