This study aims to define the sociocultural competences for Korean language learners and empirically explore its contents, emphasizing that sociocultural competence is essential for communication. Also, it investigates the educational method required for advanced Korean learners who still have socio-pragmatic problems in spite of their proficiency in Korean language.
This study defined sociocultural competence as ‘the ability to appropriately perform communication based on the recognition and interpretation of the social and cultural circumstances of conversation participants’. In other words, the sociocultural competence has the processes of ‘sense’, ‘interpretation’, ‘utterance/response’, and ‘reflection’. However, since reflection is a phase of integrating, evaluating, internalizing the sociocultural competence experienced from a specific communication after completing it, it has only educational implication without being included as a construction factor of sociocultural competence. Therefore, the detailed competence of sociocultural competence are expressed as ‘sense-competence’, ‘interpretation-competence’, ‘application-competence’. The sense-competence refers to the ability to distinguish the sensitivity on participants or situational variables and sociocultural messages. The process of interpretation implies the ability to comprehend and adjust the internal implication of utterance socially and culturally. The application-competence is the ability to make proper utterances and responses by selecting optimal messages based on the utilization of the sociocultural information that were previously recognized and interpreted in the earlier process.
To specify the sociocultural competence as an abstract concept, this study conducted the analysis of Korean discourses. First, the factors to construct sociocultural competence were classified into ‘sociocultural context’, ‘sociocultural difference’ and ‘language with sociocultural foundation’. Through the analysis of Korean discourses, the procedures of exercising sociocultural competence were identified in Korean language communication and the examples of construction factors of sociocultural competence were collected. Participants, conditions, and media in communication were inferred as the variables to organize sociocultural contexts. Moreover, the following two dimensions, social norms or ritual behaviors, and value systems including such as value, belief or attitude could be regarded as the factors to promote sociocultural differences. In addition, language with sociocultural foundation could be classified into system-centered language and significance-centered language. It was found that each of them was associated with the comprehension and application of the internalized meanings of problems and contexts regarding which expression would be selected within their systems.
In order to link the concepts and construction factors of sociocultural competence suggested, examining the actual circumstances of Korean language learners is required. In this sense, Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was performed for advanced Korean language learners, and the results were analyzed by college students and teachers in Korea. The analysis revealed that setting the relation among communication participants and comprehending their contexts highly affected the success and failure of communication, and the training for finding acceptable points among formal or honorific language systems was needed. Furthermore, the necessity of education with sociocultural foundation was revealed as well; it is to accurate knowledge of register of Korean expression or structure and apply the knowledge in the specific context.
Based on the actual circumstances of learners analyzed above, this study set the educational objectives and principles to improve sociocultural competence required for communication of advanced Korean language learners and prepared the examples for the classes. In respect to the examples of the classes, attention points for the classes were categorized and investigated in particular. The plans for experiencing the process of exercising sociocultural competence and integrally utilizing the experiences were also explored.
This study has the following implications: it suggests the concept of sociocultural competence to describe the roles of sociocultural factors in communication which were importantly recognized but could not be agreed upon in terms of their contents or conceptualization. Given that it emphasizes the shift from knowledge accumulation to the cultivation of experiences and sensitivity and suggests more communication-centered Korean language education, it provides future directions for Korean language education.