The interlanguage studies of the speech act of refusals have been conducted in a variety of cultures and languages while little attention has been paid to interlanguage refusals made by Chinese EFL learners in Taiwan. The present study investigated the perception and performance of the speech act of refusals made by Chinese EFL learners at high (EFL-Hs) and low (EFL-Ls) proficiency levels compared with two baseline groups, Chinese L1 (CL1s) and American English L1 (EL1s). Data used for analysis in the study consisted of 3,543 expressions of refusal elicited from Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) performed by 180 college students (60 Chinese EFL learners, 60 Chinese native speakers and 60 English native speakers in North America). Based on Beebe et al.¡¦s coding system (1990), the refusal strategies were examined as direct refusals, indirect refusals, and adjuncts to refusals. Results revealed that when refusing, face is the major concern for speakers of the two cultures. However, cross-cultural differences were observed. Chinese L1 participants, under the influence of collectivistic culture value, distinguished ingroups and outgroups clearly. On the other hand, in English L1 group, equality is emphasized under the effect of individualistic cultural value. As to the performance of refusals, though both Chinese and English native speakers showed a preference for indirect refusals than direct refusals and the same range of refusal strategies were available for the four groups, the differences were observed in preference and frequency of use the refusal strategies, and also the content of the actual realization. Moreover, different ways of refusal modification were also favored by Chinese and English native speakers. Furthermore, results revealed a positive correlation between EFL learners¡¦ English proficiency and their interlanguage pragmatic competence. However, there was still a high degree of interlanguage variation in the use of refusal strategies among the EFL groups. It is suggested that in order to perform speech acts appropriately in different cultures, both speakers¡¦ perception and production should be emphasized in the future interlanguage researches, which would supply evidence of cross-cultural differences in social values and other motivating factors that could help interpret the EFL learners¡¦ realization of speech acts and gain a better understanding of interlanguage speech act of refusals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0909108-121204 |
| Date | 09 September 2008 |
| Creators | Lee, Chia-hui |
| Contributors | Feng-Fu Tsao, Yuh-huey Lin, Shu-chen Ou, Syu-ing Shyu |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0909108-121204 |
| Rights | restricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
Page generated in 0.0022 seconds