Pragmatic Transfer In English Complaints Produced By Chinese College Students

The studies on pragmatic transfer belong to a new interdisciplinary research, which related to the issue of second language acquisition (SLA) and the area of cross-culture communication, and mostly it was discussed by the way of exploring various speech acts. The present thesis focuses on the pragmatic transfer in speech act of complaint performed by Chinese learners of English. Complaining is important and difficult in our communication, owing to its"face-threatening"nature and complex politeness strategies, which may be different across cultures. The author, from the perspective of selection of complaint strategies to explore the pragmatic transfer produced by Chinese English learners in complaining.In this thesis, three questions are proposed before research:1. How differently do Chinese and English native speakers complain?2. What are the evidences for pragmatic transfer existed in the speech act of complaint by Chinese English learners?3. What factors will influence pragmatic transfer in complaining by Chinese English learners and to what extent? The thesis consists of six parts. The first part is an introduction, in which the research background, the objectives and significance of this study are presented. The second part reviews the literatures relevant to this study including the empirical researches about pragmatic transfer in china and abroad and the studies on speech act of complaint. The third part proposes the theoretical foundations of this study, which concerns the different politeness strategies and principles in Chinese and western culture. The methodology used in this study is introduced in the fourth part, which mainly concerns the research design, data collection and processing. The fifth part concerns about the results of this research, which proves the fact that pragmatic transfer existed in the distribution and selection of complaint strategies when Chinese learners complaining in English. Then, the underlying elements that influence pragmatic transfer are discussed, such as cultural difference, linguistic difference and language proficiency. In addition, the functions of pragmatic transfer on cross-cultural communication and second language learning also discussed according to the data analysis in the study. Last part is a conclusion of this study, which provides a brief summary of findings and limitations. Based on the results and discussions of the research, some implications for second language learning and teaching are also provided in this part.