Sociopragmatic analysis of Korean requests: pedagogical settings

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this investigation is to identify and describe sociopragmatic features of American KFL learners in the Korean communicative act of request. For this study, 50 female KFL learners were asked to respond in Korean to 12 different situations in which they carry out the speech act of request. Their Korean performances were compared to those of 50 female Korean native speakers in order to identify deviations and problems which the American KFL learners were confronted with when trying to acquire this particular communicative function. Fifty female American English native speakers also participated in order to provide baseline intra-cultural data as a possible source of the learners’ deviant realization behaviors from target norms. The data, collected from a Discourse Completion Task (DCT), were analyzed descriptively in terms of sociopragmatic aspects. In the analysis, 17 semantic formulae for request supportive move (RSM) in Korean were developed, and five semantic formulae for request head act (RHA) in Korean were established. On the whole, the request supportive move formulae usage patterns of the respective groups support a stereotypical description of Koreans as being more hierarchical, collectivistic, roundabout, and formalistic in comparison to Americans. In addition, the semantic formulae usage patterns of the KFL learners were consistent with those of the American English native speakers, indicative of an L1 transfer effect. Moreover, the request behaviors of the KFL learners were more verbose and varied in forms than those of the Korean native speakers.