Pragmatic transferability of L1 indirect request strategies perceived by Japanese learners of English

Research in the areas of interlanguage phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexis has explored the factors which encourage or discourage L1 transfer. In interlanguage pragmatics, there is rich evidence for the occurrence of L1 transfer. However, little is known about the conditions under which transfer of L1 pragmatic knowledge is likely to occur in corresponding L2 contexts.; This study examines the transferability of five Japanese indirect request strategies to corresponding English contexts. It is assumed that an L1 request strategy is less transferable if it is perceived as less appropriate and its TL equivalent is perceived to convey the different degree of contextual appropriateness. On the other hand, an L1 strategy is more transferable if it is perceived as more appropriate and its TL equivalent is perceived to manifest the same degree of appropriateness in a particular context. Furthermore, pragmatic transferability is expected to be influenced by the degree of imposition involved in the requestive goal and by the learners' L2 proficiency.; The subjects were male Japanese college students learning English in Japan, representing two proficiency levels (High EFL/Low EFL). Four request situations were previously selected and validated in terms of different degrees of imposition. For each situation, the subjects were first asked to rate contextual appropriateness of each Japanese request strategy. The subjects were then instructed to rate the correspondence of each of the Japanese request strategies to their English counterparts in terms of contextual appropriateness. Transferability was operationally defined as transferability rate. This rate was established through the summation of the perceived contextual appropriateness of a Japanese request and the perceived similarity in contextual appropriateness between a Japanese request and its English equivalent.; The Japanese request strategies were found to be differentially transferable. Furthermore, the transferability of each L1 request strategy seemed to be determined by the interaction between the politeness and conventionality encoded in each strategy and the degree of mitigation required in each imposition context. The learners' transferability perception was influenced by their L2 proficiency; however, there was not a definite tendency for a positive correlation nor for a negative correlation between L1 transfer and proficiency.