In addition to learner-internal influences CLKs' awareness of their own resistance to change and the social ties they were able to draw from were crucial. For instance the RIs of TS and ZL both have cited their relationships with their local professors as a major factor in their pragmatic choice to avoid expressing criticism of the strictness of a professor (see the example 2).This article reviews all local published practical research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on core pragmatic topics including:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The test for discourse completion is a popular instrument in pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but also a few disadvantages. For example, the DCT cannot account for cultural and individual variations in communication. Furthermore, the DCT is prone to bias and may result in overgeneralizations. This is why it should be analyzed carefully before using it for research or for assessment purposes.
Despite its limitations the DCT is a useful instrument to study the relationship between prosody, information structure, and non-native speakers. Its ability to use two or more stages to influence the social variables that are related to politeness could be a benefit. This feature can help researchers to study the role played by prosody in communicating across cultural contexts, a key issue in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field linguistics, DCT is one of the most effective tools used to study the behavior of communication learners. It can be used to investigate a variety of issues such as politeness, turn taking, and lexical selection. It can also be used to determine the phonological complexity of the learners speaking.
Recent research utilized an DCT as tool to evaluate the refusal skills of EFL students. The participants were given an array of scenarios and asked to select an appropriate response from the options offered. The authors discovered that the DCT to be more efficient than other methods of refusal, such as a questionnaire or 프라그마틱 게임 video recordings. However, the researchers warned that the DCT should be used with caution and include other methods for collecting data.
DCTs can be designed with specific requirements for linguistics, such as the form and content. These criteria are based on intuition and are based on the assumptions of the test developers. They are not always precise and could misrepresent the way ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for further study on alternative methods for assessing refusal competency.
In a recent research study, DCT responses to student inquiries via email were compared to those from an oral DCT. The results revealed that the DCT encouraged more direct and traditionally form-based requests, and a lesser use of hints than the email data did.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study examined Chinese learners their pragmatic choices when they use Korean. It employed a variety of experimental tools including Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions, and Refusal Interviews. Participants were 46 CLKs with upper-intermediate proficiency who gave responses to DCTs and MQs. They were also asked to consider their evaluations and refusal responses in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs frequently chose to reject native Korean pragmatism norms. Their choices were influenced by four factors that included their personalities and multilingual identities, their ongoing life histories as well as their relationship affordances. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data was analyzed first to identify the participants' actual choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the responses were compared with their linguistic performance in DCTs to determine whether they reflected pragmatic resistance or not. Interviewees were also required to explain why they chose a pragmatic behavior in certain situations.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and Z tests. It was discovered that the CLKs frequently resorted to phrases like "sorry" and "thank you." This is likely due to their lack of experience with the target language which led to a lack of understanding of korea pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs' preference to diverge from L1 and L2 norms or to move towards L1 varied depending on the DCT situations. For example, in Situation 3 and 12 the CLKs favored to diverge from both L1 and pragmatic norms, whereas in Situation 14, they favored converging to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed that the CLKs were aware of their pragmatic resistance in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-to-one within two days after the participants had completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, and then coded by two independent coders. The code was re-coded repeatedly by the coders, re-reading and discussing 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 behaviors.
Refusal Interviews
One of the most important questions in pragmatic research is why some learners decide to rescind pragmatic norms that native speakers use. Recent research sought to answer this question by using various experiments, 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 required to consider their responses to the DCT situations.
The results showed that CLKs on average, did not adhere to the pragmatic norms of native speakers in more than 40% of their responses. They did this despite the fact that they were able to produce patterns that closely resembled native speakers. They were aware of their practical resistance. They attributed their actions to learner-internal factors like their identities, personalities and identities that are multilingual, as well as ongoing life histories. They also spoke of external factors such as relational benefits. For example, they described how their relationships with professors facilitated an easier performance in relation to the intercultural and linguistic norms of their university.
The interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures or penalties they could face when their social norms were not followed. They were worried that their local friends might perceive them as "foreigners" and believe they are unintelligent. This worry was similar to that expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native speakers' pragmatic norms are not the preferred norm for Korean learners. They could still be a useful model for official Korean proficiency tests. But it is advisable for future researchers to reconsider their applicability in specific situations and in various contexts. This will allow them to better understand the effects of different cultural contexts on the pragmatic behavior and classroom interactions of students from L2. This will also assist educators to improve their methods of teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor for Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigational strategy that employs participant-centered, in-depth studies to study a specific subject. This method makes use of multiple data sources including documents, interviews, and observations, to support its findings. This type of investigation is ideal for studying unique or complex subjects that are difficult to measure using other methods.
In a case study the first step is to define both the subject and the purpose of the study. This will allow you to identify what aspects of the subject are important to investigate and which aspects can be left out. It is also useful to read the literature to gain a general knowledge of the subject and place the situation within a larger theoretical framework.
This case study was built on an open-source platform, 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 highly vulnerable to native models. They were more likely to choose incorrect answers that were literal interpretations of the prompts, deviating from accurate pragmatic inference. They also had an unnatural tendency to include their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, further reducing the quality of their responses.
Additionally, the participants in this study were L2 Korean learners who had reached level 4 in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) in their second or third year at university and were aiming for level 6 for their next test. They were required to answer questions regarding their WTC/SPCC and pragmatic awareness and comprehension.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations which involved interactions with their interlocutors and asked to select one of the strategies below to use when making an offer. Interviewees were then asked to justify their decision. Most of the participants attributed their rational opposition to their personalities. For instance, TS claimed that she was difficult to connect to, and she therefore was reluctant to inquire about the health of her interlocutors despite having a heavy workload despite her belief that native Koreans would do this.
