Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal influences CLKs' understanding of the need to be pragmatic and the social ties they could draw on were important. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both cited their local professor relationships as an important factor in their decision to avoid expressing criticism of a strict professor (see example 2).
This article reviews all local pragmatic research on Korean published up to 2020. It focuses on core practical issues, including:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The Discourse Completion Test (DCT) is widely used in research that is based on pragmatic principles. It has many advantages but it also has some disadvantages. The DCT, for example, does not take into account individual and cultural variations. The DCT can also be biased and lead to overgeneralizations. It is important to carefully analyze the data before it is used for research or assessment.
Despite its limitations the DCT is a valuable tool to investigate the connection between prosody, information structure, and non-native speakers. Its ability to manipulate social variables relevant to the manner of speaking in two or more steps can be a strength. This feature can help researchers study the role of prosody in communication across cultural contexts, which is a major issue in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics, DCT is among the most effective tools used to study the behavior of communication learners. It can be used to examine various aspects that include politeness, turn taking, and lexical choice. It can also be used to determine the phonological difficulty of learners' speech.
pop over to these guys used an DCT to evaluate EFL students' ability to resist. Participants were given a set of scenarios to choose from, and then asked to select the appropriate response. The researchers found the DCT to be more effective than other refusal methods like a questionnaire or video recordings. However, the researchers warned that the DCT should be used with caution and include other types of data collection methods.
DCTs are usually created with specific linguistic requirements in mind, like content and form. These criteria are intuitive and are based on the assumptions of the test creators. They are not always precise and could misrepresent how ELF learners actually respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for more study on alternative methods for measuring refusal competence.
In a recent study, DCT responses to student inquiries via email were compared with the responses from an oral DCT. The results revealed that the DCT was more direct and conventionally indirect request forms and a lower use of hints than the email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners' pragmatic choices when using Korean. It employed a variety of experimental tools including Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions and Refusal Interviews. Participants were 46 CLKs of upper intermediate level who answered MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also asked to think about their evaluations and refusal responses in RIs. The results showed that CLKs often resisted native Korean pragmatic norms, and their decisions were influenced by four main factors such as their personalities, multilingual identities, ongoing life histories, and relational advantages. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment.
The MQ data were examined to identify the participants' choices in terms of their pragmatics. The data was categorized according Ishihara (2010)'s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the selections were compared with their linguistic performance in DCTs to determine whether they showed a pattern of resistance to pragmatics or not. In addition, the interviewees were asked to justify their choice of pragmatic behavior in a particular situation.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analyzed with descriptive statistics and z tests. The CLKs were found employ euphemistic phrases such as "sorry" or "thank you". This was probably due to their lack experience with the target languages, which led to an inadequate understanding of the korean pragmatic norms. The results revealed that CLKs' preferences to diverge from L1 and 2 norms or to converge toward L1 differed based on the DCT circumstances. 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 their pragmatic resistance in each DCT situation. RIs were conducted on a one-to-one basis in the space of two days of the participants completing the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, and then coded by two coders who were independent. The coding was an iterative process in which the coders listened and discussed each transcript. The coding results are then compared with the original RI transcripts to determine if they reflected the actual behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
The most important question in pragmatic research is: Why do some learners choose not to accept native-speaker norms? Recent research has attempted to answer this question by using a variety of experiments, including DCTs MQs and RIs. Participants included 44 CLKs and 46 CNSs from five Korean Universities. The participants were asked to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or L2. Then they were invited to attend a RI where they were required to consider 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 so even though they could create native-like patterns. In addition, they were aware of their pragmatic resistance. They attributed their resistance to learner-internal factors like their personalities and multilingual identities. They also referred to external factors, like relational advantages. For example, they described how their relationships with professors facilitated a more relaxed performance in regards to the linguistic and intercultural rules of their university.
However, the interviewees also 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 interactants might perceive them as "foreigners" and believe they are not intelligent. This is similar to that expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native-speakers pragmatic norms aren't the preferred norm for Korean learners. They could still be useful as a model for official Korean proficiency tests. Future researchers should reassess the applicability of these tests in various contexts and in particular situations. This will help them better understand how different cultural environments may impact the pragmatic behavior of students in the classroom and beyond. This will also aid educators create better methods for teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi, principal advisor at Stratways Group in Seoul, is a geopolitical risk consultancy.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigational strategy that relies on participant-centered, deep investigations to investigate a particular subject. This method uses various sources of data including documents, interviews, and observations to prove its findings. This type of investigation is ideal for studying specific or complex subjects which are difficult to assess with other methods.
The first step in a case study is to define the subject and the objectives of the study. This will allow you to identify which aspects of the topic must be investigated and which ones can be skipped. It is also helpful to study the literature to gain a better understanding of the subject and place the situation within a larger theoretical framework.
This 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 the test revealed that the L2 Korean students were highly vulnerable to native models. They tended to choose wrong answer options which were literal interpretations. This was a departure from accurate pragmatic inference. They also showed a distinct tendency to include their own text or "garbage" to their responses. This also lowered the quality of their answers.
The participants of this study were L2 Korean students who had reached level four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their third or second university year and were aiming to achieve level six on their next attempt. They were asked to answer questions about their WTC/SPCC as well as pragmatic awareness and comprehension.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations involving an interaction with their counterparts and were asked to choose one of the strategies below to use when making a demand. They were then asked to provide the reasons behind their decision. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatism to their personalities. TS, for example, claimed that she was difficult to approach and refused to ask about the wellbeing of her colleague when they had a lot of work, even though she thought native Koreans would.