An Empirical Study On Relationship Between Pragmatic Transfer And L2 Proficiency

The relationship between pragmatic transfer and L2 proficiency remains a controversial problem. There are three different views about it: a) transfer decreases as the learners'proficiency increases and second language proficiency is negatively correlated with pragmatic transfer; b) transfer increases as the learners'proficiency increases and second language proficiency is positively correlated with pragmatic transfer; c) the difference of the transfer between learners of different proficiency levels was not apparent and there is not apparent correlation between pragmatic transfer and L2 proficiency.The thesis explored the relationship between pragmatic transfer and L2 proficiency by comparing requests used by English majors in the first and third year in college. The study tried to answer the following questions: a) Is there evidence of pragmatic transfer in the frequency and content of semantic formulas used in requests of Chinese EFL learners at lower and higher levels? b) Do the occurrence of pragmatic transfer differ in the frequency and content of semantic formulas used in their requests according to their proficiency? c) How pragmatic transfer is related to learners'proficiency level?The subjects in this study are three groups of Chinese subjects and one group of Australians as English native speakers. There are 37 for native Chinese (NCs), 40 for Chinese English beginners (CEBs), 31 for advanced learners of English (CEAs) and 17 Australians for NEs. The present study adopts DCT as the instruments and analyzed the requests according to the coding scheme for requests created by Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989). The thesis analyzed the frequency and content of semantic formulas of the requests used by the subjects. The requests used by CE groups were respectively compared with those used by NCs and NEs. Based on the method used by Takahashi & Beebe (1987) and Beebe et al. (1990), the occurrence of pragmatic transfer was confirmed.This thesis presented evidence of pragmatic transfer in the frequency shift of semantic formulas that were used to a higher status person, an equal status person, and a lower status person. There are four situations: a) there is low familiarity between the speaker and the hearer (+D) and the degree of imposition of request is relative high (H); b) there is high familiarity between the speaker and the hearer (-D) and the degree of imposition of request is relative high (H); c) there is low familiarity between the speaker and the hearer (+D) and the degree of imposition of request is relative low (L); d ) there is high familiarity between the speaker and the hearer (-D) and the degree of imposition of request is relative low (L).Although the same semantic formulas were employed by NCs and NEs, the content used to fulfill the function of a given formula differed. Thus, requests used by each group were examined in terms of the content of semantic formulas. This thesis analyzes the content of semantic formulas in three aspects: a) grounders that provide the reason for the request; b) query preparatory; c) politeness markers. The analysis also provides evidence of the difference in the amount of pragmatic transfer reflected in the content of semantic formulas.It was concluded that pragmatic transfer occurred in the requests used by Chinese English learners at different proficiency levels. When tallying instances of pragmatic transfer among CEBs and CEAs, there were 65 instances of pragmatic transfer in the CEA data and 64 in CEB data. There were 5 cases in which NCs and NEs differed in terms of the frequency shift of a given semantic formula. There were 2 instances of pragmatic transfer for CEBs and 2 for CEAs.In sum, evidence of pragmatic transfer was found in the frequency and content of semantic formulas used by learners at both of the proficiency levels, but there was no significant difference in the amount of pragmatic transfer according to learners'proficiency level.Finally, the thesis presents the implications for teaching pragmatics in the EFL classroom as well as the limitations of the present study.