A Study On Chinese EFL Learners' Interlanguage Pragmatic Competence As Seen In The Performance Of The Speech Act Of Request

The main purpose of this thesis is to research on Chinese EFL learner's interlanguage pragmatic competence. The study attempts to investigate how Chinese EFL learners perform the speech act of request so as to describe the acquisition or developmental process and characteristics of their interlanguage pragmatic competence. Apart from this, the study also highlights the potential factors that influence the development of pragmatic competence and account for the occurrence of pragmatic failure.To attain the aims mentioned above, the study focuses on a very common speech act in our daily life --- request, and chooses the sophomores of non-English major from Shanghai Finance University as research participants. The way they perform requests in everyday situations is examined. By means of a questionnaire, the researcher collects the controlled output language data, and then makes both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the collected data to discover certain characteristics of Chinese EFL learners in performing the speech act of request. In addition, the researcher examines how pragmatic competence is acquired in a second language by analyzing the requests performed by Chinese learners of English. Finally the researcher makes some suggestions for the improvement of learners'interlanguage pragmatic competence in teaching practice.