Chinese Learners' Realization Of Requests In English

Language learning is for communication. Learner-specific, language-specific and culture-specific characteristics in the process of language learning and communication have aroused great interest of researchers. The studies of interlanguage pragmatics during the I 970s were typically concerned with learners?linguistic competence. However, the application of Hymes?(1972) notion of communicative competence to second language learning and teaching has called for extending the scope of. interlanguage research to include learners?pragmatic and discourse knowledge. Within the studies of second language acquisition, the ways nonnative language users select and realize speech acts have been increasingly investigated since the 1 980s. Requests, being face-threatening in nature and closely related to politeness strategies, are one of the best studied speech act perhaps because of the insights they can provide for the role that pragmatic competence plays in speaking a language. The studies of interlanguage pragmatics of requests reveal that second language learners might fail to communicate effectively (commit pragmatic failures) in one way or another. Inspired by the bulk of the researches abroad and few researches at home, the author makes an attempt to investigate the realization of requests by Chinese learners of English to see whether they commit some pragmatic failures in common with other subjects investigated, and whether the Chinese learners demonstrate some unique characteristics in realizing requests. The dissertation comprises six chapters. Chapter One serves as an introduction. It briefly introduces the definition of requests and the significance of carrying out the present study. 50 Chinese Learners 慠ealization of Requests in English Chapter Two explores the relationship between face and culture. Since requests are face threatening by definition, they cannot be separated from face work and politeness strategies. Consequently, Goffman?notion of face is first outlined, followed by a description of Brown & Levinson抯 famous politeness theory. Then the differences in terms of face between Chinese and English are illustrated and traced, for they might appear in the Chinese learners?requests as stereotypes. Chapter Three begins with a brief review of indirect speech acts, and then presents a detailed description of the linguistic aspects of requests, which serves as a significant source for the data analyses. In this chapter, situational variables are also explored because they constitute important factors in choosing appropriate request strategies. The last section is devoted to the related researches. Chapter Four is concerned with the actual study, including the description of research objectives, research methods, subjects, and procedure. Chapter Five analyses the data, and discusses the findings. It is discovered that the Chinese learners commit some pragmatic failures similar to other subjects investigated (e.g. Tanaka & Kawade, 1982; Tanaka, 1988), and that they also show some unique properties in their requests as a result of influence of their native language and culture. Chapter Six supplies implications to foreign language teaching and learning. Then follow conclusions. The pragmatic failures (including pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failures) are traced from several aspects: teaching-induced errors, pragmatic transfer, influence o...