An Interlanguage Pragmatic Study of Refusals by Thai Learners of Korean

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the refusal productions by Thai learners of Korean in second language and foreign language environment to see how language exposure influences learners’ acquisition of pragmatic knowledge. Four sample groups are recruited for this study: 70 Korean native speakers (KNS); 30 Thai learners of Korean in a second language environment (KSL); 30 Thai learners who majored in Korean in a foreign language environment (KFL-major) and 30 Thai learners minored in Korean in a foreign language environment (KFL-minor). Korean language exposure questionnaire and a written discourse completion task (WDCT) are used to collect the data. The data from the native Korean speakers (KNS) is used as the baseline of the analysis. The results show that both power and social distance have effect on the realization of refusals. The refusals by KFL-minor deviate more from the Korean norm than those by the KSL and the KFL-major, but there are no major contrast between the KSL and the KFL-major. This suggests amount of language exposure influences the acquisition of pragmatic knowledge over the learning environment.