Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal influences, CLKs' awareness of pragmatic resistance and the relationship advantages they could draw on were crucial. RIs from TS and ZL for instance, cited their relationships with their local professors as a key factor in their rational decision to avoid criticism of a strict professor (see examples 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 is a commonly used instrument in pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages, but it also has a few disadvantages. The DCT is one example. It does not take into account individual and cultural variations. The DCT can also be biased and can lead to 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 can be a valuable 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 feature can be used to study the effect of prosody across cultural contexts.
In the field of linguistics the DCT is now one of the primary tools to analyze learners' communication behaviors. It can be used to study various aspects such as politeness, turn-taking, and lexical choices. It can also be used to assess the phonological complexity of learners' speech.
Recent research has used a DCT as tool to evaluate the ability to resist of EFL students. Participants were given a list of scenarios and asked to choose the appropriate response from the options provided. The researchers found that the DCT was more effective than other refusal measures that included a questionnaire as well as video recordings. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be used with caution and should include other data collection methods.
DCTs can be developed using specific language requirements, like design and content. These criteria are intuitive and based on the assumptions of test creators. They aren't always accurate and may misrepresent how ELF learners respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further study on alternative methods for assessing refusal competency.
A recent study compared DCT responses to requests submitted by students via email versus those gathered from an oral DCT. The results showed that the DCT encouraged more direct and traditionally form-based requests, and a lesser use of hints than the email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study examined Chinese learners' pragmatic decisions regarding their use of Korean using a variety of experimental tools, such as Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), metapragmatic questionnaires, and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs at the upper-intermediate who participated in MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also asked to provide reflections on their assessments and refusals in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs often chose to defy native Korean pragmatism norms. Their choices were influenced primarily by four factors such as their personality and multilingual identities, their current life histories as well as their relationship affordances. These findings have implications for pedagogy for L2 Korean assessment.
The MQ data was analyzed in order to identify the participants' actual choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, 프라그마틱 무료 슬롯 were compared with their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine whether they showed a pattern of resistance to pragmatics or not. The interviewees were asked to explain their decision to use pragmatic language in a given situation.
The results of the MQs and DCTs were then analysed using descriptive statistics and Z-tests. The CLKs were discovered to employ euphemistic phrases such as "sorry" or "thank you". This could be due to their lack of familiarity with the target languages, leading to an inadequate understanding of korean pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preference for converging to L1 or departing from both L1 as well as L2 pragmatic norms differed based on the DCT situations. In Situations 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 also revealed that the CLKs were aware of their pragmatic resistance in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted on a one-to-one basis within two days of participants completing the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed by two coders independent of each other and then coded. The coding process was iterative and involved the coders reading and discussing each transcript. The coding results are then evaluated against the original RI transcripts to determine how well they accurately portrayed the underlying behavior.
Refusal Interviews
The central issue in research on pragmatics is: why do some learners decide to not accept native-speaker norms? A recent study sought to answer this question using a variety of experimental instruments, including DCTs MQs, DCTs and RIs. Participants included 46 CLKs and 44 CNSs from five Korean Universities. They were required to complete the DCTs in their first language and complete the MQs in either 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 rejected the pragmatic norms of native speakers in more than 40% of their answers. They did this despite the fact that they were able to create patterns that closely resembled native speakers. They were also aware of their pragmatism resistance. They attributed their resistance to learner-internal factors such as their personality and multilingual identities. They also spoke of external factors like relational affordances. They outlined, for instance how their relations with their professors enabled them to perform more comfortably in terms of the linguistic and cultural standards of their university.
However, the interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and penalties they could be subjected to if they strayed from the local social norms. They were concerned that their native friends would think they are "foreigners" and believe that they are unintelligent. This was a concern similar to the concerns expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native speakers' pragmatic norms are not the preferred norm for Korean learners. They could remain useful as a model for official Korean proficiency tests. Future researchers should consider reassessing the applicability of these tests in various contexts and in particular situations. This will help them better understand the effects of different cultural contexts on the pragmatic behavior and classroom interactions of students in L2. 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 consulting firm based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is a research method that focuses on intensive, participant-centered research to explore a particular subject. It is a method that utilizes multiple data sources to help support the findings, such as interviews and observations, documents, and artifacts. This type of investigation is ideal for studying specific or complex subjects that are difficult to measure using other methods.
In a case study the first step is to define both the subject and the purpose of the study. This will allow you to determine which aspects of the subject matter are crucial for research and which could be left out. It is also useful to review the existing literature to gain a better understanding of the subject and place the case in a wider theoretical context.
This case study was built on an open-source platform called the KMMLU Leaderboard [50] and its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this study showed that L2 Korean learners were highly vulnerable to the influence of native models. They were more likely to pick incorrect answer choices, which were literal interpretations. This was a deviance from a precise pragmatic inference. They also showed a strong tendency to add their own text or "garbage," to their responses, further detracting from their quality of response.
The participants of this study were L2 Korean students who had achieved the level of four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their second or third year of university and were hoping to achieve level six on their next attempt. They were asked to respond to questions regarding their WTC/SPCC and comprehension and pragmatic awareness.
The interviewees were presented two situations, each involving an imagined interaction with their co-workers and were asked to select one of the following strategies to employ when making an inquiry. They were then asked to explain the reasons behind their decision. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatism to their personalities. For example, TS claimed that she was hard to get close to, and therefore was reluctant to inquire about the health of her interlocutors despite having a heavy workload despite her belief that native Koreans would do this.