Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' awareness and ability to make use of relational affordances as well as the learner-internal aspects, were crucial. RIs from TS & ZL for instance mentioned their local professor relationship as the primary reason for their decision to stay clear of criticism of a strict professor (see the example 2).
This article reviews all local published practical research on Korean up to 2020. It focuses on core practical issues, including:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The discourse completion test is a commonly used instrument in pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but also some disadvantages. For example, the DCT cannot take into account the cultural and individual differences in communicative behavior. The DCT can also be biased and lead to overgeneralizations. This is why it is important to analyze it carefully before using it for research or assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a useful tool to investigate the relationship between prosody, information structure, and non-native speakers. The ability to manipulate social variables relevant to the manner of speaking in two or more steps can be a benefit. This ability can be used to study the effect of prosody across cultural contexts.
In the field of linguistics, DCT is among the most useful tools to study the behavior of communication learners. It can be used to examine various aspects such as politeness, turn-taking, and lexical selection. It can also be used to determine the phonological complexity of the learners speaking.
Recent research has used the DCT as tool to evaluate the ability to resist of EFL students. Participants were given a set of scenarios to choose from, and then asked to select the appropriate response. The researchers found that the DCT was more efficient than other methods of refusal such as a questionnaire or video recordings. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be used with caution and should include other types of data collection methods.
DCTs can be developed using specific requirements for linguistics, such as design and content. These criteria are intuitive and based on the assumptions of the test developers. They aren't always exact and could be misleading in describing the way ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for more research on alternative methods of testing refusal competence.
A recent study compared DCT responses to requests submitted by students through email with the responses gathered from an oral DCT. The results revealed that the DCT was more direct and conventionally indirect request forms, and a lesser use of hints than email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners' choices in their use of Korean using a variety of tools that were tested, including Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) as well as metapragmatic questionnaires and Refusal Interviews (RIs). The participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate level who responded to DCTs, MQs, and RIs. They were also asked to provide reflections on their assessments and refusals in RIs. The results indicated that the CLKs were more likely to reject native Korean pragmatic norms, and their decisions were influenced by four major factors: their personalities, their multilingual identities, their ongoing life histories, and relational affordances. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data was first analyzed to determine the participants' practical choices. The data was categorized according Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the choices were matched with their linguistic performance in the DCTs to determine if they were a reflection of pragmatic resistance or not. Interviewees also had to explain why they chose a pragmatic behavior in certain situations.
The findings of the MQs and DCTs were then analyzed using descriptive statistics and z-tests. It was discovered that the CLKs frequently used euphemistic responses 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 showed that the CLKs' preference 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-to-one basis within two days of participants having completed the MQs. The RIs were transcribed and recorded by two coders independent of each other who then coded them. The coding was an iterative process, where the coders listened and discussed each transcript. The coding results were then contrasted with the original RI transcripts, which gave an indication of how well the RIs were able to capture the fundamental behaviors.
Refusal Interviews
A key question of pragmatic research is why learners choose to resist native-speaker pragmatic norms. A recent study attempted to answer this question employing a variety of research instruments, including DCTs, MQs and RIs. The participants consisted of 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs, and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. Participants were asked to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or their L2. Then they were invited to a RI where they were asked think about their responses to the DCT situations.
The results showed that on average, the CLKs resisted native-speaker pragmatic norms in over 40% of their responses. They did this even when they were able to create patterns that were similar to native speakers. They were aware of their practical resistance. They attributed their resistance to learner-internal variables such as their personality and multilingual identities. They also referred to external factors like relational affordances. For instance, they outlined how their relationships with professors helped facilitate an easier performance in regards to the linguistic and intercultural norms of their university.
The interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures or consequences they could be subject to when their social norms were violated. They were concerned that their native friends would think they are "foreigners" and think they are incompetent. This concern was similar to the concerns voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
프라그마틱 공식홈페이지 suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are not the preferred choice of Korean learners. They may still be useful as a model for official Korean proficiency tests. But it is advisable for future researchers to revisit their relevance in specific scenarios and in different cultural contexts. This will allow them to better comprehend how different environments may impact the pragmatic behavior of L2 learners in the classroom and beyond. Moreover this will allow educators to develop more effective methodologies to teach and test the korea-based 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 research strategy that utilizes deep, participatory investigations to explore a particular subject. It is a method that utilizes various sources of information to support the findings, including interviews or observations, documents and artifacts. This kind of research can be used to study complicated or unique subjects that are difficult for other methods of measuring.
The first step in conducting a case study is to clearly define the subject matter and the purpose of the study. This will allow you to determine which aspects of the topic should be studied and which can be omitted. It is also helpful to read the literature on to the subject to gain a broad knowledge of the subject and to place the case study within a larger theoretical context.
This case study was based upon an open-source platform, the KMMLU Leaderboard [50] along with its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this study revealed that L2 Korean learners were highly susceptible to the influence of native models. They were more likely to pick incorrect answers which were literal interpretations. This was a deviation from the correct pragmatic inference. They also showed a strong tendency to include their own words or "garbage" to their responses. This lowered the quality of their responses.
The participants of this study were L2 Korean students who had attained level four on the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their third or second year at university and hoped to achieve level six on their next attempt. They were asked to answer questions regarding their WTC/SPCC and comprehension and pragmatic awareness.
The interviewees were given two situations, each involving an imaginary interaction with their co-workers and were asked to choose one of the following strategies to use when making an inquiry. They were then asked to explain the reasoning behind their choice. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatism to their personality. 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 this.