A Study Of Chinese EFL Learners' Interlanguage Pragmatic Development Based On The Speech ACT Of Complimenting

This study is an investigation concerned with the developmental issue of interlanguage pragmatics, especially in compliment behavior. Interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) studies focusing on the effect of L2 proficiency on the development of ILP often have presented different findings of the relationship between L2 proficiency and ILP development. The need for more research on the ILP competence of Chinese EFL learners, and the challenges that Chinese EFL learners face when conducting the speech act of complimenting were the driving forces for the writing of this dissertation.This study aims to investigate the compliment behavior of Chinese EFL learners at different stages of general proficiency, so as to find out how the development of ILP competence correlates with the English proficiency and to what extent the Chinese EFL learners'L1 pragmatics influences their L2 pragmatics, and in what way. This dissertation addresses four primary research questions:(1) Are there any sociopragmatic differences in the complimenting behavior of Chinese EFL learners correlating with their level of proficiency in English? If yes, what are the differences?(2) Are there any pragmalinguistic differences in the complimenting behavior of these learners correlating with their level of proficiency in English? If yes, what are the differences?(3) Is there a natural route of development for complimenting behavior of these learners? If there is one, what stages of developmental sequence for compliments do these learners demonstrate?(4) To what extent do Chinese EFL learners demonstrate negative pragmatic transfer in the speech act of compliments?This study adopts a pseudo-longitudinal approach. There were altogether 100 female participants for this study, including 3 groups of Chinese EFL learners of different proficiency levels, a group of native speakers of American English, and a group of native speakers of Chinese. Compliments paid by them were collected through a Discourse Completion Task (DCT). The DCT data were codified according to taxonomies of compliment behavior modified from those provided by Wolfson (1983), Ye (1995), Yuan (1998), and Yu (1999). The DCT data of the three EFL-learner groups were compared with those of the two native-speaker groups from the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic perspectives both quantitatively and qualitatively. A retrospective interview was also conducted to reinforce the statistical results. The results were interpreted mainly based on three cognitive processing theories, i.e., noticing hypothesis, two-dimensional model of L2 proficiency development, and complexification hypothesis, and two politeness theories, i.e., Brown and Levinson's politeness theory and Scollon and Scollon's politeness framework.Findings of this study showed that great differences existed among various subject groups in performing the speech act of complimenting both in the sociopragmatic aspect, in terms of choice of strategies in relation to power relationship, social distance, and topic, choice of compliment focus, and compliment content, and in the pragmalinguistic aspect, in terms of choice of syntactic patterns and positive semantic carriers.Further findings indicated that the development of English proficiency of a Chinese EFL learner is more related to pragmalinguistic competence than to sociopragmatic competence. On the sociopragmatic dimension, while a learner's knowledge of the target norms at the macro level (i.e. their overall use of Main Strategies) increases as he becomes more grammatically proficient, that at the micro level (i.e. choice of strategies in relation to social variables, choice of compliment focus, and compliment content) can not be gained automatically. On the pragmalinguistic dimension, the advanced learners were quite approximate to the Americans in the range of syntactic patterns and semantic carriers. The intermediate learners were observed to use complex structures, yet their use often diverged from the target routines. The beginners'use of syntactic patterns and semantic carriers lacked diversity and was much constrained by their limited linguistic proficiency.The study also found that learner's negative pragmatic transfer presents a skewed bell curve as his linguistic competence increases. Negative transfer seldom occurs at the beginning stage since the learner has not reached the threshold level of linguistic proficiency. It occurs much more frequently at the intermediate stage as his expanded linguistic knowledge enables him to draw on his L1 norms. Negative transfer decreases at the advanced stage, especially at the pragmalinguistic level, due to better knowledge of L2 form-function mappings. In addition, based on the compliment behavior of the participants of the present study, a four-stage developmental sequence of compliment behavior by Chinese EFL learners was proposed.This study is one of the few studies that examine compliment behavior from the interlanguage perspective. By seeking to address important issues within ILP, such as how learners generally develop L2 pragmatic competence over time and how L2 proficiency affects transfer, it extends the small but fast growing body of developmental ILP research.