A Study of Pragmatic Transfer in Criticism Strategies by Chinese EFL Learners

Abstract

Speech acts as minimal unit of discourse analysis have been the focus of second language acquisition research as they not only represent language form but also reflect cultural values of the people who perform them. Like most other speech acts, the realisation of the speech act of criticising in the target language is influenced by the native language culture. Based on Nguyen’s taxonomy of criticisms, this paper uses the peer-feedback tasks to conduct research on what kind of pragmatic transfer in criticism strategies by Chinese EFL learners occurs and how it occurs in academic setting. The oral data collected through a naturalised role-play are coded and analysed quantitatively among the Chinese EFL learner group, the native English group, and the native Chinese group. The post hoc interview is also conducted among these three groups to investigate the reasons why they choose a certain criticism strategy. This research has indicated that the Chinese EFL learner group displays indirect criticism strategies, request and suggestion more frequently than the native English group and shows indirect criticism strategies, request and suggestion with somewhat similar frequencies to the native Chinese group. These three criticism strategies show Chinese characteristics of valuing politeness, caring about the hearer’s face and spiral thinking patterns. The research has shown that there is, to some extent, pragmatic transfer in indirect criticism strategies, request and suggestion by Chinese EFL learners and how pragmatic transfer in these three criticism strategies occurs in academic setting. Keywords: interlanguage pragmatics, pragmatic transfer, criticism strategy, Chinese EFL learner