A Study On The Features Of Disagreement Expressions Of Chinese EFL Learners

The study aims to reveal how Chinese EFL learners realize the speech act of disagreement in terms of the pragmatic strategies and syntactic structures.To obtain a more scientific result, the study was carried out on the basis of Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners. The transcriptions of 24 higher-achievers,24 middle-achievers and 24 lower-achievers were chosen randomly from the TEM 4 oral test in 2005.The result of this study is presented as follows:First, concerning pragmatic strategies conforming to alignment principles, Chinese EFL learners preferred subjectivisers and token agreement. In comparison to lower-achievers, higher-leveled students tend to employ diversified pragmatic strategies to express disagreement. A case in point is that more hesitation markers, hedges and cajolers are used by higher achievers. Conversely, lower-leveled students are prone to stick to certain strategies they are familiar with. In regards to strategies not conforming to alignment, contradictions are employed more by lower achievers. Counterclaims are more popular with middle and higher achievers. As for syntactic structures, statements are most frequently used by Chinese EFL learners. However, students with different levels tend to choose different types of questions to ask. Higher-leveled students ask more real questions while lower-leveled students ask more rhetorical questions.Both students and teachers can benefit from the research. Students can learn a variety of disagreement strategies to improve their communicative competence and teachers will pay more attention to strategy teaching in English class.