Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal influences, CLKs' awareness of pragmatic resistance and the relationship advantages they had access to were significant. RIs from TS & ZL, for example were able to cite their relationship with their local professor as a major factor in their decision to stay clear of criticism of a strict professor (see examples 2).
This article reviews all local published pragmatic research on Korean up to 2020. It focuses on the practical core 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 also a few disadvantages. The DCT, for example, does not take into account individual and cultural variations. Additionally the DCT is susceptible to bias and could result in overgeneralizations. Therefore, it must be carefully analyzed before it is used for research or assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations the DCT is a useful tool to investigate the relationship between prosody, information structure, and non-native speakers. The ability to alter social variables that affect politeness in two or more steps can be a plus. This characteristic can be utilized to study the role of prosody in various cultural contexts.
In the field of linguistics, DCT is one of the most effective tools for analyzing communication behaviors of learners. It can be used to investigate various issues such as politeness, turn taking, and lexical choice. It can be used to assess phonological complexity in learners speaking.
Recent research utilized a DCT as a tool to assess the ability to resist of EFL students. Participants were presented with a variety of scenarios to choose from and then asked to select the appropriate response. The researchers found that the DCT was more effective than other refusal measures, including a questionnaire and video recordings. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be used with caution and should include other data collection methods.
DCTs can be designed with specific requirements for linguistics, such as form and content. These criterion are intuitive and is based on the assumptions made by the test creators. They aren't always accurate and may misrepresent how ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further research on alternative methods of testing refusal competence.
A recent study examined DCT responses to requests submitted by students via email versus the responses gathered from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCT was more direct and traditionally form-based requests, and a lesser use of hints than email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners making pragmatic choices when using Korean. It used various tools for experimentation such as Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions and Refusal Interviews. Participants were 46 CLKs at the upper intermediate level who answered DCTs, MQs, and RIs. They were also asked to reflect on their evaluation and refusal responses in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs are more likely to defy native Korean pragmatic norms. Their decisions were influenced primarily by four factors that included their personalities and multilingual identities, their current lives and their relationships. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
First, the MQ data were analysed to identify the participants' pragmatic choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared the selections with their linguistic performance on DCTs to determine if they were indicative of pragmatic resistance. The interviewees were asked to explain their choice of pragmatic behavior in a particular situation.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and Z tests. It was found that the CLKs frequently resorted to the use of euphemistic phrases such as "sorry" and "thank you." This was 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 or dissociating from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varies according to the DCT situations. For instance, in Situations 3 and 12 the CLKs would prefer to diverge from both L1 as well as L2 pragmatic norms, whereas in Situation 14 they favored a convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs showed that CLKs knew about their practical resistance to each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-to-one within two days of the participants had completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, then coded by two coders who were independent. The coders worked in an iterative manner and involved the coders reading and discussing each transcript. The results of the coding process are evaluated against the original RI transcripts to determine how well they captured the underlying pragmatic behavior.
Refusal Interviews
One of the most important questions in pragmatic research is the reason why learners choose to resist pragmatic norms that native speakers use. A recent study attempted to answer this question by employing a variety of research instruments, including DCTs, MQs and RIs. Participants included 46 CLKs and 44 CNSs from five Korean Universities. The participants were asked to complete the DCTs and MQs in their L1 or L2 levels. 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, on average, the CLKs disapproved of the pragmatic norms of native speakers in more than 40% of their responses. They did this even though they could create native-like patterns. They were also aware of their pragmatic resistance. They attributed their resistance to learner-internal factors like their personality and multilingual identities. They also mentioned external factors like relational affordances. For instance, they outlined how their relationships with professors helped facilitate an easier performance in regards to the linguistic and intercultural standards of their university.
However, the interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and consequences that they might be subjected to if they strayed from the local social norms. They were worried that their native friends might view them as "foreignersand consider them incompetent. This was a concern similar to the concerns expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker practical norms are no longer the default preference of Korean learners. They could still be useful for official Korean proficiency tests. But it would be prudent for future researchers to reassess their applicability in specific situations and in various cultural contexts. This will help them better understand the effect of different cultural contexts on the behavior of students and classroom interactions of L2 students. Moreover it will assist educators to create more effective methods to teach and test 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 an investigative strategy that uses participant-centered, in-depth investigations to explore a specific subject. This method utilizes numerous sources of information including interviews, observations and documents to confirm its findings. This type of investigation is ideal for studying specific or complex subjects which are difficult to assess with other methods.
The first step in a case study is to define the subject matter and the purpose of the study. This will help determine which aspects of the subject are important for research and which are best left out. It is also beneficial to read the literature on to the subject to gain a greater knowledge of the subject and place the case within a wider theoretical framework.
This study was based on an open-source platform, the KMMLU Leaderboard [50], and its Korean-specific benchmarks HyperCLOVA X, and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the experiment revealed that L2 Korean students were extremely vulnerable to native models. 프라그마틱 tended to select wrong answer choices that were literal interpretations of prompts, deviating from accurate pragmatic inference. They also showed a strong tendency to include 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 reached level 4 on the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at their second or third year at university and were aiming for level 6 on their next attempt. They were asked to respond to questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, as well as comprehension and pragmatic awareness.
The interviewees were given two scenarios, each involving an imaginary interaction with their interlocutors and asked to choose one of the following strategies to employ when making a request. The interviewees were asked to justify their choice. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatist opposition to their personality. For instance, TS claimed that she was difficult to talk to, and so she refused to ask about the health of her interlocutors despite having a heavy workload, even though she believed that native Koreans would do so.