Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal factors CLKs' awareness of their own resistance to change and the social ties they were able to draw from were crucial. Researchers from TS and ZL, for example mentioned their relationships with their local professors as a key factor in their pragmatic decision to avoid criticism of a strict professor (see examples 2).
This article reviews all local practical research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on core pragmatic topics including:
Discourse Construction Tests
The discourse completion test is a common tool in pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages but it also has its disadvantages. The DCT is one example. It cannot account cultural and individual differences. The DCT can also be biased and result in overgeneralizations. It is essential to analyze it carefully 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 of the DCT in two or more stages to influence social variables related to politeness could be a benefit. This feature can help researchers understand the role of prosody in communication across different cultural contexts, a key issue in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics, the DCT has become one of the primary tools for analyzing learners' behaviors in communication. It can be used to examine various aspects that include politeness, turn taking, and lexical selection. It can also be used to determine the phonological complexity of learners speaking.
A recent study employed the DCT to assess EFL students' ability to resist. Participants were given a set of scenarios to choose from and then asked to choose the appropriate response. The researchers discovered that the DCT to be more effective than other refusal methods, such as videos or questionnaires. However, the researchers warned that the DCT should be used with caution and should include other methods for collecting data.
DCTs can be developed using specific requirements for linguistics, such as form and content. 프라그마틱 are based on intuition and based on the assumptions of the test creators. They are not always precise and could misrepresent how ELF learners actually respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further research on different methods of assessing the ability to refuse.
A recent study has compared DCT responses to requests submitted by students through email with those obtained from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCT was more direct and traditionally indirect request forms and a lower use of hints than the email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study explored Chinese learners' choices in their use of Korean through a variety of experimental tools, such as Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) as well as metapragmatic questionnaires and Refusal Interviews (RIs). The participants were 46 CLKs of upper intermediate level who answered DCTs, MQs, and RIs. They were also asked to provide reflections on their evaluations and refusals in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs often chose to reject native Korean pragmatism norms. Their decisions were influenced primarily by four factors such as their personality and multilingual identities, their ongoing life experiences, as well as their relationships. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment.
The MQ data were analyzed to identify the participants' rational choices. The data was classified according to Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared their choices with their linguistic performance on DCTs to determine if they were a sign of resistance to pragmatics. The interviewees also had to explain why they chose the pragmatic approach in certain situations.
The results of the MQs and DCTs were then analyzed using descriptive statistics and z-tests. It was discovered that the CLKs frequently resorted to euphemistic responses such as "sorry" and "thank you." This was likely due to their lack of experience with the target language, which resulted in an inadequate knowledge of korea pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs' preferences for either converging to L1 norms or diverging from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varied by 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 revealed that CLKs were aware of their practical resistance to each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-toone within two days after the participants completed the MQs. The RIs, which were transcribed and recorded by two coders who were independent and then coded. The code was re-coded repeatedly, with the coders re-reading and discussing each transcript. The coding results were then evaluated against the original RI transcripts, giving an indication of how well the RIs were able to capture the fundamental behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
The key issue in research on pragmatics is: why do some learners decide to not accept native-speaker norms? Recent research sought to answer this question by using several experimental tools including DCTs MQs and RIs. The participants comprised 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. They were asked to perform the DCTs in their native language and complete the MQs either in their L1 or their L2. 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 disapproved of native-speaker pragmatic norms in over 40% of their responses. They did this even though they could create patterns that resembled native ones. In addition, they were aware of their pragmatic resistance. They attributed their actions to learner-internal aspects such as their identities, personalities and identities that are multilingual, as well as ongoing life experiences. They also referred to external factors, such as relational advantages. They also discussed, for instance, how their relations with their professors enabled them to function more easily in terms of the cultural and linguistic norms at their university.
The interviewees expressed their concern about the social pressures or consequences they could be subject to if their local social norms were violated. They were concerned that their local friends might consider them "foreigners" and think they are unintelligent. This is similar to the one expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are no longer the preferred choice of Korean learners. They may still be useful for official Korean proficiency tests. Future researchers should consider reassessing the applicability of these tests in various cultural contexts and specific situations. This will enable them to better understand how different cultural environments can affect the pragmatic behavior of L2 learners in the classroom and beyond. This will also assist educators to improve their methods of teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor for Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigational strategy that relies on participant-centered, deep investigations to explore a specific subject. It is a method that utilizes multiple data sources to back up the findings, such as interviews, observations, documents, and artifacts. This kind of research is useful for examining complicated or unique subjects which are difficult to assess with other methods.
The first step in a case study is to define the subject and the goals of the study. This will help determine which aspects of the subject matter are crucial for investigation and which ones can be omitted. It is also useful to read the literature to gain a better knowledge of the subject and place the situation in a wider theoretical context.
This case study was based upon an open-source platform called the KMMLU Leaderboard [50], as well as its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the experiment showed that L2 Korean students were extremely vulnerable to native models. They were more likely to pick incorrect answers that were literal interpretations. This was a deviance from accurate pragmatic inference. They also showed an unnatural tendency to include their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, further reducing their quality of response.
The participants of this study were L2 Korean students who had achieved level four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their third or second year at university and hoped to reach level six by their next attempt. They were questioned about their WTC/SPCC, their pragmatic awareness and understanding perception of the world.
Interviewees were presented with two scenarios which involved interactions with their counterparts and were asked to choose one of the strategies below to employ when making an offer. They were then asked to explain the reasoning behind their choice. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatist opposition to their personality. TS for instance, claimed that she was difficult to get along with and was hesitant to inquire about her interlocutor's well-being when they had a lot of work despite the fact that she thought native Koreans would.