Pragmatic Transfer of Iranian EFL Learners: The case of Refusals

Fatemeh Jafari, Hossein Sadeghoghlo

Abstract


Many studies show that in spite of having a perfect competence in L2 grammar, learners have difficulties at pragmatic level when having a conversation with native speakers. The present study deals with pragmatic transfer of Iranian EFL learners' refusal strategies as reflected by their responses to a modified version of 10- items discourse multiple choice task. Each question in the questionnaire has three options. One of the options is correct, one is a distracter and one is an option that has been effected by learners' L1. The participants are 60 Iranian EFL learners in advanced level that haven’t been to English speaking countries. The purpose of this study is to find out the pragmatic competence of EFL learners in Iran. This study first investigates pragmatic failures that Iranian EFL learners tend to commit in understanding pragmatic multiple choice tasks and answering the questions. Then, building on the analysis of the collected data, it further discusses the amount of the pragmatic failures among Iranian EFL learners and the source of this failure. The results of the study show that all of Iranian EFL learners commit pragmatic failure and answered more than 72 percent of the questions incorrectly. The results show that almost half of the pragmatic failure of Iranian EFL learners are due to L1 interference. The results of the present study are useful for language teachers and syllabus designers.


Keywords


refusal strategies, pragmatic transfer, discourse multiple choice task, Iranian EFL learners

Full Text:

PDF

References


Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. (1990). Congruence in native and nonnative conversations: Status balance in the academic advising session. Language Learning, 40, 467-501.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. (1993). Learning the rules of academic talk: A longitudinal study of pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15, 279-304.

Beebe, L. M., Takahashi, T, & Uliss-Weltz, R. (1990). Pragmatic transfer in ESL refusals. In R. Scarcella, E. Andersen, S. D. Krashen (Eds.), On the Development of Communicative Competence in a Second Language (pp. 55-73). New York: Newbury House.

Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Alblex Publishing Corporation.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1996). Cultural patterns in dinner talk. In W. Senn (Ed.), SPELL, Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature. Vol.9: Families (pp. 77–107). Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr.

Chang, Y. (2011). Interlanguage pragmatic development: The relation between pragmalinguistic competence and sociopragmatic competence. Language Science, 33(5), 786-798.

Chen, H.J. (1996). Cross-cultural comparison of English and Chinese metapragmatics in refusal. Indiana University. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 408 860).

Chomsky, Noam (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press

Crystal, David. (1992). A Dictionary of Linguistics and phonetics. London: Blackwell publisher.

Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gass, M. S., & Houck, N. (1999). Interlanguage refusals: A cross-cultural study of Japanese English. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hymes, D.H. (1972). 'Editorial Introduction to "Language in Society"', Language in Society, 1 (1): 1-14.

Jessner, U. (1996). La transferencia en la adquisición de la segunda lengua. In J. Cenoz & J. Valencia (Eds.), La Competencia Pragmática: Elementos Lingüísticos y Psicosociales (pp. 141- 153). Bilbao: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del País Vasco.

Kasper, G. (1992). Pragmatic transfer. Second Language Research, 8, 203-231.

Kasper, G. & Blum-Kulka, S. (eds.) (1993). Interlanguage Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Koike, D.A. (1989). Pragmatic competence and adult L2 acquisition: Speech acts in interlanguage. Modern Language Journal, 73, pp. 281-289

Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.

Mey, J. (2001). Pragmatics. Blackwell, Oxford.

Savignon, S.J. (1991). Communicative language teaching: State of the art. TESOLQuarterly, 25, 261-277.

Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage.International, Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 10, 219–231.

Takahashi, T., & Beebe, L. M. (1993). Cross-linguistic influence in the speech act of correction. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 138-157). New York: Oxford University Press.

Thomas. J. (1983). Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied linguistics, 4(2), 91-112.

Umale J. (2011). Pragmatic failure in refusal strategies: British versus Omani interlocutors. Arab World English Journal, 2(1), 18-46.

Wang, W. (2001). Pragmatic theories in translation process. Unpublished master's thesis, Beijing International Studies University, China.

Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2018 Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research