Analysis of the nature of interlanguage pragmatics in choice making for requesting strategies by Thai EFL learners

This study is an investigation of the nature of the interlanguage pragmatics of L2 learners in a particular learning context: learners from a collectivistic culture learning an individualistic language in a foreign language learning context. The different conceptual views of the two different cultures are predicted to play an important role in affecting the learners' L2 pragmatic performance. With limited knowledge of L2 pragmatics, the learners are predicted to debate all the existing knowledge available to them and come up with what they believe is appropriate for such L2 situations. Then they produce their ILP accordingly. L1 social/cultural factors seem to have a prominent role in the learner's judgment of the level of appropriateness for their ILP. In a group-oriented culture like Thailand where seniority of age is one of the most prominent value systems, the age difference of interlocutors determines their L1 speech, and is predicted to do so in their L2 as well (pragmatic transfer). The study focused on 50 male Thai speakers who lived and worked in Thailand. They were college graduates and had an extensive use of English through their overseas graduate studies and/or their routine work in and outside the country. The study looked at their ILP through their choice making for politeness strategies in request making. The respondents responded to oral-production questionnaires in their L1 (Thai) and L2 (English). The questionnaires consisted of 16 scenarios within eight requesting contexts where the age of the addressees was on both extreme ends toward the addressers; namely, much younger or much older than the addressers. In this particular study, the design was intended to control other possible social factors to allow the age factor to stand out. In so doing, the weight of imposition was low; social/work status was equal and the social distance was high (except for the stranger contexts which were added to show the variety of the age effects). Each respondent was given an unstructured interview after the questionnaires to look for the justifications of their production and to see if their perception matched their production. The questionnaires (production elicitation) and the interviews (perception elicitation) were tape-recorded. The findings suggest that the age factor, particularly, the age of the addressees does determine the Thai speakers' choice of politeness strategies through the frequency of use rather than types of strategies in both languages. Elements used for measuring the age effects were the uses of strategies in the requestive patterns, the internal modifications (e.g., politeness markers), the personal pronouns, and length of utterance. The frequencies of use of strategies and the mean length of utterance do show the effects of the age difference of the addressees. The age of the addressees is then a proposed social variable to add in the Brown and Levinson's framework to make it more applicable universally. The findings also suggest evidence for the respondents' creativity in the production of their ILP through their choice making for appropriate politeness strategies for different age group of addressees. Such creativity is proposed as a feature of the ILP of L2 learners.