scholarly journals “Apology Accepted”: A Cross-Cultural Study of Responses to Apologies by Native Speakers of English and Chinese

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jue Wu ◽  
Wei Wang
Keyword(s):  
Social Power ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Native Culture ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
Cross Cultural Study ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

<p>This study focuses on the strategies of responding to apologies from a cross-cultural perspective. It analyzes and compares apology response (AR) strategies adopted by three groups of English native speakers (ENS), Chinese native speakers (ENS) and Chinese EFL learners for potential cross-cultural differences. Results indicate that all three groups most favor the strategy of Indirect Acceptance to show politeness when responding to apologies. Given contextual factors such as social power, social distance and severity of offence, the three groups display different patterns of AR strategies. Chinese EFL learners’ AR strategies are similar to those of Chinese native speakers, indicating the influence of native culture on their pragmatic competence.</p>

A contrastive pragmatic study of politeness strategies in disagreement between native speakers of English and Chinese EFL learners

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chu Yan
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Cross Cultural Study ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Chinese Undergraduates

AbstractThis paper attempts to make a contrastive cross-cultural study of a special speech act— “disagreement.” Participants are 35 American undergraduates and 42 Chinese undergraduates respectively with the data eliciting technique—DCT (discourse completion test). Findings show that Chinese undergraduates tend to use different politeness strategies according to different social distance and social power while American undergraduates prefer to use positive politeness strategy most followed by negative politeness strategy, regardless of social distance and social power. The results of the study reveal cultural differences between the U.S. and China that lead to the distribution of diverse politeness strategies and also offer insights into what Chinese EFL learners are struggling with during their development of interlanguage pragmatic competence.

scholarly journals ANALYZING COMPLAINTS BY INDONESIAN EFL SPEAKERS

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Anna Marietta Da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Initial Period ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Grammatical Competence ◽  
Pragmatic Transfer ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

The English language competence of an EFL learner can be reflectedin his pragmatic competence. Yet, for language learners and teachers a mastery of the pragmatic competence may unconsciously be neglected. In other words, it may not be taught in line with the grammatical competence since the initial period of learning. The article centers on two problems: (1) the similarities and differences of speech act of complaints among Indonesian EFL learners, Indonesian EFL teachers and American native speakers, and (2) the evidence of any pragmatic transfer in the complaint performance. DCT was used to gather the data, which was then analyzed using Rinnert, Nogami and Iwai?s aspects of complaining (2006). It was found that there were both differences and similarities of complaints performed by both the native and non-native speakers of English when power and social status were involved. Some evidence on pragmatic transfer was also tangible; mainly it was due to cultural differences

scholarly journals A Cross-cultural Study of The Speech Act of Compliments in American English and Yemeni Arabic

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Najeeb Taher Almansoob ◽  
Yasser Alrefaee ◽  
K.S Patil
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Cross Cultural Study ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
Frequency Counts

Based on a cross-cultural perspective, the current study aims to compare the realization of the speech act of compliments among Yemeni Arabic native speakers (YANSs) and American English native speakers (AENSs). Samples of 30 participants of Americans and 30 other participants of Yemenis were involved in the study. The data were collected through a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) consisting of six hypothetical compliment scenarios. The corpus collected for analysis was 380 Arabic compliment semantic formulas and 338 English compliment semantic formulas. Data were analyzed in terms of frequency counts of 20 strategies and order of semantic formulas in the speakers' response utterances. The findings showed that there are some pragmatic similarities and differences between the two native groups. Some strategies seemed to be universal across the two cultures like Admiration whereas strategies of Exaggeration, Gratitude to God and Metaphor are culturally specific to Arabic. The findings also revealed that most of the speakers' utterances were in the two-fold order of semantic formulas. Moreover, the findings showed that American compliments were steady and formulaic in nature while Arabic Compliments were various in formulas and long.

scholarly journals Expressing Gratitude in an EFL Context: The Case of Jordanian Learners

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 190
Author(s):  
Husam Al-Momani ◽  
Abdullah Jaradat ◽  
Nisreen Al-Khawaldeh ◽  
Baker Bani-Khair
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Contextual Variables ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Order Preference

This study contributes to the existing literature on interlanguage pragmatics by investigating intermediate Jordanian English Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ gratitude speech act realization compared to that of native American English speakers. The study considered both aspects of pragmatic competence including pragmalinguistic knowledge (i.e., the use of gratitude strategies) and sociopragmatic knowledge (i.e., the influence of contextual variables). A discourse completion task (DCT) was employed to elicit data from 60 participants divided into two groups: 30 native speakers of American English, and 30 Jordanian EFL learners. Findings revealed that while Jordanian EFL  learners and American English native speakers have access to the same gratitude strategies, both groups differed in  the order preference of the used strategies and their frequency of use. Furthermore, the two groups showed different patterns in responding to contextual variables (i.e., social power and size of imposition), an indication that different cultural values govern the speech norms of each group. The study concludes with some pedagogical implications that could be implemented in the EFL classroom. 

scholarly journals A Pragmatic Cross-Cultural Study of Complaints Expressions in Jordan and England

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisreen Al-Khawaldeh
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Linguistic Expression ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Opting Out ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Cultural Pragmatics

Research shows an increasing interest in the area of cross-cultural pragmatics due to the existence of diverse problematic pragmatic norms (Al-Khawaldeh and Zegarac, 2013). It has been found that identifying cross-cultural differences in linguistic expression and socio-pragmatic norms of communicative acts would help to reduce problems in cross-cultural communication (Meier, 2010). To the best of the researcher's knowledge, no study has been conducted to compare the linguistic expression of complaining by Jordanian native speakers of Arabic and native speakers of English. To bridge the research gap, this study compares the number and types of politeness strategies that Jordanian native speakers of Arabic and native speakers of English use to complain. The study investigates the cultural styles and politeness strategies used by Jordanian native speakers Arabic and native speakers of English for expressing complaints. The analysis of the Discourse-Completion Tasks’ (DCT) results revealed that eleven complaints strategies were the most commonly-used by both groups, namely opting out, general annoyance, direct threat, accusation, prayer, advice, irony, rejoinder that shows no disapproval, exclamation, request for repair, and request for explanation. These strategies are manifested in the speech of both languages to save the hearer's face and remain polite when performing the inherently face-threatening speech act of complaint. Though both groups used various complaints strategies at overall frequencies that were closer, they were statistically distinguishable in the type of the linguistic expression of complaints, i.e. opting out and prayer. The results are then discussed from the universality and cultures-specificity perspective. 

scholarly journals PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE OF THE YEMENI EFL LEARNERS

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Qasem H. Al-Khadhmi ◽  
Mirza M. B. ◽  
Abdullah Ali Al-Eryani
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Analytic Approach ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Refusal Strategies ◽  
Loading Scheme

<p>The present study aimed at investigating the pragmatic competence of the Yemeni Non-Native Speakers of English (YNNSs) through examining their performance in the speech act of refusals. The study followed the qualitative comparative analytic approach. For the purpose of attaining the required data for this study, forty (YNNSs) and forty American Native Speakers (ANSs) of English were involved. The questionnaire used for collecting data from the participants was a written Discourse Completion Task (DCT), which was developed by Beebe et el. (1990), employed for collecting the data related to the use of refusal strategies by the two groups of participants in English. The data collected from DCT was analyzed by using a loading scheme adapted from Beebe et al. (1990). This study revealed that the Yemeni NNSs were not pragmatically competent enough in English. In spite of the similarity between the two groups in their use of refusal strategies, the differences between them were more apparent. The total number of strategies used by the American NSs was almost double those used by the Yemeni NNSs in all refusal situations. This study recommends that instructors should design contextualized, task-based, oral activities and integrating the intercultural aspects of language into ELT textbooks. </p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0895/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

scholarly journals Business English as a Lingua Franca – A Cross-Cultural Perspective of Teaching English for Business Purposes

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-87
Author(s):  
Nataša Gajšt
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Business English ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Patterns Of Communication ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

In our era of globalisation, English is at the top of the languages used in international business. A vast majority of business communication in English is carried out by non-native speakers of English. In a cross-cultural exchange of information, the sender and the recipient come from different cultural backgrounds. The patterns of communication vary across the globe and non-native speakers tend to apply their native language patterns when communicating in English. This paper thus focuses on the concept of spoken communication and dimensions of culture and how they are reflected in communication patterns in different business situations. It also addresses the teaching of Business English as a lingua franca and the role of Business English teachers in helping learners develop their communicative and intercultural competence in order to communicate effectively in a multicultural work environment.

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