Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' understanding and ability to draw on relational affordances as well as the learner-internal aspects, were crucial. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both mentioned their relationships with their local professors as an important factor in their decision to not criticize the strictness of a professor (see the second example).
This article reviews all locally published practical research on Korean up to 2020. It focuses on key pragmatic issues such as:
Discourse Construction Tests
The test for discourse completion is a popular tool in pragmatic research. It has many advantages but it also has a few drawbacks. The DCT, for example, does not take into account individual and cultural variations. Furthermore the DCT is prone to bias and could cause overgeneralizations. Therefore, it should be analyzed carefully before it is used for research or for assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a useful instrument to study the connection between prosody, information structure, and non-native speakers. The ability of the DCT in two or more stages to manipulate the social variables that are related to politeness can be a strength. This ability can be used to study the effect of prosody in different cultural contexts.
In the field of linguistics, the DCT is now one of the most important instruments for analyzing learners' behavior in communication. It can be used to investigate a variety of issues such as the manner of speaking, turn taking and lexical choice. It can be used to assess phonological complexity in learners' speech.
A recent study used 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 offered. The researchers found the DCT to be more efficient than other methods of refusal like videos or questionnaires. Researchers cautioned, however, that the DCT should be used with caution. They also recommended using other methods for data collection.
DCTs are usually developed with specific linguistic criteria in mind, like content and form. These criteria are intuitive and based upon the assumptions of test designers. They may not be accurate and may misrepresent how ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further research on alternative methods of assessing the ability to refuse.
A recent study compared DCT responses to requests made by students via email versus the responses gathered from an oral DCT. The results showed that DCTs preferred more direct and traditionally indirect requests and utilized more hints than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study looked at Chinese learners their pragmatic choices when they use Korean. It employed various experimental tools such as Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions and Refusal Interviews. The participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate level who responded to MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also asked to reflect on their evaluation and refusal performances in RIs. The results showed that CLKs frequently chose to reject native Korean norms of pragmatism. Their choices were influenced by four factors that included their personalities and multilingual identities, their ongoing life experiences and their relational affordances. These findings have pedagogical consequences for L2 Korean assessment.
First, the MQ data were analysed to identify the participants' rational choices. The data was categorized according Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared the choices with their linguistic performance using DCTs to determine if they were indicative of a pragmatic resistance. Interviewees also had to explain the reasons for choosing an atypical behavior in certain situations.
The results of the MQs and DCTs were then analysed using descriptive statistics and Z-tests. The CLKs were found use euphemistic terms such as "sorry" or "thank you". This is likely due to their lack of experience with the target languages, leading to a lack of understanding of the korean pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs' preferences for converging to L1 norms or diverging from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms differed based on the DCT situations. In situations 3 and 12 CLKs preferred diverging from both L1pragmatic norms - and L2-pragmatic norms while in Situation 14 CLKs favored convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs showed that CLKs knew about their pragmatic resistance to each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-toone within two days after the participants had completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed by two coders who were independent and then coded. The code was re-coded repeatedly and involved the coders reading and discussing each transcript. The coding results were then compared to the original RI transcripts, which gave an indication of how the RIs accurately portrayed the core behaviors.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
One of the major questions in pragmatic research is why some learners choose to resist pragmatic norms that native speakers use. Recent research has attempted to answer this question using a variety of experimental tools, including DCTs MQs and RIs. The participants consisted of 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs, and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. They were asked to perform the DCTs in their native language and to complete the MQs in either their L1 or their L2. They were then invited to an RI where they were required to think about and discuss their responses to each DCT scenario.
The results showed that CLKs on average, did not adhere to the norms of native speakers in more than 40 percent of their responses. They did this even when they could produce patterns that closely resembled natives. They were also aware of their pragmatism. They attributed their decision to learner-internal variables such as their identities and personalities as well as multilingual identities. They also referred to external factors like relational affordances. For instance, they discussed how their relationships with professors led to a more relaxed performance in relation to the intercultural and linguistic norms of their university.
However, the interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and consequences they could be subjected to if they strayed from their social norms. They were concerned that their native interlocutors might perceive them as “foreignersand believe that they are ignorant. This is similar to the one expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native speakers' pragmatic norms are not the preferred norm for Korean learners. They may still be useful for official Korean proficiency testing. Future researchers should reconsider the applicability of these tests in various cultural contexts and specific situations. This will allow them to better understand the effect of different cultural environments on the behavior of students and classroom interactions of students in L2. This will also assist educators to create better methods for teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor for Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based out of Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is a strategy that utilizes intensive, participant-centered research to explore a particular subject. This method utilizes multiple data sources like documents, interviews, and observations, to prove its findings. This type of investigation is useful for examining unique or complex subjects which are difficult to assess with other methods.
The first step in a case study is to define the subject and the objectives of the study. This will allow you to identify what aspects of the subject should be studied and which ones can be skipped. It is also useful to read the research to gain a broad knowledge of the subject and put the issue in a wider theoretical context.
This study was conducted on an open source platform that is the KMMLU leaderboard [50], and its Korean-specific benchmarks, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the study showed that L2 Korean students were extremely susceptible to native models. They were more likely to pick incorrect answer options, which were literal interpretations. This was a departure from the correct pragmatic inference. They also had an unnatural tendency to add their own text or "garbage," to their responses, which further hampered their quality of response.
Additionally, the participants in this study were L2 Korean learners who had achieved level 4 on the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at their second or third year of university and were aiming for level 6 on their next attempt. They were asked questions about their WTC/SPCC, pragmatic awareness and understanding and knowledge of the world.
Interviewees were presented with two scenarios involving an interaction with their co-workers and asked to choose one of the strategies below to use when making a demand. They were then asked to provide the reasoning behind their choice. 프라그마틱 게임 of participants attributed their pragmatist opposition to their personality. For instance, TS claimed that she was difficult to talk to, and she therefore refused to ask about her interactant's well-being with an intense workload despite her belief that native Koreans would do this.
