Pragmatic Transfer In Refusals By Chinese Learners Of English

The focus of this study is"pragmatic transfer", which is defined by Kasper as"the influence exerted by learners'pragmatic knowledge of languages and cultures other than L2 on their comprehension, production and learning of L2 pragmatic information"(Kasper, 1992: 207). In much of the research on interlanguage pragmatics, second language learners'pragmatic transfer has been demonstrated by comparing corresponding L1 and L2 data; however, what is lacking is a satisfactory explanation of what specifically influences second language learners'production.The present study focuses on the speech act of refusals. Refusals are important because they are"face-threatening"to the hearer in nature and often involve complex face-saving strategies, such as mitigation and indirectness, which may be manifested differently across cultures. Also, refusals are complex because, as Beebe et al. (1990) point out, refusal responses vary in their language form and content according to the initiating act, such as request, offer, suggestion and invitation.The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the pragmatic transfer in Chinese EFL learners'speech act of refusal by comparing their performance with corresponding L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English) realization data.Additionally, this study discusses how Chinese EFL learners'performances are influenced by Chinese sociocultural norms or values as well as by the Chinese language, thereby also providing some pedagogical implications for second language teachers.Thirty native speakers of Chinese, thirty native speakers of English and thirty Chinese EFL learners participated in this study. Data were collected by the author through using a written discourse completion test taken from Takahashi and Beebe (1987) and Beebe et al. (1990), which elicited refusals of requests, invitations, offers and suggestions from interlocutors of different status (i.e., higher, equal and lower status). The data were also categorized according to the refusal taxonomy of Beebe et al. (1990), and were analyzed in terms of the frequency and content of the semantic formulas used by the subjects. The learners'refusals were compared with those of native speakers of Chinese and English in order to examine the extent of pragmatic transfer from Chinese to English.This thesis covers six chapters.Chapter One gives a brief introduction. The reason why this topic is chosen and the purposes are given.Chapter Two reviews literature relevant to this study including language transfer theory, pragmatic transfer, refusal strategies as well as the difference between Chinese face theory and Brown and Levinson's face theory. This chapter also reviews the previous study of pragmatic transfer in refusals.Chapter Three presents methodology used in this study. This chapter includes a description of the subjects who participated in this study, the research design, and the data analysis procedures followed in this study.Chapter Four presents the results of this study. Evidence of pragmatic transfer in Chinese EFL learners'refusals is provided by comparing the frequency and content of semantic formulas of refusals made by the three groups. In addition, this chapter discusses the relation between social status and pragmatic transfer as well as that between genders and pragmatic transfer. This study presents that pragmatic transfer occurs more frequently in females than males. In addition, this thesis discusses the cultural roots of pragmatic transfer. The Chinese culture is believed to be collectivism oriented and the Western individualism oriented. Furthermore, power and solidarity are a universal phenomenon in all societies. However, English speaking society and Chinese society have different attitudes towards the two.Chapter Five provides a brief summary of findings and presents the limitations of this study. Pedagogical implications for second language teachers are suggested in this chapter.