Japanese complaining in English: A study of interlanguage pragmatics

Nonnative speakers often cannot complain effectively in English. This study compares complaining by Japanese speakers of English living in America (JEAs), Japanese speakers of Japanese living in Japan (JJJs), and American speakers of English living in America (AEAs).; Participants completed an oral role-enactment interview by spontaneously responding to 12 complaint-provoking situations presented on audiotape. Responses were tape-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed statistically regarding: (a) frequency of pragmatic strategies; (b) strong or weak pragmatic transfer as defined by frequency algorithms; (c) effects of relative status, social distance, and gender of speaker and addressee on frequency; and (d) relative ordering of strategies. Intergroup differences in content were also examined.; AEAs had the highest, and JJJs the lowest, frequency of most strategies; JEAs tended to be intermediate. JEAs exhibited weak transfer for all strategies combined, and strong transfer for several individual strategies; no evidence of transfer was detected for several other strategies. In their ordering of strategies JJJs showed more conformity, and AEAs more individuality; JEAs were intermediate. The content of strategies often varied among the groups. All groups tended to employ strategies more frequently towards familiar persons than strangers, but JJJs showed this social distance effect to a lesser degree than AEAs or JEAs did. All groups used strategies least frequently toward status equals, compared with status superiors or inferiors; however, JJJs showed only a modest relative status effect. Speaker's gender influenced the frequency of strategies in JJJs only. No group showed a significant effect of addressee's gender.; My data support the following conclusions: Although Americans and Japanese shared numerous features when complaining, they differed greatly in their frequency, order, and content of several strategies. Social distance and relative status exerted the most important effects on frequency of strategies, while gender had less influence. JJJs showed relatively blunted effects of social distance and relative status, failing to support the claim that Japanese are more sensitive to these social variables. Differences in frequencies of several strategies between JEAs and AEAs were consistent with effects of pragmatic transfer. Finally, statistical analysis permitted delineation of the novel concept of weak versus strong degrees of transfer.