CLKs' understanding and ability to tap into the benefits of relationships and learning-internal factors, were significant. For instance the RIs of TS and ZL both have cited their relationships with their local professors as a significant factor in their decision to avoid expressing criticism of the strictness of a professor (see example 2).
This article examines all local pragmatic research on Korean published until 2020. It focuses on the most important practical issues, including:
Discourse Construction Tests
The Discourse Completion Test (DCT) is widely used in the field of pragmatic research. It has many advantages however, it also has a few drawbacks. For example it is that the DCT cannot account for cultural and personal differences in communicative behavior. The DCT can also be biased and can lead to overgeneralizations. It should be carefully analyzed before it is used in research or assessment.
Despite its limitations, the DCT is a useful tool to study the relationship between prosody and information structure in non-native speakers. The ability of the DCT in two or more stages to influence the social variables that are related to politeness can be a strength. This characteristic can be utilized to study the impact of prosody in various cultural contexts.
In the field of linguistics, DCT is one of the most effective tools used for analyzing communication behaviors of learners. It can be used to study various aspects that include politeness, turn-taking, and lexical choices. It can be used to evaluate the level of phonological sophistication in learners speaking.
A recent study used an DCT to evaluate EFL students' refusal skills. Participants were presented with a variety 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. Researchers cautioned, however, that the DCT should be used with caution. They also recommended using other methods for data collection.
DCTs can be developed using specific requirements for linguistics, such as form and content. These criteria are intuitive and based on the assumptions of test creators. They aren't always precise and could misrepresent how ELF learners respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue requires more study on alternative methods for measuring refusal competence.
A recent study has compared DCT responses to requests made by students via email versus those obtained from an oral DCT. The results showed that DCTs preferred more direct and conventionally indirect request forms and utilized more hints than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners' pragmatic decisions regarding their use of Korean by using a range of experimental tools, including Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) Metapragmatic Questionnaires, Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs of intermediate or higher ability who responded to MQs and DCTs. They were also asked to consider their evaluations and refusal performance in RIs. The results showed that CLKs frequently chose to defy native Korean norms of pragmatism. Their choices were influenced primarily by four factors: their personalities and multilingual identities, their current life experiences and their relationship affordances. These findings have implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data was analyzed first to determine the participants' practical choices. The data were categorized 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 showed a pattern of resistance to pragmatics or not. Interviewees were also required to explain the reasons for choosing a pragmatic behavior in certain situations.
The findings of the MQs and DCTs were then analyzed using descriptive statistics and z-tests. The CLKs were found use euphemistic terms such as "sorry" or "thank you". This was probably due to their lack of experience with the target languages, which led to an insufficient understanding of the korean pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs' preference to diverge from L1 and 2 norms or to be more convergent towards L1 norms varied based on the DCT situations. In situations 3 and 12 CLKs preferred diverging from both L1pragmatic norms - and L2-pragmatic norms while in Situation 14 CLKs favored 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 on a one-to-one basis within a period of two days of the participants completing the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed by two coders independent of each other, were then coded. The coding process was an iterative process, where the coders listened and discussed each transcript. The coding results were then contrasted with the original RI transcripts, which provided an indication of how well the RIs were able to capture the fundamental behavior.
Interviews for refusal
A key question of pragmatic research is the reason why learners decide to rescind native-speaker pragmatic norms. A recent study attempted to answer this question by employing a range of experimental tools, including DCTs, MQs and RIs. Participants included 44 CLKs and 46 CNSs from five Korean Universities. They were asked to perform the DCTs in their native language and to complete the MQs either in their L1 or Pragmatickr.Com their L2. They were then invited to an RI, where they were required to reflect on and discuss their responses to each DCT situation.
The results showed that CLKs, on average, did not follow the pragmatic norms of native speakers in more than 40 percent of their responses. They did this despite the fact that they were able to produce patterns that resembled natives. They were also aware of their pragmatic resistance. They attributed their actions to learner-internal factors such as their personalities and identities that are multilingual, as well as ongoing life experiences. They also mentioned external factors such as relational affordances. They also discussed, for instance how their relationships with their professors allowed them to perform better in terms of the linguistic and cultural norms at their university.
The interviewees expressed their concern about the social pressures or consequences they could be subject to in the event that their local social norms were violated. They were worried that their local friends might perceive them as "foreigners" and think they are unintelligent. This concern was similar to those voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker practical norms are not the norm for Korean learners. They could remain 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 various cultural contexts. This will help them better understand the effect of different cultural environments on the classroom behavior and interactions of students from L2. Additionally it will assist educators to develop more effective methodologies for teaching and testing korea pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi, principal advisor at Stratways Group in Seoul, is a geopolitical risk consulting.
Case StudiesThe case study method is a research method that focuses on intensive, participant-centered research to investigate a specific topic. It is a method that makes use of various sources of information to back up the findings, such as interviews and observations, documents, and artifacts. This kind of research is useful for examining complicated or unique subjects that are difficult to measure with other methods.
The first step in the case study is to define the subject matter and the purpose of the study. This will help determine what aspects of the subject matter are crucial for research and which can be omitted. It is also useful to study the literature to gain a better understanding of the subject. It will also help put the issue in a wider theoretical context.
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 study 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 departure from the correct pragmatic inference. They also showed a strong tendency to add their own text or "garbage" to their responses. This also lowered the quality of their answers.Furthermore, the participants of this case study were L2 Korean learners who had achieved level 4 in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at the end of their second or third year of university and were aiming for level 6 for their next test. They were asked to respond to questions regarding their WTC/SPCC and comprehension and pragmatic awareness.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations which involved interactions with their interlocutors and were 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 pragmatism to their personality. TS for instance, claimed that she was difficult to get along with and refused to inquire about the health of her co-worker when they had a lot of work despite the fact that she thought native Koreans would.
