Changing The Requests: Pragmatic Development Among International Students In China

With the increasing number of the international students in China,Chinese language teaching is confronted with both challenges and opportunities.Based on the pilot study,it is found out that many international students dealt with intercultural conflicts and difficulties during their sojourn in China.Some scholars argue that pragmatic competence is crucial to solve intercultural communication problems.Thus,their Chinese pragmatic competence plays a significant role in their studying and living in China.According to literature review,many studies have been conducted to investigate L2 learners' pragmatic development in terms of speech acts in various languages.However few studies have been carried out to explore L2 learners' pragmatic development in Chinese.This study attempts to explore the pragmatic strategies of request speech acts produced by Korean,Russian and French students,figuring out their pragmatic development trajectories and penetrating into the main factors that might aid or hinder their pragmatic competence,which is expected to bring out implications for teaching,learning and administration.A mixed research method is employed in this study in light of the nature of the three research questions.A survey and ethnographic approach are applied to answer the research questions.Discourse Completion Test(DCT)with 12 scenarios is used for the first phase to elicit participants' pragmatic strategies.20 Chinese undergraduates in SISU are chosen to complete the DCT questionnaire,which work as the baseline data.20 Korean,20 Russian and 20 French students are selected randomly from language program in SISU to take part in the survey.Based on qualitative analysis of the DCT data,along with their willingness,3 international students from Korea,Russia and France are chosen as case participants.These case participants are investigated longitudinally to explore the changes of pragmatic strategies they employed in requests.And the factors that affect their pragmatic development are also analyzed.The findings of this study indicate that the formulae Korean students employed are similar to that of Chinese,while French students differ from Chinese nativespeakers most and Russian students stand in the middle.Concerning the effects of power and distance on the use of formulae,Korean subjects tend to be indirect towards the hearer with higher status,and direct towards familiar equals.Russian students are regarded as the most direct ones and French subjects as the most indirect ones regardless of situational variables in comparison to other cultural groups.Chinese and Korean tend to be hierarchical and collectivistic,while French and Russian counterparts are prone to be egalitarian and individualistic.However,the cultural difference doesn't predict their pragmatic development trajectories.The results show that the Russian participant develops her pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competence almost at the same time,the French learner's pragmalinguistic development precedes her sociopragmatic development,and the Korean participant develops her sociopragmatic competence faster than her pragmalinguistic competence based on both quantitative and qualitative data.The findings also show that cultural background,motivation and acculturation attitudes,social activities and contextual factors serve as the main factors that affect their pragmatic development.This study produces a tentative theoretical model about L2 learners' pragmatic development.It is suggested that international students' motivation and acculturation attitudes shaped by their cultural background and contextual factors,seemingly determine the quality and intensity of interaction they engage in,which would in turn affect their pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic development.This research offers pedagogical implications for Chinese teachers,learning experiences for international students,empirical data for curriculum design,and implications for administrations of international students.Moreover,it suggests that we should advocate informing Chinese students of Chinese traditional culture.It will help international students acquire Chinese culture and norms through interaction with Chinese so as to enhance their pragmatic competence.