Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal factors CLKs' awareness of pragmatic resistance and the social ties they had access to were significant. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both cited their local professor relationships as a major factor in their pragmatic choice to avoid criticising an uncompromising professor (see the second example).
This article reviews all local pragmatic research on Korean published until 2020. It focuses on core practical issues, including:
Discourse Construction Tests
The discourse completion test is a popular tool in the field of pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages but it also has a few drawbacks. The DCT is one example. It cannot account cultural and individual variations. Additionally the DCT is susceptible to bias and can result in overgeneralizations. It should be carefully analyzed before being used for research or assessment.
Despite its limitations the DCT is a valuable tool to investigate the relationship between prosody, information structure and non-native speakers. Its ability to use two or more stages to manipulate the social variables that are related to politeness is 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 used for analyzing communication behaviors of learners. It can be used to study numerous issues, like the manner of speaking, turn-taking and the choices made in lexical use. It can be used to evaluate phonological complexity in learners' speech.
A recent study utilized an DCT to evaluate EFL students' refusal skills. Participants were presented with a variety of scenarios to choose from, and were then asked to select the most appropriate response. The authors found that the DCT was more efficient than other methods of refusal such as a questionnaire or video recordings. However, the researchers cautioned that the DCT should be employed with caution and include other methods for collecting data.
DCTs can be designed with specific language requirements, like the form and content. These criteria are based on intuition and based on the assumptions of test designers. They aren't always correct, and they could misrepresent the way that ELF learners actually resist requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further investigation into alternative methods of measuring refusal competence.
In a recent study, DCT responses to student inquiries via email were compared to the responses from an oral DCT. The results showed that the DCT promoted more direct and conventionally form-based requests, and a lesser use of hints than the email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners' pragmatic choices when using Korean. It used various tools for experimentation such as Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions, and Refusal Interviews. The participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate who participated in MQs, DCTs and RIs. They were also required to provide reflections on their evaluations and their refusals to participate in RIs. The results showed that CLKs often resisted native Korean pragmatic norms, and their decisions were influenced by four main factors that included their personalities, multilingual identities, their ongoing lives, and their relational benefits. These findings have implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data were analysed to identify the participants' choices in terms of their pragmatics. The data was classified according to Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the choices were compared with their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine whether they were a reflection of pragmatic resistance or not. Additionally, the participants were asked to justify 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. The CLKs were found use euphemistic words like "sorry" or "thank you". This was probably due to their lack of familiarity with the target languages, leading to an inadequate understanding of korean pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preferences to diverge from L1 and L2 norms or to be more convergent toward L1 differed based on the DCT circumstances. 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 also revealed the CLKs were aware of their pragmatism in every DCT situation. The RIs were conducted on a one-to-one basis within two days of participants completing the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, and then coded by two independent coders. The coders worked in an iterative manner, with the coders re-reading and discussing each transcript. 프라그마틱 환수율 of the coding process are evaluated against the original RI transcripts to determine if they captured the underlying pragmatic behavior.
Interviews for refusal
One of the major questions in pragmatic research is why learners are hesitant to adhere to the pragmatic norms of native speakers. Recent research has attempted to answer this question with various experiments, 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 their 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, on average, the CLKs resisted native-speaker pragmatic norms in over 40% of their answers. They did this even though they could produce native-like patterns. They were also aware of their pragmatism resistance. They attributed their choice to learner-internal factors like their identities and personalities as well as multilingual identities. They also mentioned external factors, like relationship affordances. They also discussed, for instance how their relationships with their professors allowed them to perform more comfortably in terms of the cultural and linguistic standards of their university.
However, the interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and punishments they could be subject to if they violated the local social norms. They were worried that their native friends would perceive them as "foreigners" and believe that they are unintelligent. This was a concern similar to the concerns voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native speakers' pragmatic norms are not the default preference for Korean learners. They could still be useful as a model for official Korean proficiency tests. But it is advisable for future researchers to revisit their usefulness in particular situations and in different cultural contexts. This will allow them to better know how different cultures may impact the pragmatic behavior of L2 students in the classroom and beyond. This will also aid educators create better methods for teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi, principal advisor at Stratways Group in Seoul, is a geopolitical risk consulting.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigational strategy that uses participant-centered, in-depth investigations to explore a specific subject. This method uses multiple data sources, such as documents, interviews, and observations to support its findings. This kind of research is useful when analyzing specific or complex subjects that are difficult to measure using other methods.
The first step in conducting a case study is to clearly define the subject matter and the purpose of the study. This will help determine what aspects of the subject matter are crucial for research and which are best left out. It is also beneficial to study the literature that is relevant to the topic to gain a better understanding of the subject and place the case within a wider theoretical framework.
This case study was built on an open-source platform, the KMMLU Leaderboard [50] along with its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X, and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this study revealed that L2 Korean learners were highly susceptible to the influence of native models. They were more likely to select incorrect answers that were literal interpretations of prompts, which were not based on the correct pragmatic inference. They also had an unnatural tendency to add their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, which further hampered their response quality.
The participants of this study were all L2 Korean students who had reached level four on 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 questions about their WTC/SPCC, their pragmatic awareness and understanding knowledge of the world.
The interviewees were given two scenarios, each of which involved a hypothetical interaction with their interlocutors and asked to choose one of the following strategies to use when making an inquiry. They were then asked to provide the reasons behind their decision. Most of the participants attributed their rational opposition to their personality. For example, 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 the fact that she believed that native Koreans would do so.