Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal influences, CLKs' awareness of the need to be pragmatic and the relationship advantages they were able to draw from were important. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both have cited their relationships with their local professors as a major factor in their decision to avoid criticising a strict professor (see the second example).
This article reviews all local pragmatic research on Korean published up to 2020. It focuses on the practical core topics such as:
Discourse Construction Tests
The discourse completion test is a common instrument in pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages, but it also has some disadvantages. The DCT for instance, is unable to account for cultural and individual differences. Additionally the DCT is susceptible to bias and can result in overgeneralizations. As a result, it must be carefully analyzed prior to using it for research or for 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 alter social variables related to politeness could be a benefit. This feature can be used to study the role of prosody in different cultural contexts.
In the field of linguistics, DCT is one of the most useful tools to study the behavior of communication learners. It can be used to study a variety of issues such as politeness, turn taking, and lexical choice. It can also be used to determine the phonological difficulty of learners their speech.
Recent research utilized a DCT as tool to evaluate the refusal skills of EFL students. Participants were given an array of scenarios and were asked to choose the appropriate response from the options provided. The authors concluded that the DCT was more efficient than other methods of refusal that included a questionnaire as well as video recordings. Researchers cautioned, however, that the DCT should be used with caution. They also recommended using other methods of data collection.
DCTs can be designed with specific requirements for linguistics, such as the form and content. These criteria are intuitive and based on the assumptions of the test creators. They aren't always correct, and they could be misleading about the way ELF learners actually resist requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further studies of different methods of assessing the ability to refuse.
In a recent study, DCT responses to student requests via email were compared to the responses of an oral DCT. The results showed that DCTs favored more direct and conventionally-indirect request forms and used hints less than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study examined Chinese learners' decisions regarding their use of Korean by using a range of experimental tools, including Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) as well as metapragmatic questionnaires and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs with upper-intermediate ability who provided responses to MQs and DCTs. They were also asked for reflections on their evaluations and their refusals to participate 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 current lives, as well as their relationship affordances. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment.
The MQ data were analysed to determine the participants' choices in terms of their pragmatics. The data were classified according to Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the responses were matched with their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine if they reflected pragmatic resistance or not. In addition, the interviewees were asked to justify their choices of behavior in a given situation.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and z tests. It was found that CLKs frequently used euphemistic responses such as "sorry" and "thank you." This is likely due to their lack of familiarity with the target language, which led to a lack of understanding of korea pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preferences for converging to L1 norms or dissociating from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varied by the DCT situations. In the scenarios 3 and 12 CLKs preferred diverging from both L1- and L2-pragmatic norms, while in Situation 14 CLKs favored convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs showed that CLKs knew about their logical resistance to every DCT situation. RIs were conducted on a one-to-one basis within a period of two days of participants completing the MQs. The RIs were transcribed and recorded by two coders independent of each other, were then coded. The coders worked in an iterative manner, with the coders re-reading and discussing each transcript. The results of coding are contrasted with the original RI transcripts to determine if they reflected the actual behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
The most important problem in the field of pragmatic research is: why do some learners refuse to accept native-speaker norms? A recent study sought to answer this question by using a variety of experimental tools, such as DCTs, MQs and RIs. Participants included 44 CLKs and 46 CNSs from five Korean Universities. Participants were required to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or L2 levels. 프라그마틱 슬롯 체험 pragmatic kr were then invited to an RI where they were required to reflect on and discuss their responses to each DCT situation.
The results showed that CLKs, on average, did not follow the norms of native speakers in more than 40% of their responses. They did so even though they could create native-like patterns. They were also aware of their pragmatic resistance. They attributed their actions to learner-internal factors like their identities, personalities, multilingual identities, and ongoing life histories. They also spoke of external factors, such as relationships and benefits. They described, for example how their relations with their professors enabled them to function more easily in terms of the linguistic and social expectations of their university.
However, the interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and punishments that they could face if they flouted their local social norms. They were concerned that their native interlocutors might perceive them as “foreigners” and think they were unintelligent. This concern was similar to the concerns expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native speakers pragmatic norms aren't the default preference for Korean learners. They could still be useful for official Korean proficiency testing. Future researchers should consider reassessing the applicability of these tests in different cultural contexts and in specific situations. This will help them better know how different cultures can affect the pragmatic behavior of L2 learners in the classroom and beyond. Additionally this will allow educators to develop more effective methodologies for teaching and testing korea pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor to Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is a research strategy that utilizes in-depth, participant-centered investigations to investigate a specific topic. This method uses various sources of data, such as interviews, observations and documents, to support its findings. This kind of research is ideal for studying specific or complex subjects that are difficult to measure 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 identify what aspects of the subject should be studied and which aspects can be left out. It is also helpful to review the existing literature to gain a general understanding of the subject. It will also help place the case in a larger theoretical context.
This case study was built on an open-source platform, the KMMLU Leaderboard [50], as well as its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X, and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the study revealed that the L2 Korean students were extremely vulnerable to native models. They tended to choose wrong answer choices, which were literal interpretations. This was a deviation from the correct 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.
Moreover, the participants of this case study were primarily L2 Korean learners who had reached level 4 in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at their second or third year of university and were aiming for level 6 for their next test. They were questioned about their WTC/SPCC, their pragmatic awareness and understanding and their knowledge of the world.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations which involved interactions with their co-workers and asked to choose one of the strategies below to employ when making demands. They were then asked to provide the reasoning behind their choice. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatist opposition to their personalities. TS, for example said she was difficult to talk to and would not inquire about her interlocutor's well-being when they were working at a high rate, even though she thought native Koreans would.