A Study Of Teaching Foreign Students Speech Acts In Chinese Gratitude

The speech acts of expressing gratitude are one of the frequently used polite speech acts in life and play an important role in maintaining interpersonal relationships and promoting harmony and friendship.International Curriculum for Chinese Language Education and HSK Test Syllabus have clearly listed Thanks(Acknowledgments)as an important communication items and functional items.It can be seen that the speech acts of expressing gratitude have great significance and application value in teaching Chinese as a foreign language.“What kind of linguistic form is used to represent what kind of communicative intention is not necessary,but probable,optional”.Based on this point of view,from the theory of communicative intentions we discussed,analyzed,and studied the connotation,behavioral structure,and discourse types of speech acts of expressing gratitude.Regarding the type of discourse,we made a bold and new attempt.In addition,teaching Chinese as a foreign language is a continuous,dynamic,and vertical process.Every step and detail must be clarified in order to have a global and overall grasp of this.Therefore,we conducted a meticulous investigation on the syllabus,Chinese textbooks,and the acquisition of foreign students in combination with the teaching practice of Chinese as a foreign language,aiming at a clearer and deeper of the “teaching” and “learning” processes of the speech acts of expressing gratitude which has a more clear understanding and grasping.In the study,we found that most of the acknowledgments in the Chinese textbooks are mainly marked with acknowledgments.The number and type of unmarked acknowledgments are very few,and the distribution is extremely uneven.The acknowledgments are mostly given to occasions such as “Informing information” and “Receiving gifts” and “blessing”,the context is too simple.Although there are different discourse expressions in the textbooks,the types and strategies are still not rich enough,and don't clearly reflect the relationship between function and form,therefore,it is impossible to inspire foreign students to consciously cultivate their ability to achieve the same kind of communicative intention with different discourse expressions.We conducted a questionnaire survey of foreign students at intermediate and advanced level.During the survey,we found that: the foreign students have made mistakes in the recognition,selection,and using of the expressions of gratitude.The specific performances are that the unmarked acknowledgement of the carrying cultural connotation cannot be identified;there are deviations in the selection and understanding of the degree of appreciation;there are excessive,inappropriate,and improper situations in the use of language.