摘要
在大多数语言群体中,称赞这一言语行为通常是约定俗成的礼貌技巧。在不同的语言和文化中,虽然称赞行为以及赞语回应具有某些共性,但是其使用的形式、频率以及其功能却有很大的不同。在本篇论文中,作者分析比较了中美赞语回应这一言语行为的使用,并分析了中国大学英语学习者在赞语回应中的语用迁移。
在最近六十多年,称赞语及其回应成为语言学家调查研究的焦点之一。在美国英语中,有大量关于这一言语行为的调查研究,也有很多称赞行为的跨文化对比性调查研究。这些调查研究旨在研究不同的英语变体以及英语同其他语言之间在称赞及其回应这一言语行为的实现方面的不同。这些关于交际能力的研究表明,要想使用一种语言进行积极有效的交流,仅仅掌握语言知识是远远不够的,在特定的社会文化环境中恰当应用这些语言知识的能力也至关重要。缺乏语用知识的外语学习者会经常把母语中的某些模式不自觉地带到外语中,从而形成从母语到外语的语用迁移。第二语言教学之所以受益于交际能力的研究是因为这些研究可以为教师提供不同语言中特定言语行为实现技巧的相关信息。
在本篇论文中,作者预设了两个本研究所要解决的问题:
问题一:中国人和美国人在对称赞语做出回应时有何不同?
问题二:当中国的英语学习者用英语回应称赞语时,他们是否体现了其母语中这一言语行为的使用规则?
首先,本论文对汉语和美国英语中有关赞语回应的技巧进行了比较。本篇论文中所使用的数据收集于中国大学英语学习者。对于美国英语中的赞语回应数据,本文使用了陈荣教授在1993年所收集和分析的数据。数据表明,在汉语和美国英语中,赞语回应这一言语行为的使用存在很大的不同,与中国人相比,美国人更倾向于接受别人的称赞。接着,本论文讨论了中国英语学习者在赞语回应中的语用迁移。研究发现,中国学生在赞语回应中的语用迁移不止Kasper(1992)所说的两种,而是三种,即:语用语言迁移、社交语用迁移和语用修辞知识迁移。Kasper指出,语用语言迁移是指某种母语中的某种语言材料所能实现的交际效果或者该母语的对于礼貌价值的界定对于其第二语言形式及其功能的构成影响的过程。当语言使用者对第二语言中某种言语行为的理解和解释的社会视角受其主观加之于其母语中的对等因素的影响时,就会发生社交语用迁移。除了Kasper所指出的这两种语用迁移之外,还有一种语用迁移,即语用修辞知识迁移,这一迁移是由不同的文化群体对于修辞知识不同的理解和使用造成的。在中国学生使用赞语回应时,这三种语用迁移并不会随着其英语水平的提高而消失,而只是逐渐减少。
语用迁移的性质也成为研究的对象,最主要的两种是语用负迁移和语用正迁移。由于语用迁移与我们展示给别人的自我形象紧密相连,大多数调查研究表明了语用迁移的负作用,但是不一定所有的语用迁移都是负迁移。如果两种语言具有很大的不同,学习者在学习第二语言时就会赶到困难,从而会产生语用负迁移,,但是如果涉及的两种语言很相似,学习者犯错误的几率就低,从而产生语用正迁移。导致语用迁移的因素有很多,主要包括不同的文化对于社会地位差距的不同理解,不同的语言群体有不同的价值取向,等等。
在对称赞语作出回应时,男性和女性之间也存在差别,即女性比男性更倾向于接受称赞,这或许与男性和女性在社会中所扮演的不同角色有关,也可能是因为女性和男性有着不同的心理特征,这一问题需要进一步的研究论证。
本篇论文所得出的结论对英语教师及其教学有所启示。语用学习的必要条件是有意识地学习和掌握语用语言和社交语用知识。教师要训练学生在使用目标语时作出正确的语用语言和社交语用判断。本论文建议,教师可以通过为学生提供本论文列出的语用信息使其有意识的学习语用知识。
In most speech communities, the speech act of complimenting is a well established politeness strategy. While the giving of and responding to compliments can be regarded as rather universal across different languages and cultures, the form, frequency and function of compliments and compliment responses significantly varies. This thesis compares American English compliment responses to the realizations of the same speech act in Chinese and analyzes the pragmatic transfer in compliment responses made by the Chinese learners of English.
In the last three decades, the speech event of complimenting and compliment responding has been one of the major interests which sociolinguistic research has focused upon. There are extensive studies on this respective speech act in American English (e.g. Pomerantz 1978, Manes and Wolfson 1980) as well as comparative cross-cultural research on complimenting behavior, examining the differences in speech act realization between variants of English (American /Irish , e.g. Schneider 1999; American /South African, e.g. Herbert 1989), and between English and other languages (Chinese, e.g. Chen 1993; German, e.g. Golato 2002). These studies of communicative competence make apparent that communicating effectively and efficiently in a language requires more than just linguistic knowledge; the ability to use this linguistic knowledge appropriately in the given sociocultural context is also essential.
Learners with insufficient pragmatic knowledge frequently transfer patterns from their native language into the foreign language. Second language teaching profits from studies in communicative competence because it provides teachers with information on realization strategies concerning certain speech acts in different languages.
In this thesis, two questions are proposed before the research:
RQ1. How differently do Chinese and Americans respond to compliments? RQ2. To what extent do Chinese learners of English reflect their L1 behaviors when responding to compliments in English?
Firstly a comparison between the realization strategies concerning compliment Responses in Chinese and American English is made. The data used in the thesis are from the Chinese College English learners. And to the American English compliment responses, the thesis uses the data collected and analyzed by R. Chen in 1993. It is proved that there is a significant difference in compliment responses between Chinese and American English.
Then, the pragmatic transfer in compliment responses by Chinese learners of English is discussed. Generally speaking there are three types of pragmatic transfer, they are: pragmalinguistic transfer, sociopragmatic transfer and pragmarhetoric transfer.
Different manifestations of pragmatic transfer have been identified in the literature: interference or negative transfer and facilitative or positive transfer are the most obvious types. Most studies address the negative manifestation of pragmatic transfer because it is closely related to the presentation of self, to the image of ourselves that we communicate to others. But the pragmatic transfer is not necessarily negative. The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis suggested that if the two languages involved were different, there would be negative transfer as the learners would experience difficulty that was very likely to result in the production of errors; and if the two languages were similar, there would be positive transfer since learning would be made easier and few errors are likely to result. There are various elements that may cause pragmatic transfer, including the cross-culturally different assessments of power or social distance, different value judgments of different language group and so on. There is also a difference between males and females when responding to a compliment. Generally speaking, women receive more compliments than men do.
This may be due to the different social roles played by men and women in society, or probably, it is because of the different psychological characteristics of men and women, and this issue needs further study.
Based on the conclusions drawn from the analysis in this thesis, some implications can be found for the teachers of English. The necessary condition for pragmatic learning is conscious attention to the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic information to be acquired. The teachers have the responsibility of providing the students with the necessary tools to make the appropriate pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic decisions in the target language. One way is suggested that teachers can help students become pragmatically aware and improve their pragmatic knowledge by providing them with the sort of metapragmatic information outlined in this thesis. Another way is by experiencing such as reading, listening, watching movies or interacting with native speakers.
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