Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' awareness and ability to tap into the benefits of relationships, as well as the learner-internal aspects, were crucial. RIs from TS & ZL, for example were able to cite their relationship with their local professor as a key factor in their decision to stay clear of criticizing a strict professor (see example 2).
This article reviews all locally published practical research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on the practical important topics such as:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The discourse completion test is a popular instrument in pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but also some disadvantages. For example, the DCT is unable to account for cultural and individual variations in communication. Additionally it is also the case that the DCT is prone to bias and could result in overgeneralizations. As a result, it should be analyzed carefully before it is used for research or for assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT can be a useful tool to investigate the connection between prosody, information structure and non-native speakers. The ability of the DCT in two or more stages to influence social variables related to politeness is a plus. This ability can be used to study the effect of prosody in various cultural contexts.
In the field of linguistics the DCT has emerged as one of the primary tools for analyzing learners' communication behaviors. It can be used to study various aspects that include politeness, turn-taking, and lexical choices. It can also be used to determine the phonological complexity of learners speaking.
A recent study employed the DCT to test EFL students' refusal skills. Participants were given a set of scenarios to choose from and then asked to choose the appropriate response. The researchers found that the DCT was more effective than other measures to stop people from refusing such as a questionnaire or video recordings. Researchers warned, however, that the DCT must be employed with caution. They also recommended using other methods of data collection.
DCTs can be designed with specific language requirements, like form and content. These criteria are intuitive and are based on the assumptions of the test developers. They aren't always precise and could misrepresent how ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further studies of different methods of assessing refusal ability.
In a recent study, DCT responses to student requests via email were compared with the responses from an oral DCT. The results showed that DCTs preferred more direct and traditionally indirect request forms and utilized hints less than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners their pragmatic choices when they use Korean. It used various experimental tools including Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions and Refusal Interviews. The participants were 46 CLKs of upper intermediate level who answered MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also required to provide reflections on their assessments and refusals in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs often chose to resist native Korean pragmatism norms. Their decisions were influenced primarily by four factors that included their personalities and multilingual identities, their current life experiences as well as their relationship affordances. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment.
First, the MQ data were analyzed to determine the participants' pragmatic choices. The data was categorized according Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the choices were matched with their linguistic performance in DCTs to determine whether they reflected pragmatic resistance or not. 프라그마틱 슬롯 추천 had to explain why they chose an atypical behavior in certain situations.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and Z tests. It was found that CLKs frequently resorted to phrases like "sorry" and "thank you." This is likely due to their lack of familiarity with the target language which led to a lack of knowledge of korea pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preferences for converging to L1 norms or diverging from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms differed based on the DCT situations. In situations 3 and 12, CLKs preferred diverging from both L1pragmatic norms and L2 norms, while in Situation 14 CLKs favored convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed that the CLKs were aware of their own pragmatism in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-toone within two days of the participants had completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, then coded by two coders from different companies. The coders worked in an iterative manner and involved the coders reading and discussing each transcript. The results of the coding process were contrasted with the original RI transcripts, giving an indication of how well the RIs were able to capture the fundamental behavior.
Interviews with Refusal
One of the most important questions in pragmatic research is why some learners decide to rescind pragmatic norms that native speakers use. A recent study sought to answer this question employing a variety of research tools, including DCTs MQs, DCTs, and RIs. Participants comprised 46 CLKs and 44 CNSs from five Korean Universities. The participants were asked to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or L2. They were then invited to an RI where they were asked to reflect on and discuss their responses to each DCT scenario.
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 produce patterns that closely resembled natives. They were also aware of their pragmatic resistance. They attributed their choice to learner-internal factors like their personalities and multilingual identities. They also spoke of external factors, such as relationships and affordances. For instance, they outlined how their relationships with professors facilitated more relaxed performance in relation to the linguistic and intercultural rules of their university.
However, the interviewees also expressed concern about the social pressures and punishments they could be subject to if they violated their local social norms. They were concerned that their native interactants might consider them "foreigners" and believe that they are unintelligent. This was a concern similar to those voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native speakers pragmatic norms aren't the default preference for Korean learners. They may still be a useful model for official Korean proficiency tests. Future researchers should reassess the applicability of these tests in different cultural contexts and specific situations. This will allow them to better understand how different cultural environments can affect the pragmatic behavior of learners in the classroom and beyond. This will also aid educators create better methods for 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 employs in-depth, participant-centered investigations to study a specific subject. This method utilizes various sources of data, such as interviews, observations and documents to confirm its findings. This type of investigation is useful when analyzing specific or complex subjects that are difficult to quantify with other methods.
The first step in the case study is to define the subject and the goals of the study. This will help you determine which aspects of the topic are important to investigate and which ones can be skipped. It is also helpful to read the research to gain a broad knowledge of the subject and place the situation in a wider theoretical context.
This study was based 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 experiment showed that L2 Korean learners were highly dependent on the influence of native models. They tended to choose wrong answers which were literal interpretations. This was a deviation from the correct pragmatic inference. They also had a strong tendency to add their own words or "garbage" to their responses. This further reduced the quality of their answers.
The participants in this study were L2 Korean students who had reached the level of four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their second or third year at university and hoped to achieve level six on their next attempt. They were asked questions regarding their WTC/SPCC, pragmatic awareness and understanding and their perception of the world.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations which involved interactions with their interlocutors and asked to choose one of the strategies listed below to use when making an offer. They were then asked to provide the reasons behind their decision. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatist opposition to their personalities. For example, TS claimed that she was difficult to talk to, and so she refused to ask about the health of her interlocutors despite having a heavy workload despite the fact that she believed that native Koreans would ask.