Perception and Production of com of KFL Students

1. Perception and Production of comof KFL Students University of Hawai’i at Manoa Hye Seung Lee

2. Introduction • Korean com is commonly characterized as a contracted form of an adverb of degree cokumwhich means ‘a little’ or ‘a few’ in English. • Com as a discourse marker (DM) is widely known as a politeness marker with a hedging function to mitigate face threatening acts. • The use of com is closely related to communication strategies in Korean society. • Only a few studies have been done from the perspective of L2 education (Ceng, 2005; Se, 2006). • Com appears often in Korean textbooks even without any appropriate explanations of its function and use. • “pragmatic fossilization”: “the phenomenon by which a non-native speaker systematically uses certain forms inappropriately at the pragmatic level of communication” (Romero Trillo, 2002, p. 770).

3. Pragmatics of com • Reduction of illocutionary force 1.1 Semantic qualifier 1.2 Speech act qualifier 1.3 (Fixed expressions) • Filler 2.1 Hesitation 2.2 Searching for words 2.3 Filled pause • Increase of illocutionary force 3.1 Requesting marker 3.2 (Attention getter)

4. Reduction of Illocutionary Force • Negative politeness (Brown and Levinson, 1978) • It minimizes the imposition that the FTA effects. • Linguistic devices such as hedges on illocutionary force are used to realize it. 2. Hedge • “A ‘hedge’ is a particle, word, or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set; it says of that membership that is partial, or true only in certain respects, or that it is more true and complete than perhaps might be expected” (Brown & Levinson, 1978, p.145) • “linguistic expressions which weaken the illocutionary force of a statement” (Watts, 2003, p.169) • It is a cross-linguistic tendency that diminutives qualify illocutionary force (Jurafsky, 1996).

5. Reduction of Illocutionary Force (cont’d) 3. Com as a hedge • Sohn (1985, 1999): integral part of indirect request • Koo (2004) • mitigation is one of the most important politeness strategies. • com is the most frequent expression used for mitigation. • 58.96% of the politeness strategies were accomplished by the three most frequent expressions: ci an-h-ta ‘not be’, com, kes kathta ‘seem, appear’. • Semantic qualifier and speech act qualifier

6. Com in KLEAR Beginning 1 and 2

7. Perception and Production of comof KFL students Purpose • To identify the overall competence of Korean DMs among KFL students • To draw attention to the lack of education of DMs and encourage its integration into the Korean language education Research questions • Do KFL students perceive com as politeness marker in terms of its use and location? • Do KFL students produce com in requesting sentences? • Is there difference between HLs and NHLs in their perception and production?

8. Test Methods Participants • 10 native Korean speakers, from Seoul, in their 30s, as the baseline data • A total of 84 KOR201 students from fall 2008 to present (43 HL & 41 NHL) • Qualificationof a HL • One or both parents are Korean who speak the Korean language with the student. • One or more of the grandparents are Korean who speak the Korean language and have lived with the student at any point of the student’s life.

9. Materials-Production Test- • Fill in the blank speech bubbles • Total 7 blank bubbles (5 related to requesting & 2 distracters) 식당에서

11. 피자가 맛있네요 네, 그런데 목이 말라요. 물 마시고 싶어요.

12. 그래요?

13. 여기요!

14. 네, 손님

16. 네, 알겠습니다.

17. 고맙습니다

19. Materials -Perception Test- • 20 multiple-choice questions • 5 questions related to the use of com • 5 questions related to the location of com • 10 distracters

20. Perception Test Sample • It is winter time. You are at the classroom. Somebody came in but left the door open. How would you ask the person to close the door? • 문좀닫아주세요. • 문닫아주세요. • Your roommate is watching TV and the sound is too loud. How would you ask your roommate to lower the volume? • 좀텔레비전볼륨낮춰줄래요? • 텔레비전볼륨낮춰줄래요? Use of com Location of com

21. Perception Test Table 1. The number of correct responses for the perception test on the use of com Table 2. The number of correct responses for the perception test on the location of com

22. Average Correct ComPerception Use Use

23. Production Test Table 3. The number of com on the production test * The proportion of occurrences of comper student.

25. Production Test Table 4. The number of correctusage of com on the production test

27. Discussion • Result • Perception test • Both HLs and NHLs perceived the politeness function of com and its proper location very well. • There were little differences in terms of the correct recognition of com between HLs and NHLs. • Production test • Both HLs and NHLs had a low rate of producing com, compared to NSs. • HLs’ production rate is twice that of the NHLs’, but only 1/3 that of the NSs’.

28. Discussion (cont’d) • Attribution High rate of peception The amount of exposure to com’s frequent presence in requests seems to allow them to recognize the function and syntax. (e.g. family, Korean community, textbook, teacher, etc.) Low rate of production • There is no formal instruction about how to use com. • HLs used incorrect spellings of com in the correct locations. (e.g. 즘, 점, 쫌) • HLs used com in the wrong loccation. (e.g. 문을 닫을 좀 주세요.) 2) KFL students don’t have the chance to practice the use of com in the classroom. • HLs know specific expressions better than NHLs. (e.g. 물 좀 주세요.) Gap

29. Suggestion and Conclusion • Reducing illocutionary force can be a useful strategy of politeness that is critical in achieving communicative competence for language learner. • In order to bridge the gap between students’ perception and production, com as a politeness marker should be taught in the classroom. • Textbook should include appropriate formal instruction about com as a politeness marker. • Introducing com as a chunk with a cwu-sey-yo verb in a requesting sentence will be helpful for the learners. • A detailed gloss of com must be provided, for example, ‘sort of, kind of, or please’.

30. Thank you!

31. Production Test Table 4. The number of correctlocation of com on the production test Table 5. The number of correctspelling of com on the production test