Linguistic Cultures in SNULT for Second Foreign Languages: The Case of SNULT Chinese and SNULT French Listening Comprehension Sections

The main goal of the current study is to examine how the concept of linguistic cultures (LCs) is integrated and utilized in the content of test items for Seoul National University Language Tests (SNULT). In this study, LCs were subdivided into three types: (a) language-internal, (b) sociolinguistic, and (c) pragmatic LCs. A total of 160 listening items were chosen from SNULT Chinese and SNULT French tests (80 from each) and then analyzed according to the tripartite, classification scheme of LCs. Results of analyses have revealed that one or more types of LCs were identified in about 61% of 80 items for dialog-based listening comprehension sections of SNULT Chinese and SNULT French, respectively. This result indicates that LCs are largely reflected in SNULT and that these tests can provide appropriate test construction models for assessing communicative competence.