The Process of Korean Learners of English in Understanding Conversational Implicatures

Abstract

The ability to interpret implicatures is clearly a necessary skill for understanding everyday utterances in English. Previous research on NNS interpretation of English implicatures investigated their ability to understand implicatures rather than their process of understanding implicatures. The present study attempts to examine the procedure of how Korean learners of English understand implicatures. The hypothesis proposed in the present study is that, even when NS and NNS agree on the meaning of a given implicature, their respective approaches for computing its meaning may differ. The participants, 14 NS from the United States and 23 NNS from Korea, were given an instrument consisting of 10 multiple-choice items, in which they were asked to choose the response that best describes the implicature in a given utterance, and then provide a step-by-step explanation of each response. Finding ssupported the hypothesis as NNS patterns of explaining certain types of implicatures differed from those of NS. Also the reliability of multiple-choice items for assessing comprehension of implicatures is called into question as 22.3% of correct NNS responses provided explanation that suggests that they did not, in fact, understand the implicatures.(185words).