The pragmatic resistance of Chinese learners of Korean

Abstract

This study examines pragmatic resistance as a choice made by Chinese learners of Korean and the factors that contribute to this choice. Data were collected from 46 upper-intermediate Korean language learners through three different tools, including Discourse Completion Tasks, metapragmatic questionnaires, and retrospective interviews. Findings showed that the participants chose to resist native Korean pragmatic norms in over 40% of their answers by either adhering to Chinese norms or diverging from both native Chinese and Korean norms. Their decision to resist native Korean pragmatic norms was affected by four main factors, namely the learners' personalities, multilingual identities, ongoing life histories, and relational affordances. These findings indicated that native-speaker pragmatic norms, which are still employed as a model by official Korean proficiency tests, are no longer the default preference of Korean language learners. This study thus suggests revising the applicability of native pragmatic norms in Korean language teaching and assessment.