English

Azlina Abdul Aziz

doi:10.17576/3l-2017-2301-12

Abstract

This research aims to discover the agreement strategies adopted by Malaysian Chinese speakers of English in an academic discussion. Using Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Principle and Speech Acts as frameworks, it seeks to find out the reasons governing their choice of agreement strategies. Student discussions were recorded, transcribed and analysed. Review sessions were also carried out to gain insight into the speakers’ choice of strategies. Analysis of the data revealed five agreement strategies employed by the students during a discussion. During the discussions, the students expressed the speech act of agreement, which support the hearer’s positive face, by directly agreeing with the previous speaker, building upon the previous speaker’s turn, completing and repeating part of the previous speaker’s utterance and giving positive feedback. Of all the strategies, the most often employed and is sustained throughout the discussions is positive feedback. This is followed by building upon utterances, completion of the previous speaker’s utterance and direct agreement. Apart from the Chinese cultural values which may influence the group’s agreement strategies, the findings also reveal that gender has an influence in the participants’ choice of agreement strategies since four out of the five strategies are mainly employed by the female participants. In sum, Malaysian Chinese speakers of English have their own communicative style when expressing agreement acts which is influenced by their cultural values and gender. Keywords: agreement strategies; Chinese cultural values; speech act; politeness principles; gender DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2017-2301-12

Highlights

It is claimed that around 400 million of the world’s population speak English as their mother tongue, another 400 million as their second language and about 700 million speak it as a foreign language (Crystal 2006, in Hogg & Denison 2006, p.424)
Apart from Chinese cultural values which may influence the group’s agreement strategies, the findings reveal that gender has an influence on the participants’ choice of agreement strategies since four out of the five strategies are mainly employed by the female participants
The findings from the research reveal that the participants expressed the speech act of agreement by directly agreeing with the previous speaker, building upon the previous speaker’s turn, completing and repeating part of the previous speaker’s utterance and giving positive feedback

Summary

Introduction

It is claimed that around 400 million of the world’s population speak English as their mother tongue, another 400 million as their second language and about 700 million speak it as a foreign language (Crystal 2006, in Hogg & Denison 2006, p.424). The English spoken by these nations seem similar enough in their grammars to allow for mutual intelligibility These speakers of Englishes may have grasped the grammatical, phonological and lexical aspect of the English language. The way of speaking by one group of English speakers in one country is different from another Aspects of language such as appropriate topics of conversation, turn-taking, forms of address and expressions of speech acts (giving compliments, making requests, invitations, refusals, agreement and disagreement) differ across cultural groups. They operate based on speakers’ cultural assumptions on what they deem appropriate language behaviour. Differing cultural assumptions or values could lead to intercultural miscommunication

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