Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to learner-internal influences, CLKs' awareness of pragmatic resistance and the relationship advantages they could draw on were significant. For instance the RIs from TS and ZL both mentioned their relationships with their local professors as an important reason for them to choose to not criticize a strict professor (see the second example).
This article reviews all locally published practical research on Korean until 2020. It focuses on the practical fundamental topics like:
Discourse Construction Tests
The discourse completion test is a popular instrument in pragmatic research. It has many advantages, but also some disadvantages. The DCT, for example, cannot account cultural and individual variations. Furthermore the DCT is prone to bias and can result in overgeneralizations. It should be carefully analyzed before it is used in research or evaluation.
Despite its limitations, the DCT can be 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 social variables related to politeness can be a strength. This feature can help researchers understand the role of prosody in communication across cultural contexts, a key issue in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics DCT is one of the most effective tools used to study the behavior of communication learners. It can be used to analyze various issues, including politeness, turn-taking, and the choices made in lexical use. It can be used to assess phonological complexity in learners' speech.
A recent study employed an DCT to assess EFL students' ability to resist. Participants were given a set of scenarios to choose from, and then asked to choose the appropriate response. The researchers found the DCT to be more efficient than other methods of refusal, such as the use of a questionnaire or video recordings. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be used with caution and include other data collection methods.
DCTs can be developed using specific linguistic criteria, such as the form and content. 프라그마틱 슬롯 조작 are intuitive and are based on the assumptions of the test creators. They may not be accurate, and they may be misleading about the way ELF learners actually reject requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for more study on alternative methods for measuring refusal competence.
In a recent study, DCT responses to student requests via email were compared to the responses of an oral DCT. The results revealed that DCTs favored more direct and conventionally-indirect request forms and used less hints than email data.
Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MQs)
This study investigated Chinese learners' choices when it comes to using Korean using a variety of tools that were tested, including Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) as well as metapragmatic questionnaires and Refusal Interviews (RIs). Participants were 46 CLKs with upper-intermediate proficiency who gave responses to MQs and DCTs. They were also asked to reflect on their evaluation and refusal responses in RIs. The results showed that CLKs are more likely to reject native Korean norms of pragmatism. Their choices were influenced by four factors that included their personalities and multilingual identities, their ongoing life experiences and their relationship affordances. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment and teaching.
The MQ data was first analyzed to identify the participants' actual choices. The data were categorized according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the responses were compared to their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine if they showed a pattern of resistance to pragmatics or not. The interviewees also had to explain the reasons for choosing a pragmatic behavior in certain situations.
The results of the MQs and DCTs were then examined 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 familiarity with the target language which led to an insufficient understanding of korea pragmatic norms. The results showed that CLKs' preference to differ from L1 and L2 norms or to converge towards L1 varied depending on the DCT circumstances. For example, in Situation 3 and 12 the CLKs would prefer to diverge from both L1 as well as L2 pragmatic norms, whereas in Situation 14, they favored converging to L1 norms.
The RIs also revealed the CLKs were aware their own pragmatism in each DCT situation. The RIs were conducted on a one-to-one basis within two days of participants completing the MQs. The RIs, which were transcribed and recorded by two coders independent of each other, were then coded. The coding was an iterative process, where the coders discussed and read each transcript. The results of the coding process were evaluated against the original RI transcripts, giving an indication of how well the RIs captured the underlying pragmatic behaviors.
Refusal Interviews (RIs)

The most important question in pragmatic research is: Why do certain learners decide to not accept native-speaker norms? Recent research attempted to answer this question with several experimental tools including DCTs MQs and RIs. Participants included 46 CLKs and 44 CNSs from five Korean Universities. They were asked to complete the DCTs in their first language and complete the MQs in either their L1 or their L2. They were then invited to an RI, where they were asked to think about and discuss their responses to each DCT situation.
The results showed that CLKs on average, did not adhere to the 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 were similar to native speakers. They were also aware of their pragmatic resistance. They attributed their actions to learner-internal factors such as their identities, personalities and identities that are multilingual, as well as ongoing life histories. They also referred to external factors, like relationship advantages. For instance, they discussed how their relationships with professors led to more relaxed performance with respect to the linguistic and intercultural norms of their university.
The interviewees expressed concern about the social pressures or penalties they could be subject to when their social norms were violated. They were concerned that their native interactants might consider them "foreigners" and believe they are not intelligent. This worry was similar to the concerns expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These results suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are not the default preference of Korean learners. They may still be useful for official Korean proficiency tests. Future researchers should consider reassessing the usefulness of these tests in various cultural contexts and in specific situations. This will allow them to better comprehend how different environments may impact the pragmatic behavior of L2 learners in the classroom and beyond. This will also help educators improve their methods of teaching and testing Korean pragmatics. Seukhoon Paul Choi, principal advisor at Stratways Group in Seoul, is a geopolitical risk consultancy.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigative strategy that relies on participant-centered, deep investigations to explore a specific subject. This method uses various sources of data like interviews, observations, and documents to confirm its findings. This kind of investigation can be used to study unique or complex subjects that are difficult for other methods of measuring.
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 matter are essential for research and which are best left out. It is also beneficial to study the literature that is relevant to the subject to gain a broad understanding of the topic and place the case study within a wider theoretical framework.
This study was conducted on an open source platform that is the KMMLU leaderboard [50] and its benchmarks that are specific to Korea, HyperCLOVA X and LDCC-Solar (figure 1 below). The results of this experiment showed that L2 Korean learners were highly susceptible to the influence of native models. They were more likely to select incorrect answers that were literal interpretations. This was a deviation from the correct pragmatic inference. They also showed an inclination to add their own text, or "garbage," to their responses, which further hampered their response quality.
The participants of this study were all L2 Korean students who had achieved level four on the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their third or second year at university and hoped to achieve level six on their next attempt. They were asked to respond to questions about their WTC/SPCC as well as understanding and pragmatic awareness.
Interviewees were presented with two hypothetical situations involving an interaction with their counterparts and were asked to choose one of the strategies listed below to use when making an offer. They were then asked to explain the reasoning behind their choice. The majority of participants attributed their pragmatic resistance to their personality. For example, TS claimed that she was hard to get close to, and so she did not want to inquire about the well-being of her friend with a heavy workload despite the fact that she believed that native Koreans would do so.