A Study Of Chinese And American Request Behaviors From The Interlanguage Pragmatics Perspective

The present study is anchored in the field of interlanguage pragmatics, and the approach taken is speech-act based---interest focusing on Chinese non-English majors and Americans'production of requests in English. The primary objective is to explore the influence of language proficiency and pragmatic transfer on Chinese English learners'interlanguage and the correlation between language proficiency and pragmatic transfer.100 Chinese English learners (CELs) and 30 American English speakers (AESs) participate in the present study. CELs have been divided into two groups according to their language proficiency, namely, higher-intermediate group and lower-intermediate group. Each group has 50 students. The data in the present study are collected by means of a modified written Discourse Completion Test (DCT), and they are categorized and coded on the basis of the request taxonomy of previous studies. Then the comparison and analysis are conducted statistically regarding to three aspects: 1) the frequency of request strategies; 2) the frequency and categories of query preparatory strategy; 3) the frequency and types of lexical /phrasal downgraders.The findings indicate CELs and AESs have some similarities and differences with regards to request strategies, query preparatory categories and lexical/phrasal downgraders. Firstly, in terms of request strategies, CELs and AESs agree on the use of conventionally indirect strategy as the clearly preferred main strategy and query preparatory strategy as the most favored substrategy for the formulation of requests. The remarking difference between CELs and AESs lies in the frequency of the use of direct strategy. CELs tend to use more direct strategy compared to AELs. What's more, some direct substrategies (e.g. explicit performative, obligation) that are rarely used by native speakers have been employed by CELs. Secondly, with regards to query preparatory formulas, CELs and AESs seem to share a similar range of query preparatory categories. However, CELs show more unity and stereotype, whereas AESs more diversity and individuality in the choice of query preparatory patterns. Lastly, it comes to the lexical/phrasal dowgraders. CELs and AESs have obvious differences in choosing types of lexical/phrasal downgraders. CELs tend to use relatively more lexical/phrasal downgraders than AESs when formulating requests. Moreover, CELs employ some lexical/phrasal downgraders (e.g. appealer), which have seldom been used by AESs.In sum, although AESs and CELs share numerous features when requests, they differ greatly in some aspects. L1 pragmatic transfer may be a cause of these differences, which will lead to pragmatic failures in the communications. In addition, language proficiency is closely related to the pragmatic transfer. The increase of language proficiency will help the avoidance of inappropriate pragmatic transfer to some degree. Therefore, the present study is designed to, on one hand, help CELs to develop pragmatic and communicative competence and overcome communication difficulties as a result of pragmatic transfer; on the other hand, help English teachers to promote pragmatic and intercultural teaching in China.