Pragmatic Transfer In Refusals By Chinese English Learners

Pragmatic transfer is one of reasons for intercultural communication breakdowns. Therefore, it has received great attention from many researchers. The main concern of this thesis is to find out the evidence of pragmatic transfer in refusals by Chinese English learners and causal factors for pragmatic transfer. It aims at enchancing the Chinese English learners' awareness of pragmatic transfer and their competence for intercultural communication.The subjects of this study are divided into three groups: the first group is composed of 50 American college students in Middle Tennessee State University (ENS group); the second group consists of 50 seniors of English department (EFL group); the third group is made up of 50 freshmen of Chinese language department (CNS group). The last two groups are from Northwest Normal University.This thesis examined the phenomenon of pragmatic transfer and its causal factors within the realization patterns of the speech act of refusal by Chinese English learners. The refusal data were collected using a discourse completion test (DCT). This discourse completion test was employed by Ahmad Al-Issa in her study of sociocultural transfer in second language speech behaviours. Using semantic formulas as units of analysis, EFL refusal responses were compared with similar data elicited from native speakers of English responding in English and native speakers of Chinese responding in Chinese. The results show four areas in which pragmatic transfer is existent in EFL learners' speech: length of responses, content of semantic formulas, order of semantic formulas and frequency of semantic formulas. Each was found to reflect cultural values transferred from Chinese to English. Furthermore, it was also found that difference in attitudes of Chinese and American towards power/authority and solidarity/equality was one of causal factors for pragmatic transfer.This thesis consists of seven parts. The first part serves as a brief introduction of the study. The second part reviews relevant theories and studies on refusal and empirical research about pragmatic transfer. The main concern of this part is about studies on pragmatic transfer in China and abroad, and it reviews the speech act of refusal. The third part involves the theoretical foundations in this study. The fourth part details the methodologies used in this study, including research design, data collection and data processing. The fifth part is about the result of the research, which presents the pragmatic transfer on refusal strategies used by Chinese learners of English. The sixth part explored the causes for pragmatic transfer for Chinese learners of English. In the last part, the implication and limitation of this thesis are the major concern.