Apology Strategies In English Interlanguage: From A Perspective Of Chinese Learners

A central issue in cross-cultural pragmatics is the study of speech acts, which mainly concerns differences between the first language and the target language. Yet few efforts have been addressed to the first-language influence on learners' speech acts in the target language. Comparatively speaking, studies in China are even fewer in this regard. In addition, transfer of the first language is also an important topic in the studies of interlanguage, in which the study of speech acts can well reflect learners' communicative competence in the target language. Given this state of affairs, the present research focuses on the apology strategies by Chinese English learners from the perspective of pragmatic transfer and features of these strategies. The thesis aims to answer the following questions:1. Is there pragmatic transfer in students' uses of apology strategies? If so, is it positive or negative; and does it have any difference with regard to different proficiency levels?2. What are the characteristics of these apology strategies applied by these students?Based on the seven apologetic situations classified by the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP), the present survey designs a questionnaire to investigate both native English speakers and Chinese English learners of three proficiency levels (beginners, intermediate and advanced learners). The statistical analysis mainly concerns the distributional patterns of apology strategies. Brown and Levinson's notion of face and Chinese concept of face are applied to analyze learners' apology strategies. According to the analysis, some important findings are reported as follows:1. According to the survey, most learners tend to transfer apology strategies negatively from Chinese to English in situations with no high severity of offence. It is mainly reflected in the strategies of "intensifying" and "downgrading".2. In the paired situations with social power differentiation, Chinese learners were less likely to transfer apology strategies of the first language's status-sensitive model into the English apologetic situations.3. Generally speaking, advanced learners are less influenced by the negative aspects of the first language, while beginners are more likely to be influenced by these aspects.4. In terms of socio-pragmatic constraints, the survey observes that the overall pattern of learners' strategies fails Wolfson's bulge theory in situations of different social distances, but can well be explained by Brown and Levinson's assumption. As displayed by the application of the "downgrading" and "offering repair" strategies, learners are worried about their responsibilities when "offering repair" is necessary for apologies, especially in the high-offence situation.5. When the offence is not severe, or the confliction occurs between intimates, or people of high social status make an apology to those of low social status, girls tend to intensify their apologies ia-siteatioBS of light-offonoo, intimatc3, and high to-low status > However, boys are prone to use downgrading devices and assume more responsibilities under these conditions.6. The oversimplifying pattern of learners' strategy IFIDs shades some lights on Chinese learners' poor communicative competence on applying the most common and explicit apology strategy.Significant findings of the survey mentioned above deliver much enlightenment to both Chinese English learners and English teachers. Learners' may well be initiated to learn applying realized patterns of speech acts in life, so as to improve their communicative competence which language teachers should pay more attention to.