The Inter-language Features Of Negative Reply

Based on the Speech Act Theory, negative reply is within the scope of pragmatics. It refers to the replies by the addressee to reveal disagreement or noncompliance to the requests, suggestions, invitations or offers by the addresser. As this type of reply contains more or less some face threatening elements to the addresser, one of the most important things in dealing with negative reply is to avoid or reduce the face threat to the addresser. Though the research of the Speech Act Theory started in some foreign countries in the late 60s last century, however, the study in this area started comparatively later in China. Among these researches home and abroad within almost fifty years, only a few scholars have conducted their researches from the inter-language perspective.This paper is based on the Speech Act Theory by Austin, the Politeness Principles and face theory by Brown and Levinson. With the Assessment Test and Discourse Completion Test as the main methodologies and SPSS as a main research tool, this paper investigates the inter-language linguistics patterns and strategies of Chinese learners in the United States of America. This paper has made some achievements in the following aspects. Firstly, it studies the speech act from the perspective of inter-language. Secondly, it clearly and completely defines and categorizes negative reply. Thirdly, it adopts both qualitative and quantitative analysis as its research methodology. Finally, it taxonomies the data according to the framework of Speech Act Theory. Through a whole-year study, the author has summarized the basic linguistic patterns, strategies and features of inter-language. The findings reveal that the concept of face, social status and social distance in Chinese culture has comprehensively affected the choice of language patterns and strategies of the addressee, and therefore seem more softened than English. Unlike what Elite Olshtain has concluded, most American learners involved in the survey, when giving negative reply, tend not to use direct and seemingly more offensive means, and they are not familiar with the strategies to soften the face threatening act. What is more, the length of Chinese learning has directly affected their awareness of face and the use of softeners. The longer one has learned Chinese, the more likely it is for one to use more complex strategies to ease the awkwardness and discomfort caused by face threat.Hopefully, this paper can enrich the Speech Act Theory and previous studies of inter-language, and can be of some practical value in the area of TCFL.