Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to the learner-internal aspects, CLKs' awareness of pragmatic resistance and the relational affordances they had access to were crucial. For instance, RIs from TS and ZL both have cited their relationships with their local professors as an important factor in their pragmatic choice to not criticize a strict professor (see the example 2).
This article reviews all local pragmatic research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on practical important topics such as:
Discourse Construction Tests
The discourse completion test is a common tool in the field of pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but it also has some disadvantages. The DCT for instance, cannot account cultural and individual differences. Additionally, the DCT is prone to bias and can cause overgeneralizations. It is important to carefully analyze the data before it is used for research or evaluation.
Despite its limitations the DCT is a valuable tool for analyzing the connection between prosody, information structure, and non-native speakers. The ability to manipulate social variables that affect politeness in two or more steps can be a strength. This feature can help researchers study the role of prosody in communication across different cultural contexts, a major challenge in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics, the DCT is now one of the most important tools for analyzing learners' behaviors in communication. It can be used to investigate a variety of issues that include politeness, turn-taking, and lexical selection. It can be used to evaluate the phonological difficulty of learners' speech.
Recent research used an DCT as tool to evaluate the refusal skills of EFL students. The participants were given a list of scenarios and were asked to select an appropriate response from the choices provided. The researchers discovered that the DCT to be more effective than other methods for refusing, such as videos or questionnaires. However, the researchers warned that the DCT should be used with caution and should include other methods for collecting data.
DCTs are usually created with specific linguistic requirements in mind, like content and form. These criterion are intuitive and based on the assumptions of the test developers. They are not necessarily precise, and they could misrepresent the way that ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue requires more study on alternative methods for testing refusal competence.
In a recent research study, DCT responses to student inquiries via email were compared to those from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCTs preferred more direct and conventionally-indirect request forms and utilized hints less than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study examined Chinese learners' pragmatic decisions regarding their use of Korean by using a range of experimental tools, such as Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) as well as metapragmatic questionnaires and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs of intermediate or higher ability who responded to DCTs and MQs. They were also asked to reflect on their evaluation and refusal performance in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs are more likely to resist native Korean norms of pragmatism. Their choices were influenced primarily by four factors that included their personalities and multilingual identities, their current lives as well as their relationships. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data were analyzed to determine the participants' choices in terms of their pragmatics. The data were classified according to Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared the selections with their linguistic performance on the DCTs in order to determine if they were a sign of pragmatic resistance. In addition, the interviewees were asked to explain their decision to use pragmatic language in a specific situation.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analyzed with descriptive statistics and Z tests. It was found that the CLKs frequently resorted to euphemistic responses such as "sorry" and "thank you." This could be due to their lack of experience with the target language, which led to a lack of knowledge of korea pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preferences for converging to L1 or diverging from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varies according to the DCT situations. For example, in Situation 3 and 12, the CLKs preferred to diverge from both L1 and pragmatic norms while in Situation 14 they favored a convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed that the CLKs were aware their own pragmatism in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-to-one basis in the space of two days of participants having completed the MQs. The RIs were transcribed and recorded by two coders independent of each other, were then coded. The coding process was an iterative process in which the coders read and discussed each transcript. The coding results were then contrasted with the original RI transcripts, which provided an indication of how well the RIs accurately portrayed the core behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
The central issue in research on pragmatics is: why do some learners decide to not accept native-speaker norms? Recent research attempted 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. They were asked to complete the DCTs in their native language and complete the MQs either in their L1 or their L2. They were then invited to an RI, where they were asked to think about and discuss their responses to each DCT situation.
The results showed that CLKs, on average, did not follow the pragmatic norms of native speakers in more than 40% of their responses. They did this despite the fact that they could create native-like patterns. In addition, they were conscious of their own pragmatism. They attributed their resistance to learner-internal factors like their identities and personalities as well as multilingual identities. They also referred to external factors, like relationship affordances. They described, for example, how their relationships with their professors allowed them to perform better in terms of the cultural and linguistic standards of their university.
However, the interviewees also expressed concerns about the social pressures and consequences they could be subjected to if they strayed from their social norms. They were worried that their native interactants might perceive them as "foreigners" and believe they are unintelligent. This worry was similar to that expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are not the default preference of Korean learners. They could still be useful for official Korean proficiency testing. Future researchers should consider reassessing the validity of these tests in various contexts and in particular situations. This will allow them to better comprehend how different environments could affect the practical behavior of learners in the classroom and beyond. This will also aid educators create better methods for teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor at Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is a method that employs intensive, participant-centered research to explore a particular subject. This method uses numerous sources of information like interviews, observations and documents, to confirm its findings. 프라그마틱 이미지 of investigation can be used to examine complicated or unique topics that are difficult for other methods to assess.
The first step in a case study is to define the subject matter and the purpose of the study. This will allow you to determine which aspects of the subject matter are essential to study and which could be left out. It is also helpful to review existing literature related to the subject to gain a broad understanding of the topic and place the case in a broader theoretical context.
This case study was based upon an open-source platform called the KMMLU Leaderboard [50], along with its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this experiment showed that L2 Korean learners were particularly dependent on the influence of native models. They were more likely to select incorrect answer options that were literal interpretations. This was a deviance from a precise pragmatic inference. They also exhibited a strong 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 L2 Korean learners who had attained level 4 on the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at their second or third year at university and were aiming for level 6 in their next attempt. They were questioned about their WTC/SPCC, their pragmatic awareness and understanding and knowledge of the world.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations involving an interaction with their co-workers and were asked to choose one of the strategies below to employ when making a demand. They were then asked to explain the reasoning behind their choice. Most of the participants attributed their rational opposition to their personality. For example, TS claimed that she was difficult to connect to, and so she refused to ask about the well-being of her friend with an intense workload despite her belief that native Koreans would do this.