| Interlanguage,which was first put forward by Selinker in 1972,refers to the language system between the mother tongue and the target language in process of the second language acquisition.After the learners gaining a certain learning strategy,it becomes transitional,temporary language variant.In the early 1980 s,linguists at home and abroad had made more and more extensive researches on the combination of interlanguage research and pragmatics.At present,there have been many research results on interlingual pragmatics.These research results abroad are particularly outstanding in the aspects of pragmatic transfer,pragmatic competence,and interlanguage applicated teaching.However,in China,the research results focus on the influencing factors of EFL learners to study pragmatic transfer,the causes of pragmatic errors,and the development of interlingual pragmatics.Since the 1980 s,speech acts have gradually become the main focuses on the interlingual pragmatics,which is to use the speech act theory to explain the differences and the similarities among the speech acts of native English speakers and the English learners.Moreover,it is vital to imply the corresponding speech behavior correctly in specific contexts.Refusals,as one of speech acts in social daily life,is often used in four scenarios: request,suggestion,invitation,and offer.However,the errors of refusal speech acts would threaten others' faces,and even destroy the social relationship with them.Thus,it is the key for Chinese college students to learn all appropriate refusal strategies in cross-intercultural communication.From the perspective of interlanguage pragmatics,this paper aims to explore the characteristics of Chinese college students' refusal speech acts and the influencing factors of choosing refusal strategies.The three main research questions that need to be answered are as follows.(1)What are the characteristics of Chinese college students' refusal semantic formula of order,frequency and content?(2)How does the interlanguage pragmatic competence of the college students affect their refusal speech act?(3)What are the social factors that influence college students' choice of refusal strategies?This thesis refers to Blum & Kulka(1984,1989)and Wang Aihua(2001)'s “Discourse Completion Test”(DCT),using a questionnaire survey to investigate the usage of fifty college students' refusal speech acts in daily communication,who are from various universities in Jilin Province.This paper explores the specific impact of social distance and social power on college students' choices of refusal speech strategies.The questionnaire includes nine different situations.This requires students to fill in corresponding refusal words on the horizontal line under similar real situations.Students' subjective answers are more conducive to the collection and analysis of data on refusal strategies.This paper will combine quantitative and qualitative methods to research the characteristics of refusal sequences,the frequency of refusal semantic formulas' usage,the distribution of refusal strategies and the social factors affecting refusal strategies.This thesis finds that Chinese college students would respond positive opinions or agreements in the sequence of refusals,and then explain the reasons for refusals.The research data shows that 51% of refusal speech acts adopt indirect refusal strategies.Also,the most proportionate strategy is giving reasons or explanations,accounting for 20.7%.However,from the content of the refusals,Chinese college students usually give detailed and specific reasons.At the same time,social distance and social power play an important role in the choice of refusal speech act strategies.When refusing people with high social power or distance,Chinese college students would pay more attention to politeness and adopt strategies combining indirect refusal strategies and adjuncts to refusals.In addition,the thesis shows that the foreign language degree of the college students affects their competence to express refusals with ease and even the change of refusal strategies in social communication.Interlanguage pragmatic competence,as a social skill when using interlanguage,plays a vital role in communicating with people.In other words,college students with stronger interlanguage pragmatics competence are able to adopt more complex and more diverse refusal strategies.According to the research,college students with strong interlanguage pragmatic competence would directly refuse or give thanks first and then give reasons for refusals based on the content of requests,suggestions,invitations,and offers in nine scenarios and the degree of their refusal willingness.In contrast,college students with poor interlanguage pragmatic competence would only express refusals according to their own language competence in any situation,which leads to ignore the people's feelings.In a word,Chinese college students can distinguish the interlocutors with different social distance and social power,and use different refusals.Under the certain circumstances,it is proper refusal strategy that can be adopted,which shows that college students have a certain interlanguage pragmatic competence.However,the refusal strategies adopted by some college students are relatively simplistic and lack of judgment on the strength of refusals.No matter what the situation,they would follow the pragmatic rules of Chinese.Focusing only on the cultivation of the language skills(listening,speaking,reading,writing,and translating)will directly lead to weak interlanguage pragmatic awareness among college students.Therefore,English teachers in Chinese universities could offer a course in interlanguage pragmatics to improve the interlanguage pragmatic competence of college students.In addition,due to the subjective filling of the questionnaire,this method's limitations are inevitable.In the future research,the questionnaire survey can conduct a more in-depth and comprehensive study on refusal speech acts in combination with interviews,role-playing and other methods. |
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