What Is Pragmatic And Why Is Everyone Speakin’ About It?

Study of Chinese Learners’ Pedagogical Choices in Korean

In addition to learner-internal influences CLKs’ understanding of pragmatic resistance and the relational affordances they had access to were crucial. RIs from TS & ZL, for 프라그마틱 슬롯버프 example were able to cite their relationships with their local professors as a key factor in their rational decision to avoid criticising a strict prof (see example 2).

This article examines all local pragmatic research on Korean published until 2020. It focuses on the practical core topics such as:

Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)

The test for discourse completion is a commonly used tool in the field of pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages but it also has its drawbacks. For example it is that the DCT cannot take into account cultural and personal differences in communication. The DCT can also be biased and lead to overgeneralizations. It should be carefully analyzed before being used for research or evaluation.

Despite its limitations, the DCT is a valuable tool to investigate the connection between prosody, information structure and non-native speakers. Its ability to use two or more stages to manipulate social variables related to politeness is a plus. This feature can be used to study the effect of prosody in various cultural contexts.

In the field of linguistics the DCT is now one of the primary tools for analyzing learners’ behavior in communication. It can be used to examine a variety of issues that include politeness, turn-taking, and lexical choices. It can also be used to assess the phonological complexity of the learners speaking.

A recent study used the DCT to test EFL students’ ability to resist. Participants were presented with various scenarios and were asked to select an appropriate response from the options provided. The authors discovered that the DCT to be more effective than other refusal methods like a questionnaire or video recordings. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be used with caution and include other methods for collecting data.

DCTs are usually created with specific linguistic requirements in mind, like the content and the form. These criteria are based on intuition and based upon the assumptions of test developers. They may not be correct, and they could incorrectly describe the way in which ELF learners actually refuse requests in actual interactions. This issue calls for further studies of different methods to assess the ability to refuse.

In a recent study DCT responses to student inquiries via email were compared with the responses of an oral DCT. The results showed that DCTs favored more direct and conventionally-indirect request forms and utilized hints less than email data.

Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)

This study examined Chinese learners’ pragmatic choices when using Korean. It employed various experimental tools including Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions and Refusal Interviews. The participants were 46 CLKs of upper-intermediate level who responded to MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also asked for reflections on their assessments and their refusals to participate in RIs. The results revealed that CLKs often chose to defy native Korean pragmatic norms. Their choices were influenced primarily by four factors such as their personality and multilingual identities, their current life histories, as well as their relationship affordances. These findings have pedagogical consequences for L2 Korean assessment.

First, the MQ data were analyzed to determine the participants’ choices in terms of their pragmatics. The data was categorized according Ishihara (2010)’s definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the choices were compared to their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine whether they reflected pragmatic resistance or not. Interviewees also had to explain why they chose an atypical behavior in certain situations.

The findings of the MQs and DCTs were then examined using descriptive statistics and Z-tests. The CLKs were found 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 an insufficient knowledge of korean’s pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs’ preferences to diverge from L1 and L2 norms or to move towards L1 norms varied based on the DCT situations. For instance, in Situations 3 and 12, the CLKs preferred to diverge from both L1 and pragmatic norms, whereas in Situation 14 they preferred converging to L1 norms.

The RIs also revealed the CLKs were aware their own pragmatism in each DCT situation. RIs were conducted on a one-to-one basis within two days of the participants completing the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed, then coded by two coders from different companies. The coding process was iterative and involved the coders reading and discussing each transcript. The results of the coding process were contrasted with the original RI transcripts, giving an indication of how the RIs accurately portrayed the core behaviors.

Refusal Interviews (RIs)

One of the most important questions in pragmatic research is the reason why learners choose to resist pragmatic norms that native speakers use. Recent research sought to answer this question by using several experimental tools including DCTs MQs and RIs. Participants included 46 CLKs and 44 CNSs from five Korean Universities. Participants were required to complete the DCTs and MQs either in their L1 or L2. Then they were invited to attend a RI where they were asked to consider their responses to the DCT situations.

The results showed that CLKs on average, did not follow the norms of native speakers in more than 40% of their responses. They did this even though they were able to create patterns that closely resembled natives. They were also aware of their pragmatism resistance. They attributed their decision to learner-internal factors such as their identities and personalities as well as multilingual identities. They also referred external factors, such as relational affordances. For instance, they outlined how their relationships with professors helped facilitate a more relaxed performance in regards to the linguistic and intercultural standards of their university.

The interviewees expressed concerns about the social pressures or penalties they could face in the event that their local social norms were not followed. They were concerned that their local friends might think they are “foreigners” and think they are unintelligent. This was a concern similar to the concerns voiced by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).

These findings suggest that native speakers pragmatic norms aren’t the default preference for Korean learners. They could remain 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 cultural contexts. This will help them better comprehend how different environments can affect the pragmatic behavior of students in the classroom and beyond. Additionally, this will help educators develop more effective methodologies for teaching and testing korea pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi is principal advisor to Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm based in Seoul.

Case Studies

The case study method is a method that employs deep, participatory investigations to study a specific subject. This method makes use of numerous sources of information including documents, interviews, and observations, to support its findings. This kind of research can be used to analyze specific or complicated topics that are difficult for other methods to measure.

The first step in conducting a case study is to define the subject matter and the purpose of the study. This will help determine what aspects of the subject are important for research and which could be left out. It is also beneficial to read the literature to gain a general understanding of the subject and place the situation in a larger theoretical context.

This study was based on an open-source platform called the KMMLU Leaderboard [50] as well as its Korean-specific benchmarks HyperCLOVA X and LDCC Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this study revealed that L2 Korean learners were extremely susceptible to the influence of native models. They were more likely to select incorrect answer choices that were literal interpretations. This was a deviance from a precise pragmatic inference. They also showed a strong tendency to include their own text or “garbage” to their responses. This lowered the quality of their answers.

Moreover, the participants of this study were L2 Korean learners who had attained level 4 in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) in their third or second year of university and were aiming for level 6 in their next attempt. They were asked questions about their WTC/SPCC, pragmatic awareness and understanding understanding of the world.

The interviewees were presented with two scenarios, each involving an imaginary interaction with their interlocutors and were asked to choose one of the following strategies to use when making a request. Interviewees were then asked to justify their decision. Most of the participants attributed their lack of a pragmatic response to their personalities. TS for instance stated that she was difficult to approach and would not inquire about the health of her co-worker when they were working at a high rate, even though she believed native Koreans would.