There Are Myths And Facts Behind Pragmatic
Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
CLKs' awareness and capacity to tap into the benefits of relationships, as well as learner-internal elements, were important. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both mentioned their relationships with their local professors as a significant factor in their pragmatic choice to avoid expressing criticism of a strict professor (see the second example).
This article reviews all locally published pragmatic research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on key pragmatic issues such as:
Discourse Construction Tests
The test for discourse completion is a common tool in pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages but it also has a few drawbacks. The DCT, for example, is unable to account for cultural and individual differences. Additionally, the DCT is prone to bias and may cause overgeneralizations. It is important to carefully analyze the data before it is used for research or evaluation.
Despite its limitations, the DCT can be a valuable tool for investigating the relationship between prosody and information structure in non-native speakers. The ability of the DCT in two or more stages to manipulate the social variables that are 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, DCT is one of the most useful tools to study the behavior of communication learners. It can be used to analyze many issues, such as manner of speaking, turn-taking, and the use of lexical terms. It can be used to assess phonological complexity in learners' speech.
A recent study used the DCT to assess EFL students' refusal skills. Participants were presented with a range of scenarios to choose from, and were then asked to select the most appropriate response. The authors concluded that the DCT was more efficient than other methods of refusal, including a questionnaire and video recordings. 프라그마틱 슬롯 추천 warned, however, that the DCT should be employed with caution. They also suggested using other methods of data collection.
DCTs are often developed with specific linguistic criteria in mind, such as content and form. These criterion are intuitive and is based on the assumptions made by the test designers. They are not always accurate and may misrepresent the way ELF learners actually respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for more investigation into alternative methods of measuring refusal competence.
A recent study examined DCT responses to requests made by students via email versus those obtained from an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCT encouraged more direct and traditionally form-based requests and a lower use of hints than the email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners' pragmatic choices when it comes to using Korean using a variety of experimental tools, such as Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs), metapragmatic questionnaires, and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs of upper intermediate level who answered DCTs, MQs, and RIs. They were also required to provide reflections on their evaluations and refusals in RIs. The results indicated that the CLKs often resisted native Korean pragmatic norms, and their decisions were influenced by four primary factors that included their identities, their multilingual identities, their ongoing lives, and their relational affordances. These findings have implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data was analyzed first to determine the participants' actual choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the choices were matched with their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine if they were a reflection of pragmatic resistance or not. Additionally, the participants were asked to justify their decision to use pragmatic language in a specific scenario.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and z tests. The CLKs were discovered to use euphemistic words like "sorry" or "thank you". This is likely due to their lack of experience with the target languages, which led to an insufficient knowledge of korean's pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs' preferences to diverge from L1 and L2 norms or to move toward L1 differed based on 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 a convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs further revealed that the CLKs were aware of their own pragmatism in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted in a one-to-one manner within two days after the participants had completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed by two coders who were independent and then coded. The coding process was iterative, with the coders re-reading and discussing each transcript. The coding results were then contrasted with the original RI transcripts, giving an indication of how the RIs captured the underlying pragmatic behavior.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)
The central issue in research on pragmatics is: Why do some learners refuse to accept native-speaker norms? Recent research has attempted to answer this question with a variety of 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 L2 levels. Then they were invited to a RI where they were required to reflect on their responses to the DCT situations.
The results showed that, on average, the CLKs resisted native-speaker pragmatic norms in over 40% of their answers. They did so even though they could produce native-like patterns. They were also aware of their pragmatism resistance. They attributed their actions to learner-internal aspects such as their identities, personalities, multilingual identities, and ongoing life experiences. They also referred external factors, like relational affordances. They also discussed, for instance, how their interactions with their professors helped them to perform more comfortably in terms of the cultural and linguistic norms at their university.
However, the interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and consequences they could face if they flouted their social norms. They were concerned that their local friends might perceive them as "foreigners" and believe they are unintelligent. 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 preferred choice of Korean learners. They may still be useful as a model for official Korean proficiency tests. But it would be prudent for future researchers to revisit their relevance in specific scenarios and in various contexts. This will help them better comprehend how different environments could affect the practical behavior of students in the classroom and beyond. Moreover, this will help educators develop more effective methodologies to teach and test the korea's pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor at Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Seoul.
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 numerous sources of information like interviews, observations, and documents, to support its findings. This kind of investigation can be used to examine complicated or unique issues that are difficult to other methods to measure.
The first step in a case study is to clearly define the subject and the objectives of the study. This will allow you to identify which aspects of the topic should be studied and which ones can be skipped. It is also beneficial to read the research to gain a broad understanding of the subject. It will also help place the case in a larger theoretical context.
This case study was based on an open source platform, the KMMLU leaderboard [50] and its benchmarks that are specific to Korea, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the test revealed that L2 Korean students were extremely susceptible to native models. They were more likely to pick incorrect answer options which were literal interpretations. This was a deviance from accurate pragmatic inference. They also had a strong tendency to add their own text or "garbage" to their responses. This lowered the quality of their answers.
Moreover, the participants of this case study were primarily L2 Korean learners who had attained level 4 on the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at their third or second year of university and were hoping to achieve level 6 for their next test. They were asked questions about their WTC/SPCC, pragmatic awareness and understanding and understanding of the world.
The interviewees were presented with two scenarios, each involving a hypothetical interaction with their interactants and asked to choose one of the following strategies to use when making a request. They were then asked to provide the reasoning behind their choice. The majority of the participants attributed their pragmatic resistance to their personality. TS, for example, claimed that she was difficult to get along with and would not ask about the wellbeing of her colleague when they were working at a high rate, even though she believed native Koreans would.