A Study of Pragmatic Transfer in Suggestion Strategies by Chinese Learners of English

Abstract

This study investigates pragmatic transfer in suggestion strategies by Chinese learners of English. The subjects of the study include ten native English speakers, ten Chinese learners of English and ten native Chinese speakers. All of them are university students. The classification of suggestion strategies is mainly based on Hinkel’s study.The data is collected by means of a discourse completion test questionnaire. The Chi-square test is used to compare frequencies of the use of suggestion strategies by the native English group, by the Chinese learner of English group and by the native Chinese group. Results indicate that although all three groups use opting out suggestion strategies the most frequently and direct suggestion strategies the least frequently, the Chinese learner of English group displays direct suggestion strategies and hedged suggestion strategies more frequently than the native English group. Such pragmatic transfer is transferred from Chinese culture and teaching-induced errors respectively, which provides pedagogical implications for both language teachers and language learners.
Key words: Interlanguage pragmatics; Pragmatic transfer; Suggestion strategy; Chinese learner of English