An Exploratory Study Of Chinese Apology Speech Act And Its Response In Chinese L2 Learners From Korea And Japan

Cross-cultural pragmatics studies the use of L2 in communication; and Speech act is one of the most compelling notions in it. When learning a foreign language, people should not only learn how to speak correctly but also tactfully and appropriately.This paper only deals with a specific speech act, that is, apology-making. We focus on investigating and analyzing the speech act of apology in Chinese as well as Chinese responses to apology. We investigate Chinese L2 learners from Korea and Japan with different linguistic proficiency, and compare to native Chinese speakers in relation to the socio-pragmatic factors(social power and social distance). The results show that an L2 learner's linguistic proficiency has an effect on his speech act performances. Generally, the linguistic realization of the act of apologizing as well as responses to apology made by the low proficiency Chinese L2 learners(LPC) is much simpler than that by the High proficiency Chinese L2 learner(HPC), and HPC has a better awareness about the style of Chinese apology-making speech act. The patterns made by LPC and HPC show different features in relation to social power and social distance. The studies also show that cultural differences affect the choice of pragmatic strategies.The finding in our research may be suggestive for our Chinese L2 learning and teaching: we should not only teach the students to speak language correctly, but, and the more important, use the speech act tactfully and appropriately.