A Study Of Pragmatic Transfer In Chinese EFL Learners' Second Language Acquisition

The goal of SLA research is to describe and explain not only learners' linguistic competence, but also their pragmatic competence. In a cognitive account of SLA, the study of language transfer, historically speaking, constituted the first attempt to provide an explanation for SLA, in which 'process' and 'strategy' are key terms .However, transfer studies did not address pragmatic issues until recently; hence the study of pragmatic transfer in the process of target language pragmatic acquisition. This thesis makes a general and fundamental review on the study of language transfer and pragmatic transfer and then adopts the process-oriented approach in analyzing sociopragmatic transfer of speech act on chastisement through the investigation of pragmatic strategies used by learners and verbal reports.As far as Chinese EFL learners' speech act on chastisement is concerned, the author examines pragmatic transfer across native Chinese and American English, to testify cases of pragmatic transfer (positive and negative) occurs in the interlanguage of Chinese EFL advanced learners, and to testify Takahashi and Beebe's (1987) hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between proficiency in the target language and pragmatic transfer.Through empirical research, the result verifies the author's prediction that there is neither a positive nor a negative correlation between proficiency in the target language and pragmatic transfer. Meanwhile, the result indicates that pragmatic transfer is an important cross-cultural influence in the process of SLA, and although the advanced level EFL learners have developed high linguistic competence, their...