Why Pragmatic Isn’t As Easy As You Think

Study of Chinese Learners’ Pedagogical Choices in Korean

In addition to learner-internal factors CLKs’ awareness of the need to be pragmatic and the relationship advantages they could draw on were significant. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both have cited their relationships with their local professors as a major reason for them to choose to avoid expressing criticism of an uncompromising professor (see the second example).

This article examines all local pragmatic research on Korean published until 2020. It focuses on pragmatic fundamental topics like:

Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)

The test for discourse completion is a common instrument in pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages but it also has some disadvantages. The DCT, for example, cannot account cultural and individual variations. The DCT can also be biased and can lead to overgeneralizations. Therefore, it is important to analyze it carefully before using it for research or for assessment purposes.

Despite its limitations, the DCT is a valuable instrument to study the connection between prosody, information structure, and non-native speakers. Its ability to use two or more stages to influence social variables that affect politeness is a plus. This characteristic can be utilized to study the effect of prosody in different cultural contexts.

In the field linguistics, DCT is one of the most effective tools for analyzing communication behaviors of learners. It can be used to investigate many issues, such as the manner of speaking, 프라그마틱 슬롯 무료 turn-taking and the choices made in lexical use. It can be used to evaluate the level of phonological sophistication in learners speaking.

A recent study utilized a DCT to test EFL students’ refusal skills. Participants were presented with a range of scenarios to choose from, and were then asked to select the appropriate response. The authors found that the DCT was more effective than other measures to stop people from refusing, including a questionnaire and video recordings. The researchers cautioned that the DCT should be employed with caution. They also recommended using other data collection methods.

DCTs are typically developed with specific linguistic criteria in mind, like content and form. These criteria are based on intuition and based upon the assumptions of test creators. They are not necessarily correct, and they could be misleading about the way ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interaction. This issue calls for further investigation into alternative methods of testing refusal competence.

A recent study compared DCT responses to requests made by students via email versus the responses gathered from an oral DCT. The results showed that the DCT was more direct and traditionally form-based requests and a lower use of hints than email data did.

Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)

This study investigated Chinese learners’ choices in 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 at the upper intermediate level who answered DCTs, MQs, and RIs. They were also asked to think about their evaluations and refusal responses in RIs. The results showed that CLKs often chose to resist native Korean pragmatic norms. Their decisions were influenced by four factors such as their personality and multilingual identities, their ongoing life histories, as well as their relational affordances. These findings have implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.

The MQ data was analyzed in order to identify the participants’ practical choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara (2010)’s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, we compared their choices with their linguistic performance using DCTs to determine if they were a sign of pragmatic resistance. The interviewees also had to explain the reasons for choosing an atypical behavior in certain situations.

The results of the MQs and DCTs were then analysed using descriptive statistics and Z-tests. The CLKs were discovered to use euphemistic terms such as “sorry” or “thank you”. This was probably due to their lack experience with the target languages, which led to a lack of understanding of the korean pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs’ preferences to diverge from L1 and L2 norms or to converge towards L1 varied depending on the DCT circumstances. In the scenarios 3 and 12 CLKs favored diverging from both L1pragmatic norms – and L2-pragmatic norms while in Situation 14 CLKs preferred a convergence to L1 norms.

The RIs showed that CLKs were aware of their logical resistance to every DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-toone within two days of the participants completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, then coded by two coders from different companies. The coding process was iterative by the coders, re-reading and discussing each transcript. The results of coding were compared to the original RI transcripts, giving an indication of how well the RIs accurately portrayed the core behaviors.

Refusal Interviews (RIs)

One of the most important questions in pragmatic research is why learners are hesitant to adhere to native-speaker pragmatic norms. A recent study attempted to answer this question by using a variety of experimental tools, such as DCTs, MQs, and RIs. Participants included 44 CLKs and 46 CNSs from five Korean Universities. Participants were required to complete the DCTs and MQs in their L1 or L2 levels. 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 disapproved of native-speaker pragmatic norms in more than 40% of their responses. They did this even when they could produce patterns that closely resembled natives. Furthermore, they were clearly aware of their pragmatism. They attributed their choice to learner-internal factors like their personality and multilingual identities. They also spoke of external factors like relational advantages. For example, they described how their relationships with professors led to an easier performance in regards to the intercultural and linguistic standards of their university.

The interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures and penalties they might face in the event that their local social norms were violated. They were worried that their local friends might consider them “foreigners” and think they are not intelligent. This concern was similar in nature to that expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).

These results suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are not the norm for Korean learners. They could still be a useful model for official Korean proficiency tests. Future researchers should consider reassessing the applicability of these tests in various cultural contexts and specific situations. This will help them better understand how different cultural environments may impact the pragmatic behavior of learners in the classroom and beyond. This will also assist educators to create better methods for teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor for Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based out of Seoul.

Case Studies

The case study method is a strategy that utilizes intensive, participant-centered research to investigate a specific topic. It is a method that makes use of multiple data sources to help support the findings, such as interviews, observations, documents, and artifacts. This kind of research can be used to examine specific or complicated topics that are difficult for other methods to measure.

In a case study the first step is to define the subject and the goals of the study. This will help determine what aspects of the subject are important to study and which could be left out. It is also useful to study the research to gain a broad understanding of the subject. It will also help put the issue within a larger theoretical framework.

This case study was based upon an open-source platform called the KMMLU Leaderboard [50] as well as its benchmarks for Koreans, HyperCLOVA X, and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of the test revealed that L2 Korean students were particularly vulnerable to native models. They tended to select wrong answer options that were literal interpretations of the prompts, deviating from precise pragmatic inference. They also had a strong tendency of adding their own words or “garbage” to their responses. This further reduced the quality of their responses.

Moreover, the participants of this study were L2 Korean learners who had attained level 4 in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) at the end of their second or third year at university and were hoping to achieve level 6 in their next attempt. They were questioned about their WTC/SPCC, pragmatic awareness and understanding perception of the world.

The interviewees were presented with two scenarios, each of which involved an imagined interaction with their interactants and were asked to select one of the following strategies to employ when making an inquiry. They were then asked to explain the reasoning behind their choice. The majority of participants attributed their lack of a pragmatic response to their personality. TS for instance said she was difficult to talk to and would not inquire about the health of her co-worker when they had a heavy work load despite the fact that she thought native Koreans would.