An Empirical Study on Pragmatic Transfer in Refusal Speech Act Produced by Chinese High School EFL Learners

Autor/in	Jiang, Lingyun
Titel	An Empirical Study on Pragmatic Transfer in Refusal Speech Act Produced by Chinese High School EFL Learners
Quelle	In: English Language Teaching, 8 (2015) 7, S.95-113 (19 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1916-4742
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; English (Second Language); Second Language Learning; High School Students; Speech Acts; Pragmatics; Interlanguage; Comparative Analysis; Native Speakers; Chinese; Language Proficiency; China + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Zweitsprachenerwerb; High school; High schools; Student; Students; Oberschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Studentin; Sprechakt; Pragmalinguistik; Zielsprache; Muttersprachler; China; Chinesen; Language skill; Language skills; Sprachkompetenz
Abstract	Pragmatic competence plays a very significant role in cross-cultural communication. In Chinese high school, many English teachers focus more on lexical and syntactic aspects of English. The aspect of pragmatics, however, is relatively neglected by high school English teachers. The aim of this research is to investigate pragmatic transfer in refusal speech act made by Chinese high school EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners. Written DCT (Discourse Completion Test) was used for data collection. Research subjects included three groups: native Chinese speakers (NC), Chinese English learners (CE), and native English speakers (NE). The performance of three groups were compared to find out the differences of refusals made by Chinese and Americans, the characteristics of pragmatic transfer in EFL learners as well as the relationship between pragmatic transfer and L2 proficiency. Results show that 1) In terms of the frequency of semantic formulas, American speakers liked to use more direct refusal strategies and positive feelings than Chinese speakers. 2) Apparent pragmatic transfer could be found in CE1 and CE3 groups as regards to the frequency of semantic formulas. For instance, both Chinese speakers and EFL learners used address forms while no one in NE group use them. 3) A large amount of pragmatic transfer could be found in the content of refusal strategy of excuse. Statistics show that both NCs and CEs used the similar content as an excuse when giving a rejection. 4) In terms of pragmatic transfer and L2 linguisitic ability, results indicate that the overall tendency of the co-relationship is negative. More pragmatic transfer happened in CE1 group than CE3 group. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01