| This study aims to explore whether there exists pragmatic transfer in Chinese college students' responding to compliments in the target language interaction in comparison with that of native speakers of Chinese and native speakers of American English and to investigate the possible correlation between the degree of pragmatic transfer and English learners' proficiency of the target language.A survey, in which discourse completion test as the data elicitation method is employed, has been conducted among three different groups of eighty subjects. Twenty monolingual speakers of Chinese form Group one. Group two involves 40 Chinese college students, half of whom being junior English learners and the other half senior English learners. The former, non-English major freshmen, represent the English learners of low language proficiency, while the latter, who are recruited from the senior students majoring in English, represent a group of advanced English proficiency. Group three consists of twenty native monolingual speakers of American English.Data collected from the feedback from the above mentioned respondents indicate that, when interacting in their native language, 21.8% of Chinese native speakers' responses are categorized as strategy of agreement, 33.1% of juniors', 46.2% of seniors', and 81.2% of American English native speakers' respectively. When language transferring from Chinese into English, agreement amounts to 55.6% among juniors', 65% among seniors', and 81.2% among American English native speakers' separately.The study has found that the percentages of agreement to compliments in Chinese college students' responding in their target language are lower than those of American English native speakers, which indicates that Chinese college students in their responding to compliments speech act have the tendency of transferring pragmatic norms in L1 to the use of L2. Hence pragmatic transfer occurs in their target language interaction. The study has further found that responding strategy selection has correlation with the learners' English proficiency: the degree of negative pragmatic transfer decreases with the improvement of English proficiency of Chinese college students in their responding to compliments.The results of the study indicate that it is true that, through a long period of English learning, Chinese students have become aware that it is necessary to use various strategies according to various contexts to respond to compliments in their target language interaction. Nevertheless, there exist much difference in responding strategy selection between Chinese college students and native speakers of American English. Such difference suggests that Chinese college students' pragmatic competence in their target language has not been enhanced satisfactorily, and that the input of pragmatic norms and the cultivation of students' pragmatic competence should be further strengthened in present English teaching in China.The study makes an inquiry into negative pragmatic transfer in Chinese EFL learners' responding to compliments speech act. It also provides some practical suggestions for English teachers on teaching compliments. The results and discussion of the present study may shed some light on relative researches in the field of cross-cultural communication. |
