Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' understanding and ability to draw on relational affordances and learner-internal elements, were important. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both mentioned their relationships with their local professors as a significant reason for them to choose to avoid criticising a strict professor (see example 2).
This article reviews all local published pragmatic research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on key pragmatic topics including:
Discourse Construction Tests
The test for discourse completion is a popular tool in the field of pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but it also has some disadvantages. For instance, the DCT cannot account for cultural and individual variations in communication. Furthermore the DCT is prone to bias and may 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 manipulate the social variables that are related to politeness could be a benefit. This can assist researchers understand the role of prosody in communication across different cultural contexts, which is a major issue in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics, the DCT has emerged as one of the most important instruments for analyzing learners' behavior in communication. It can be used to investigate many issues, such as manner of speaking, turn-taking, and the use of lexical terms. It can also be used to assess the phonological complexity of the learners' speech.
A recent study employed the DCT to evaluate EFL students' ability to resist. Participants were given various scenarios and asked to select an appropriate response from the options offered. The researchers found that the DCT was more effective than other refusal measures, including a questionnaire and video recordings. The researchers cautioned that the DCT should be employed with caution. They also suggested using other data collection methods.
DCTs can be designed with specific requirements for linguistics, such as the form and content. These criteria are intuitive and based upon the assumptions of test designers. They may not be correct, and they could misrepresent the way that ELF learners actually refuse requests in actual interactions. This issue calls for further research on alternative methods of measuring refusal competence.
A recent study compared DCT responses to requests submitted by students via email with those obtained from an oral DCT. The results revealed that the DCT promoted more direct and traditionally form-based requests and a lower use of hints than email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners' decisions regarding their use of Korean using a variety of experimental tools, such as Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) as well as metapragmatic questionnaires and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs of upper intermediate level who answered MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also asked to reflect on their evaluation and refusal responses in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs often resisted native Korean pragmatic norms, and their choices were influenced by four main factors such as their personalities, their multilingual identities, ongoing life histories, and relationship benefits. These findings have pedagogical consequences for L2 Korean assessment.
The MQ data were analyzed to determine the participants' choices in terms of their pragmatics. The data was categorized according Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, Pragmatic KR compared the choices made by the participants with their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine if they are indicative of pragmatic resistance. Interviewees also had to explain why they chose a pragmatic behavior in certain situations.
The findings of the MQs and DCTs were then analysed using descriptive statistics and z-tests. It was discovered that the CLKs often resorted to phrases like "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. The results showed that the CLKs' preference for converging to L1 norms 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 showed that CLKs were aware of their logical resistance to every DCT situation. The RIs were conducted in a one-to-one manner within two days after participants completed the MQs. The RIs, which were transcribed and recorded by two independent coders, were then coded. Coding was an iterative process in which the coders read and discussed each transcript. The results of coding were evaluated against the original RI transcripts, giving an indication of how the RIs accurately portrayed the core behaviors.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
The central issue in research on pragmatics is: Why do certain learners choose not to accept native-speaker norms? Recent research has attempted to answer this question by 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. The participants were asked to complete the DCTs and MQs in their L1 or 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 follow the pragmatic 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 choices to learner-internal aspects such as their personalities and identities that are multilingual, as well as ongoing life experiences. They also mentioned external factors such as relational advantages. For example, they described how their relationships with professors led to more relaxed performance in regards to the intercultural and linguistic standards of their university.
The interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures or consequences they might face if their local social norms were not followed. They were worried that their native friends might view them as "foreignersand believe that they are ignorant. This concern was similar to the concerns voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker practical 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 applicability of these tests in various cultural contexts and in specific situations. This will enable them to better understand how different cultural environments can affect the pragmatic behavior of learners in the classroom and beyond. This will also assist educators to develop better methods for teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi, principal advisor at Stratways Group in Seoul, is a geopolitical risks consultancy.
Case Studies
The case study method is a research method that employs deep, participatory investigations to investigate a specific topic. It is a method that uses numerous sources of data to help support the findings, such as interviews or observations, documents and artifacts. This kind of research is ideal for studying specific or complex subjects which are difficult to assess using other methods.
In a case study the first step is to define both the subject and the goals of the study. This will allow you to determine which aspects of the topic are important to investigate and which can be omitted. It is also beneficial to review existing literature related to the subject to gain a broad understanding of the subject and place the case study in a broader theoretical context.
This case study was based on an open source platform that is the KMMLU leaderboard [50], and its benchmarks that are specific to Korea, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the study revealed that L2 Korean students were extremely vulnerable to native models. They tended to select wrong answer options that were literal interpretations of prompts, which were not based on accurate pragmatic inference. They also had an unnatural tendency to add their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, further reducing their response quality.
The participants of this study were L2 Korean students who had reached the level of four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their second or third year at university and hoped to attain level six on their next attempt. They were asked to respond to questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, as well as understanding and pragmatic awareness.
Interviewees were presented with two scenarios involving an interaction with their interlocutors and were asked to choose one of the strategies below to employ when making demands. They were then asked to explain the reasoning behind their choice. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatist opposition to their personalities. For instance, TS claimed that she was difficult to talk to, and she therefore did not want to inquire about the health of her interlocutors despite having the burden of a job despite her belief that native Koreans would ask.