Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' awareness and capacity to draw on relational affordances, as well as learning-internal factors, were significant. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both mentioned their relationships with their local professors as a significant reason for them to choose to avoid expressing criticism of an uncompromising professor (see the example 2).
This article reviews all locally published pragmatic research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on core practical issues, including:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The test for discourse completion (DCT) is an instrument that is widely used in pragmatic research. It has many strengths but it also has some drawbacks. The DCT for instance, is unable to account for cultural and individual differences. Additionally it is also the case that the DCT is prone to bias and can result in overgeneralizations. As a result, it is important to analyze it carefully before it is used for research or assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a useful instrument to study the relationship between prosody and information structure in non-native speakers. The ability to alter the social variables that are relevant to politeness in two or more steps can be a plus. This characteristic can be utilized to study the impact of prosody across cultural contexts.
In the field linguistics, DCT is one of the most useful tools for analyzing communication behaviors of learners. It can be used to study many issues, such as manner of speaking, turn-taking, and lexical choices. It can also be used to assess the phonological complexity of the learners' speech.
A recent study utilized the DCT to test EFL students' ability to resist. Participants were presented with a variety of scenarios to choose from and then asked to select the most appropriate response. The authors concluded that the DCT was more effective than other refusal measures such as a questionnaire or video recordings. Researchers warned, however, that the DCT must be used with caution. 프라그마틱 슈가러쉬 recommended using other methods for data collection.
DCTs can be developed using specific language requirements, like design and content. These criteria are based on intuition and based upon the assumptions of test creators. They aren't always precise and could misrepresent the way ELF learners respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue requires more research into different methods to assess refusal ability.
In a recent study DCT responses to student inquiries via email were compared to the responses of an oral DCT. The results showed that DCTs preferred more direct and conventionally-indirect requests and utilized less hints than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study explored Chinese learners' pragmatic choices in their use of Korean by using a range of tools that were tested, including Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) Metapragmatic Questionnaires, Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate who participated in MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also asked for reflections on their evaluations and their refusals to participate in RIs. The results showed that CLKs are more likely to reject native Korean pragmatic norms. Their decisions were influenced primarily by four factors: their personalities and multilingual identities, their ongoing life histories as well as their relational affordances. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment.
First, the MQ data were analyzed to determine the participants' rational choices. The data were categorized according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the selections were compared to their linguistic performance in the DCTs to determine whether they were a reflection of pragmatic resistance or not. Interviewees also had to explain why they chose the pragmatic approach in certain situations.
프라그마틱 순위 of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analyzed with 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 is likely due to their lack of familiarity with the target language which led to an insufficient understanding of korea pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preferences to diverge from L1 and 2 norms or to be more convergent towards L1 norms varied based on the DCT circumstances. In Situations 3 and 12 CLKs preferred diverging from both L1- and L2-pragmatic norms, while in Situation 14 CLKs preferred a convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs showed that CLKs knew about their pragmatic resistance to each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-to-one within two days after participants had completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, and then coded by two independent coders. The coding process was iterative 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 captured the underlying pragmatic behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
A key question of pragmatic research is why some learners choose to resist the pragmatic norms of native speakers. A recent study sought to answer this question by employing a variety of research instruments, including DCTs MQs, DCTs 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 their L2. They were then invited to an RI, where they were asked to think about and discuss their responses to each DCT situation.
The results showed that CLKs, on average, did not conform to the patterns of native speakers in more than 40 percent of their responses. They did this despite the fact that they were able to produce patterns that closely resembled native speakers. They were also aware of their pragmatic resistance. They attributed their choices to learner-internal factors such as their personalities, multilingual identities, and ongoing lives. They also referred to external factors, like relational benefits. For example, they described how their relationships with professors helped facilitate an easier performance with respect to the linguistic and intercultural rules of their university.
The interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and penalties they might face when their social norms were violated. They were worried that their native friends may view them as "foreigners” and think they were incompetent. This concern was similar to the concerns voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are not the preferred choice of Korean learners. They could still be useful for official Korean proficiency testing. But it is advisable for future researchers to reassess their relevance in specific scenarios and in various cultural contexts. This will enable them to better know how different cultures could affect the practical behavior of L2 learners in the classroom and beyond. Moreover this will allow educators to develop more effective methodologies for teaching and testing 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 a strategy that utilizes deep, participatory investigations to explore a particular subject. It is a method that uses various sources of information to help support the findings, such as interviews or observations, documents and artifacts. This kind of research is ideal for studying unique or complex subjects that are difficult to measure with other methods.
In a case study, the first step is to define both the subject and the purpose of the study. This will help determine which aspects of the subject matter are essential to study and which are best left out. It is also helpful to read the literature on to the subject to gain a broad understanding of the topic and place the case in a broader theoretical context.
This case study was based on an open source platform that is the KMMLU leaderboard [50], and its Korean-specific benchmarks, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this experiment revealed that L2 Korean learners were highly susceptible to the influence of native models. They were more likely to choose incorrect answer options that were literal interpretations of prompts, thereby ignoring precise pragmatic inference. They also had an unnatural tendency to include their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, further reducing their quality of response.
Additionally, 프라그마틱 순위 in this case study were L2 Korean learners who had achieved level 4 in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at their second or third year at university and were hoping to achieve level 6 for their next test. They were asked to respond to questions about their WTC/SPCC as well as understanding and pragmatic awareness.
The interviewees were given two situations, each involving an imaginary interaction with their co-workers and were asked to select one of the following strategies to use when making an inquiry. The interviewees were asked to justify their decision. Most of the participants attributed their rational opposition to their personality. TS for instance, claimed that she was difficult to talk to and was hesitant to inquire about the health of her co-worker when they had a lot of work, even though she believed native Koreans would.