Pragmatic Transfer In Refusals Produced By Chinese Learners Of English

Pragmatic transfer, a new interdisciplinary research, is a difficult issue in second or foreign language learning, and plays an important role in cross-cultural communication. For a long time, traditional teaching model has put an excessive emphasis on language itself, but ignored the culture that a language reflected. As a result, students often fail in cross-cultural communication by transferring the cultural patters and habits of their mother language into the target one. How to improve students'pragmatic competence to reduce communication failure caused by pragmatic transfer then becomes a serious issue in language learning and teaching. Through inspecting pragmatic transfer, it is possible to find out its features, on the basis of which, language teachers could take effective measures to cultivate students'pragmatic competence, and students could communicate more successfully across cultures.The present thesis, from the perspective of the use of refusal strategies and semantic formulas, presents evidence of pragmatic transfer existing in refusals produced by Chinese learners of English.The present study collected data from four groups, i.e., Chinese native speakers, two groups of Chinese learners of English with different English levels, and English native speakers, 140 subjects in all, through a written discourse completion test. The discourse completion test comprised of an English version and a Chinese one with the same content, and was designed for 10 situations, including two invitations, two requests, three suggestions and three offers, with social status embedded. All subjects were asked to answer the survey, Chinese native speakers answering the Chinese version of the discourse completion test and the rest groups answering the English one.According to the refusal-strategy classification proposed by Beebe, et al. (1990), each refusal strategy used in the responses by the four groups was marked out, and then the frequency of each refusal strategy used to respond the same initiating act was calculated separately. Judging patterns posed by Beebe, et al. (1990) were applied to seek for evidence of pragmatic transfer. Furthermore, refusals made by subjects were contrasted and analyzed as consisting of a sequence of semantic formulas and the focuses were the order and the content of semantic formulas.From the data analysis, pragmatic transfer was revealed by Chinese English learners in the speech act of refusal in the selection of refusal strategies and in the order and the content of refusal semantic formulas. As to refusal strategies, pragmatic transfer was discovered as follows:1. In refusals of invitations, evidence of pragmatic transfer was displayed in four refusal strategies, i.e., direct refusal, reason, future or past acceptance and avoidance;2. In refusals of offers, evidence of pragmatic transfer was exhibited in five strategies, i.e., direct refusal, statement of regret, reason, dissuade interlocutor and avoidance;3. In refusals of requests, evidence of pragmatic transfer was shown in two strategies, i.e., reason and dissuade interlocutor;4. In refusals of suggestions, evidence of pragmatic transfer was indicated in three strategies, i.e., statement of regret, offer of alternative and statement of principles.As for the order of semantic formulas, pragmatic transfer was unveiled in the typical order, i.e., regret/positive opinion + reason, produced by Chinese learners of English in refusals of invitations. Moreover, in refusals of offers and requests, pragmatic transfer was presented in longer elaborations. In refusals of suggestions, pragmatic transfer was found in preference of expressing gratitude in the first place. As for the content of semantic formulas, pragmatic transfer was unveiled in the expression of regret, which contained an adverb to enhance the intensity of regret, and it was also shown in reasons, which were specific and family-oriented, as well as in the expression of the compassion, which filled in refusals. Based on the evidence, the context, social status and English proficiency were explored to interpret pragmatic transfer.The findings of the present study support the argument that transfer does exist at the pragmatic level. Being a survey, the present study is helpful to supplement preceding research and to provide an illustration for future research.