The LesserKnown Benefits Of Pragmatic

Study of Chinese Learners' Pedagogical Choices in Korean
In addition to the learner-internal aspects, CLKs' awareness of pragmatic resistance and the relational affordances they had access to were important. RIs from TS & ZL for instance were able to cite their relationships with their local professors as the primary reason for their decision to stay clear of criticising a strict prof (see examples 2).
This article examines all local pragmatic research on Korean published until 2020. It focuses on the practical fundamental topics like:
Discourse Construction Tests (DCTs)
The Discourse Completion Test (DCT) is a widely used instrument in the field of pragmatic research. It has numerous advantages, but also a few disadvantages. For instance it is that the DCT cannot account for cultural and personal variations in communication. Additionally the DCT is susceptible to bias and could cause overgeneralizations. It is important to carefully analyze the data before it is used in research or assessment.
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 could be a benefit. This can assist researchers study the role of prosody in communicating across cultural contexts, a major challenge in cross-cultural pragmatics.
In the field of linguistics, the DCT has emerged as one of the most important tools for analyzing learners' communication behaviors. It can be used to study various issues, including politeness, turn-taking, and lexical choice. It can also be used to determine the phonological complexity of the learners speaking.
Recent research used a DCT as tool to evaluate the skills of refusal among EFL students. The participants were given a list of scenarios and were asked to select an appropriate response from the options offered. The researchers found the DCT to be more effective than other refusal methods like a questionnaire or video recordings. However, they cautioned that the DCT should be employed with caution and include other data collection methods.
DCTs can be designed using specific language requirements, like form and content. These criteria are based on intuition and based upon the assumptions of test developers. They aren't always exact and could be misleading in describing how ELF learners actually respond to requests in real-world interactions. This issue calls for more research into different methods to assess the ability to refuse.
In a recent study, DCT responses to student inquiries via email were compared to the responses from an oral DCT. The results revealed that 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 looked at Chinese learners making pragmatic choices when using Korean. It employed a variety of experimental tools including Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questions and Refusal Interviews. Participants were 46 CLKs at the upper-intermediate level who responded to MQs, DCTs, and RIs. They were also asked to consider their evaluations and refusal responses in RIs. The results showed that CLKs often chose to reject native Korean pragmatic norms. Their decisions were influenced primarily by four factors that included their personalities and multilingual identities, their current lives, as well as their relationships. These findings have pedagogical implications for L2 Korean assessment.
The MQ data were analyzed to determine the participants' rational choices. The data were classified according to Ishihara's (2010) definition of pragmatic resistance. Then, the responses were compared with their linguistic performance on the DCTs to determine whether they were a reflection of pragmatic resistance or not. The interviewees were asked to justify their decision to use pragmatic language in a specific scenario.
The results of the MQs, DCTs and z-tests were analysed using descriptive statistics and z tests. The CLKs were found to use euphemistic words like "sorry" or "thank you". This could be due to their lack experience with the target languages, leading to a lack of understanding of the korean pragmatic norms. The results showed that the CLKs' preferences for either converging to L1 or diverging from both L1 and L2 pragmatic norms differed based on the DCT situations. In Situations 3 and 12 CLKs preferred diverging from both L1- and L2-pragmatic norms, while in Situation 14, CLKs preferred convergence to L1 norms.
The RIs further revealed that the CLKs were aware their pragmatism in every DCT situation. The RIs were conducted one-toone within two days of the participants had completed the MQs. The RIs were recorded and transcribed by two coders who were independent, were then coded. Coding was an iterative process, where the coders discussed and read each transcript. The results of coding were compared to the original RI transcripts, giving an indication of how well the RIs were able to capture the fundamental behaviors.
talking to (RIs)
The most important issue in research on pragmatics is: Why do some learners choose not to accept native-speaker norms? A recent study attempted to answer this question by employing a range of experimental tools, including DCTs MQs, DCTs, and RIs. The participants consisted of 46 CLKs, 44 CNSs and 45 KNSs from five Korean universities. They were required to complete the DCTs in their native language and complete the MQs either in their L1 or their L2. 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 rejected native-speaker pragmatic norms in over 40% of their answers. They did this even though they were able to produce patterns that resembled native speakers. Furthermore, they were clearly aware of their pragmatism. They attributed their resistance to learner-internal variables such as their identities and personalities as well as multilingual identities. They also mentioned external factors, like relational advantages. They described, for example, how their interactions with their professors helped them to perform more comfortably in terms of the cultural and linguistic norms at their university.
The interviewees expressed their concern about the social pressures or penalties they might face if their local social norms were not followed. They were concerned that their native friends would consider them "foreigners" and believe that they are unintelligent. This worry was similar to the concerns expressed by Brown (2013) and Ishihara (2009).
These findings suggest that native-speaker pragmatic norms are not the norm for Korean learners. They may remain useful as a model for official Korean proficiency tests. But it is advisable for future researchers to reassess their usefulness in particular situations and in various cultural contexts. This will help them better know how different cultures could affect the practical behavior of L2 students 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 to Stratways Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Seoul.
Case Studies
The case study method is an investigative technique that uses participant-centered, in-depth studies to study a specific subject. This method makes use of numerous sources of information including documents, interviews, and observations, to support its findings. This type of investigation is useful for examining complicated or unique subjects that are difficult to quantify using other methods.
The first step in conducting a case study is to define the subject and the objectives of the study. This will help determine which aspects of the subject matter are crucial for investigation and which ones can be omitted. It is also helpful to study the literature that is relevant to the subject to gain a greater understanding of the subject and to place the case study within a larger theoretical context.
This study was conducted 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 the 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 deviance from the correct 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 answers.
The participants of this study were all L2 Korean students who had reached the level of four in the Test of Proficiency in Korean TOPIK in their second or third year at university and hoped to achieve level six on their next attempt. They were asked to answer questions about their WTC/SPCC as well as comprehension and pragmatic awareness.
The interviewees were presented with two situations, each involving a hypothetical interaction with their interlocutors and were asked to choose one of the following strategies when making an inquiry. They were then asked to provide the reasons behind their decision. The majority of the participants attributed their lack of a pragmatic response to their personality. TS for instance, claimed that she was difficult to approach and would not inquire about her interlocutor's well-being when they were working at a high rate, even though she believed native Koreans would.