Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in KoreanCLKs' awareness and ability to tap into the benefits of relationships, as well as learner-internal elements, were important. Researchers from TS ZL for instance mentioned their local professor relationship as the primary reason for their rational decision to avoid criticism of a strict professor (see examples 2).
This article reviews all local practical research on Korean up to 2020. It focuses on key pragmatic topics including:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The discourse completion test is a common instrument in pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but also some disadvantages. For example it is that the DCT cannot take into account the cultural and individual variations in communication. Furthermore the DCT is prone to bias and can cause overgeneralizations. It is important to carefully analyze the data before it is used in research or evaluation.
Despite its limitations, the DCT can be a valuable tool to study the relationship between prosody and information structure in non-native speakers. The ability to manipulate the social variables that are relevant to politeness in two or more steps can be a strength. This ability can be used to study the effect of prosody in different cultural contexts.
In the field linguistics, DCT is one of the most useful tools to analyze the communication habits of learners. It can be used to investigate a variety of issues such as politeness, turn taking, and lexical choice. It can also be used to determine the phonological complexity of learners speaking.
Recent research utilized a DCT as an instrument to test the skills of refusal among EFL students. Participants were presented with a list of scenarios and required to choose a suitable response from the options provided. The researchers found the DCT to be more effective than other refusal methods like the use of a questionnaire or video recordings. The researchers cautioned that the DCT should be employed with caution. They also recommended using other methods for data collection.
DCTs are usually designed with specific linguistic criteria in mind, such as content and form. These criteria are based on intuition and based upon the assumptions of test creators. They are not always precise and could misrepresent the way ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for more research into alternative methods of assessing the ability to refuse.
A recent study has compared DCT responses to requests made by students through email with the responses gathered from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCTs favored more direct and conventionally-indirect request forms and utilized less hints than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study examined Chinese learners' pragmatic choices when using Korean. It employed a variety of experimental tools including Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions, and Refusal Interviews. Participants were 46 CLKs of upper intermediate level who answered MQs, DCTs and RIs. They were also required to provide reflections on their opinions and refusals in RIs. The results showed that CLKs frequently chose to reject native Korean pragmatic norms. Their decisions were influenced primarily by four factors such as their personality and multilingual identities, their ongoing life histories, as well as their relationship affordances. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
First, the MQ data were analyzed to determine the participants' pragmatic choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared their choices with their linguistic performance using DCTs to determine if they are indicative of a pragmatic resistance. Interviewees were also required to explain why they chose the pragmatic approach in certain situations.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and z tests. It was found that the CLKs frequently used euphemistic responses such as "sorry" and "thank you." This is likely due to their lack of familiarity with the target language which led to an insufficient understanding of korea pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs' preference for converging to L1 norms or dissociating from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varies according to the DCT situations. In the scenarios 3 and 12 CLKs favored diverging from both L1pragmatic norms - and L2-pragmatic norms while in Situation 14, CLKs preferred convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs revealed that CLKs were aware of their logical resistance to every DCT situation. The RIs were conducted on a one-to-one basis within two days of the participants completing the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, then coded by two coders who were independent. The coders worked in an iterative manner by the coders, re-reading and discussing each transcript. The results of the coding process are contrasted with the original RI transcripts to determine whether they reflected the actual behavior.
Interviews for refusal
The most important question in pragmatic research is: Why do certain learners decide to not accept native-speaker norms? Recent research attempted to answer this question with a variety of experimental tools, including DCTs MQs and RIs. The participants comprised 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. They were required to complete the DCTs in their first language and to complete the MQs either in their L1 or L2. Then, they were invited to attend a RI where they were required to consider their responses to the DCT situations.
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 were able to create patterns that were similar to natives. They were aware of their practical resistance. They attributed their choice to learner-internal factors such as their identities and personalities as well as multilingual identities. They also referred to external factors such as relational advantages. For 프라그마틱 정품확인 (Going Here) instance, they discussed how their relationships with professors helped facilitate an easier performance with respect to the intercultural and linguistic norms of their university.
The interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and penalties they could face when their social norms were not followed. They were worried that their native interactants might perceive them as "foreigners" and believe that they are not intelligent. This is similar to that expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker practical norms are no longer the norm for Korean learners. They could still be a useful model for official Korean proficiency tests. But it would be prudent for future researchers to revisit their relevance in specific scenarios and in various contexts. This will enable them to better know how different cultures can affect the pragmatic behavior of learners in the classroom and beyond. This will also aid educators improve their methods of teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor at Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based out of Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is a method that focuses on deep, participatory investigations to explore a particular subject. This method uses various sources of data, such as documents, interviews, and observations to confirm its findings. This type of investigation is ideal for studying complicated or unique subjects that are difficult to quantify with other methods.
In a case study the first step is to define both the subject and the objectives of the study. This will help determine which aspects of the subject matter are essential for research and which are best left out. It is also beneficial to review existing literature related to the topic to gain a better understanding of the subject and place the case study within a larger theoretical context.
This case study was based upon an open-source platform, the KMMLU Leaderboard [50], as well as its Korean-specific benchmarks HyperCLOVA X, and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this study revealed that L2 Korean learners were extremely dependent on the influence of native models. They were more likely to select incorrect answers, which were literal interpretations. This was a departure from accurate pragmatic inference. They also had a strong tendency to add their own words or "garbage" to their responses. This also lowered the quality of their answers.
Additionally, the participants in this case study were primarily L2 Korean learners who had attained level 4 on the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at the end of their second or third year of university and were aiming for level 6 in their next attempt. They were questioned about their WTC/SPCC, pragmatic awareness, understanding knowledge of the world.
Interviewees were presented with two scenarios that involved interaction with their counterparts and asked to choose one of the strategies listed below to use when making demands. Interviewees were then asked to justify their choice. Most of the participants attributed their pragmatism to their personalities. For example, TS claimed that she was difficult to connect to, and so she refused to ask about the health of her interlocutors despite having the burden of a job, even though she believed that native Koreans would ask.
