Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' awareness and capacity to draw on relational affordances as well as learner-internal elements, were important. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both cited their local professor relationships as a major reason for them to choose to not criticize the strictness of a professor (see the second example).
This article reviews all locally published practical research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on pragmatic important topics such as:
Discourse Construction Tests
The test for discourse completion is a commonly used tool in the field of pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but also a few disadvantages. For instance the DCT is unable to account for cultural and personal variations in communication. The DCT can also be biased and can lead to overgeneralizations. This is why it must be carefully analyzed prior to using it for research or assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a useful tool for investigating the relationship between prosody and information structure in non-native speakers. The ability to alter the social variables that are relevant to the manner of speaking in two or more steps can be a strength. This feature can help researchers to study the role played by prosody in communication across cultural contexts, a major challenge in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics, the DCT is now one of the most important instruments for analyzing learners' communication behaviors. It can be used to analyze numerous issues, like the manner of speaking, turn-taking and the use of lexical terms. It can also be used to determine the phonological difficulty of learners' speech.
A recent study employed an DCT to assess EFL students' refusal skills. Participants were given a set of scenarios to choose from, and were then asked to select the most appropriate response. The researchers discovered that the DCT to be more effective than other methods for refusing, such as videos or questionnaires. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be used with caution and include other data collection methods.
DCTs can be designed with specific linguistic criteria, such as form and content. These criteria are based on intuition and based upon the assumptions of test developers. They may not be precise and could misrepresent the way ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue requires further studies of different methods to assess refusal ability.
In a recent research study, DCT responses to student inquiries via email were compared to the responses from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCTs preferred more direct and traditionally indirect request forms and used hints less than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study explored Chinese learners' pragmatic choices in their use of Korean by using a range of experimental tools, including Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) Metapragmatic Questionnaires, Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate ability who provided responses to MQs and DCTs. They were also asked for reflections on their evaluations and refusals in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs frequently chose to resist native Korean pragmatic norms, and their choices were influenced by four main factors such as their personalities, multilingual identities, ongoing lives, and their relational benefits. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment.
First, the MQ data were analyzed to determine the participants' pragmatic choices. 프라그마틱 불법 were classified according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the choices were compared with their linguistic performance in DCTs to determine if they reflected pragmatic resistance or not. Interviewees also had to explain why they chose an atypical behavior in certain situations.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and z tests. The CLKs were found to employ euphemistic phrases such as "sorry" or "thank you". This was probably due to their lack experience with the target languages, which led to a lack of understanding of the korean pragmatic norms. 프라그마틱 이미지 revealed that CLKs' preferences to diverge from L1 and L2 norms or to move toward L1 differed based on the DCT situations. In Situations 3 and 12 CLKs preferred diverging from both L1- and L2-pragmatic norms, while in Situation 14, CLKs preferred convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed that the CLKs were aware their pragmatic resistance in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted in a one-to-one manner within two days of the participants had completed the MQs. The RIs, which were recorded and transcribed by two coders independent of each other who then coded them. The coding was an iterative process, in which the coders listened and discussed each transcript. The results of coding are compared with the original RI transcripts to determine how well they accurately portrayed the underlying behavior.
Refusal Interviews
A key question of pragmatic research is the reason why learners decide to rescind pragmatic norms that native speakers use. Recent research sought to answer this question using several experiments, including DCTs MQs and RIs. The participants comprised 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. Participants were required to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or L2 levels. Then they were invited to attend a RI where they were asked think about their responses to the DCT situations.
The results showed that, on average, the CLKs resisted native-speaker pragmatic norms in over 40% of their answers. They did this despite the fact that they were able to create patterns that were similar to natives. Furthermore, they were clearly aware of their pragmatic resistance. They attributed their resistance to learner-internal factors like their personality and multilingual identities. They also referred to external factors like relational benefits. For example, they described how their relationships with professors helped facilitate a more relaxed performance in regards to the linguistic and intercultural standards of their university.
The interviewees expressed concerns about the social pressures and penalties they might face when their social norms were violated. They were concerned that their native interactants might perceive them as "foreigners" and believe they are not intelligent. This concern was similar to the concerns expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are no longer the default preference of Korean learners. They may still be a useful model for official Korean proficiency tests. However, it is prudent for future researchers to revisit their usefulness in particular situations and in different cultural contexts. This will help them better understand the impact of different cultures on the classroom behavior and interactions of L2 students. Moreover this will allow educators to develop more effective methodologies to teach and test the korea's pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor for Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigative strategy that relies on participant-centered, deep studies to study a specific subject. It is a method that uses multiple data sources to support the findings, including interviews or observations, documents and artifacts. This type of investigation is useful when analyzing complicated or unique subjects that are difficult to quantify using other methods.
The first step in a case study is to clearly define the subject matter and the purpose of the study. This will help determine which aspects of the subject are important for investigation and which ones can be omitted. It is also useful to review the existing literature to gain a general understanding of the subject and place the situation in a wider theoretical context.
This study was based on an open source platform that is the KMMLU leaderboard [50] and its specific benchmarks for Korea, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the test showed that L2 Korean students were highly susceptible to native models. They were more likely to select incorrect answers that were literal interpretations of the prompts, thereby ignoring precise pragmatic inference. They also had a strong tendency to add their own text or "garbage" to their responses. This further reduced the quality of their answers.
The participants in this study were L2 Korean students who had reached the level of four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their third or second university year and were aiming to achieve level six on their next attempt. They were asked questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, pragmatic awareness and understanding understanding of the world.
Interviewees were presented with two scenarios that involved interaction with their interlocutors and asked to select one of the strategies below to employ when making an offer. They were then asked to explain the reasons behind their decision. The majority of participants attributed their lack of a pragmatic response to their personalities. TS for instance said she was difficult to talk to and was hesitant to ask about the wellbeing of her colleague when they had a lot of work despite the fact that she thought native Koreans would.