Pragmatic Failure In Chinese Learners' Responses To English Tag Questions

The tag question is largely used by native speakers in oral English as a very commonlinguistic phenomenon. It is a simple structure with complex pragmatic functions. Byuttering a tag question, the speaker does not merely raise a question but conveys variousintentions. As a result, Chinese English learners encounter much difficulty inunderstanding the tag question in social interactions. Since the tag question is oriented toboth the addressor and the addressee, and the current pragmatic studies mainly investigatethe use of the tag question form the speaker's side, a holistic investigation on pragmaticfailures Chinese learners produce in their responses to English tag questions is of greatsignificance. After the overview of the studies on pragmatic failure and the tag question, itis concluded that a more feasible approach is required to make a pragmatic analysis of thetag question from the addressee's side. The major concern of the present study whichrelates the tag question to the study of pragmatic failure mainly lies in examining therelationship between learners' English proficiency level and their pragmatic competence,and the gender difference in using the tag question.This study is based on the theory of pragmatic functions of the tag question proposedby Algeo (1988, 1990) to examine the relationship between Chinese learners' Englishproficiency level and their pragmatic competence, Chinese learners' awareness of differentpragmatic functions of the tag question and the gender difference in Chinese learners'pragmatic competence on the use of the tag question. From the analysis based on the datafrom the questionnaires done by Chinese learners of different linguistic competence andgender, we conclude that language learners' pragmatic competence dose not share abalanced growth with their English proficiency level. We also discover that Chineselearners bear uneven awareness of different pragmatic functions of the tag question andthat the gender difference of Chinese learners' pragmatic competence on the use of the tagquestion is inconspicuous. The outcome of this research can serve as guidance to theapproaches of English teaching in China.