Bi-directionality In Language Transfer: An Empirical Study Of Refusals By Chinese Learners Of English

Language transfer is a common phenomenon in second language acquisition. It isa newly-emerged area to the study of language transfer from a pragmatic perspective.By applying Beebe’s (1990) semantic taxonomy, this thesis conducts an empiricalstudy and explores forward transfer and backward transfer between native languageand target language. It aims to make sure whether the two transfers coexist with eachother and in what kind of refusals they appear.178students finish the English questionnaire and213, the Chinese questionnaire.The178participants are divided into low, intermediate, and high proficiency groupsaccording to their English test scores.30English questionnaires are sampled fromeach group. In the same way, the213participants are also divided into threeproficiency groups and30Chinese questionnaires are sampled from each group.There are180questionnaires in all. Then different refusal strategies are classified andassigned into correspondent serial numbers. The statistic data are put into SPSS andanalyzed. Forward transfer was found in refusals to invitations for learners with lowEnglish proficiency. Backward transfer was found in refusals to requests andinvitations for learners with intermediate English proficiency. Bi-directional transferwas found in refusals to invitations.The findings of this study, which help deepen the understanding of features ofrefusal and contribute to the literature of pragmatic transfer as well as pragmaticacquisition, have some implications for second language teaching. On the other hand,this study provides new perspectives for understanding the differences between theEast and the West so as to foster the communication between two cultures.