태국인 학습자의 한국어 추측 표현 이해 연구

A Study of L1 Thai speakers’ understanding on Korean supposition expression

When people communicate, they can convey what they mean without using direct and explicit expressions. However, indirect use of the language might cause a pragmatic failure to the speakers from different cultural background. It might be incompatible with the economic use of language when we consider the usual mechanism of understanding and speaking. Compared with the direct use of language expression, indirect expression requires more efforts not only on the side of speakers but also on the side of listeners while they analyze the message. Also, it causes much higher tension on the part of the speakers since the message could be delivered differently depending on the listeners’ cultural background. The L2 learners of Korean often find the indirect expressions are difficult to understand. For instance, when a supposition expression that Koreans use frequently are used in a different meaning rather than the supposition itself, then L2 learners feel it confusing. This study examined whether Thai speakers of Korean showed different degree of understanding on the indirect supposition expression and direct expression, and whether there existed the variation of language proficiency and learning effect.