Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal influences CLKs' awareness of pragmatic resistance and the social ties they had access to were crucial. For instance, RIs from TS and ZL both mentioned their relationships with their local professors as a significant factor in their pragmatic choice to not criticize an uncompromising professor (see example 2).
This article examines all local research on Korean published until 2020. It focuses on the practical core topics such as:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The test for discourse completion (DCT) is a widely used instrument in pragmatic research. It has many strengths, but it also has its disadvantages. The DCT for instance, is unable to account for cultural and individual variations. Additionally the DCT is susceptible to bias and could cause overgeneralizations. Therefore, it is important to analyze it carefully before it is used for research or assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a valuable tool for analyzing the connection between prosody, information structure and non-native speakers. Its ability in two or more stages to influence social variables that affect politeness could be a benefit. This ability can aid researchers study the role of prosody in communication across different cultural contexts, a major challenge in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field linguistics, DCT is one of the most effective tools used to study the behavior of communication learners. It can be used to study various aspects such as the manner of speaking, turn taking and lexical choices. It can be used to determine the phonological complexity of learners' speech.
A recent study utilized an DCT to assess EFL students' refusal skills. Participants were given various scenarios and required to choose a suitable response from the options provided. The authors concluded that the DCT was more effective than other refusal measures, including a questionnaire and video recordings. Researchers warned, however, that the DCT should be used with caution. They also suggested using other methods of data collection.
DCTs can be developed using specific requirements for linguistics, such as design and content. These criterion are intuitive and is based on the assumptions made by the test designers. They may not be accurate and may misrepresent how ELF learners respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue requires more study on alternative methods for measuring refusal competence.
In a recent research study, DCT responses to student requests via email were compared with the responses of an oral DCT. The results showed that DCTs favored more direct and conventionally-indirect request forms and utilized hints less than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners' pragmatic decisions regarding their use of Korean through a variety 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 to provide reflections on their opinions and refusals in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs were more likely to reject native Korean pragmatic norms, and their choices were influenced by four main factors such as their identities, their multilingual identities, their ongoing life histories, and relational affordances. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
First, the MQ data were analyzed to determine the participants' rational choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared the choices with their linguistic performance on the DCTs in order to determine if they were a sign of pragmatic resistance. The interviewees also had to explain the reasons for choosing an atypical behavior in certain situations.
The findings of the MQs and DCTs were then analysed using descriptive statistics and z-tests. It was found that CLKs often resorted to phrases like "sorry" and "thank you." This was likely due to their lack of experience with the target language, which led to an insufficient understanding of korea pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preferences for either converging to L1 norms or diverging from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms varies according to the DCT situations. For instance, in Situations 3 and 12 the CLKs would prefer to diverge from both L1 and pragmatic norms while in Situation 14, they favored converging to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed CLKs were aware of their own pragmatism in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-to-one within two days after participants had completed the MQs. The RIs, which were transcribed and recorded by two coders independent of each other who then coded them. The code was re-coded repeatedly and involved the coders reading and discussing each transcript. The results of the coding process are evaluated against the original RI transcripts to determine how well they captured the underlying pragmatic behavior.
Interviews with Refusal
One of the most important questions in pragmatic research is why some learners choose to resist native-speaker pragmatic norms. Recent research attempted to answer this question using various experimental tools including DCTs MQs and RIs. Participants included 44 CLKs and 46 CNSs 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 required to reflect on 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 despite the fact that they could create patterns that resembled native ones. They were aware of their practical resistance. They attributed their choices to learner-internal factors such as their identities, personalities, multilingual identities, and ongoing life histories. They also referred external factors, such as relational advantages. For instance, they outlined how their relationships with professors helped facilitate a more relaxed performance with respect to the intercultural and linguistic standards of their university.
However, the interviewees also expressed concern about the social pressures and penalties they could be subjected to if they strayed from their local social norms. They were worried that their local friends might think they are "foreigners" and believe they are incompetent. This was a concern similar to the concerns voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker practical norms are no longer the norm for Korean learners. They may still be useful for official Korean proficiency testing. But it is advisable for future researchers to reconsider their applicability in specific situations and in different cultural contexts. This will help them better know how different cultures may impact the pragmatic behavior of students in the classroom and beyond. This will also assist educators to develop 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 investigative technique that relies on participant-centered, deep studies to study a specific subject. This method makes use of various sources of data like interviews, observations and documents, to support its findings. This kind of research is useful for examining specific or complex subjects which are difficult to assess using other methods.
In a case study the first step is to define both the subject and the purpose of the study. This will help you determine what aspects of the subject should be studied and which can be omitted. It is also useful to read the research to gain a broad understanding of the subject. It will also help put the issue in a wider theoretical context.
This case study was based upon an open-source platform called the KMMLU Leaderboard [50] along with its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the study revealed that L2 Korean learners were highly dependent on the influence of native models. They were more likely to select incorrect answers that were literal interpretations of prompts, deviating from the correct pragmatic inference. They also showed a strong tendency of adding their own words or "garbage" to their responses. This lowered the quality of their answers.
프라그마틱 무료게임 in 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 university year and were aiming to attain level six on their next attempt. They were required to answer questions regarding their WTC/SPCC and comprehension and pragmatic awareness.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations involving an interaction with their interlocutors and asked to select one of the strategies below to use when making a demand. The interviewees were asked to justify their decision. Most of the participants attributed their lack of a pragmatic response to their personalities. For example, TS claimed that she was hard to get close to, and she therefore did not want to inquire about her interactant's well-being with the burden of a job, even though she believed that native Koreans would do so.