Cultural influences on the responses to indirect complaints

Abstract

This paper investigated the interlanguage behavior of adult Chinese learners of American English, focusing on the ways in which they responded to the speech act of “indirect complaints” in a second language (L2). By comparing Chinese English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners’ indirect complaint response behavior with that of both native Chinese and English speakers in naturally occurring contexts, this study was designed to detect the pragmatic difficulties that distinguished these learners’ behavior from that of native English speakers and to see if these difficulties could be related to features of their native language (L1). The present study used an experimental paradigm to generate data through eliciting responses to indirect complaints under conditions in which the participants were not aware that the object of study was their conversational contribution. In other words, the corpus of responses to indirect complaints was collected in contexts that were controlled from the investigator’s perspective, but spontaneous and natural from the participants’ perspective. The data gathered were, thus, representative of the types of responses to indirect complaints that naturally took place in everyday occurrence. To the best of the investigator’s knowledge, very little research in interlanguage studies thus far has tried to collect data this way (Yu, 2011). The results showed that native Chinese speakers were more likely to enact advice or lecture strategies when responding to indirect complaints, while Americans were more likely to employ commiseration strategies. In addition, contrary to what seems to be suggested in scholarly literature regarding L2 learners in naturalistic settings, the tendency found among native Chinese speakers was also obviously shown in the L2 of the Chinese ESL speakers. That is, the performance of these learners could be seen to reflect L1 communicative styles and transfer L1 sociocultural strategies in L2 behavior. The findings contributed substantially to a better understanding of what role sociocultural factors could play in the acquisition of L2 pragmatic behavior; more importantly, these findings had practical implications for L2 teaching and learning.

本研究的目的有二:一是以跨文化語用學(cross-cultural pragmatics)為主，研究母語 為華語人士（即 native Chinese speakers）與母語為美語人士（即 native American English speakers）語言行為（speech acts）之差異;二是以外語語用學(interlanguage pragmatics) 為主，研究台灣在美留學生（即 ESL learners）學習美語的外語表現行為(interlanguage behavior)是否已接近（approach or approximate）native American English speakers。本研 究以語言行為中之「間接抱怨反應」（responses to indirect complaints）行為為研究對象， 探求自然觀察所得語料，native Chinese speakers 和 native American English speakers 的 「間接抱怨反應」行為是否有差異，並探求台灣在美留學生美語「間接抱怨反應」行 為是否異於 native speakers of American English 之語用行為，希冀因此能找出台灣在美 留學生美語語用上的困難，並進而探討其此類困難的原因何在。 研究結果顯示母語為美語者較常使用「感同身受」（commiseration）的策略，而在 台灣母語為中文者較常使用「忠告或說理」（advice or lecture）的策略，至於在美國的 台灣留學生的「間接抱怨反應」行為可以從策略使用和語言用詞方面看出許多地方仍 受其母語使用之影響，由於外語語用學研究尚少以「間接抱怨反應」行為為研究標的， 且尚未以母語為華語者之英語「間接抱怨反應」行為為研究對象，本研究試圖擴大 cross-cultural 與 interlanguage pragmatics 的研究範圍，或許可對此領域的研究略為貢獻 一二。