Modifying requests in a foreign language: A longitudinal study of Australian learners of Chinese
This longitudinal study examines the pragmatic development of Australian learners of Chinese in their use of internal modifiers of requests over the course of a semester. An eight-situation DCT was used to collect data. A perception questionnaire and informal interviews were also used to aid the interpretation of the data. Results indicate that despite considerable pragmalinguistic development in some areas, learners’ overall use of Chinese internal modifiers still lagged far behind that of native speakers. Moreover, there was only a little evidence of situational variation. Hence this study suggests the precedence of pragmalinguistic over sociopragmatic development. The study adds to the small but growing body of research on pragmatic development in L2 Chinese.
Publication history
1.Introduction
Research in interlanguage pragmatics (ILP), which examines non-native speakers’ (NNSs) use and acquisition of L2-related speech act knowledge, tends to focus on NNSs’ pragmatic performance (Bella 2012Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1917–1947. Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 441: 1917–1947. ). Despite an increasing number of studies on L2 learners’ pragmatic development, most have employed cross-sectional designs (Taguchi 2018Taguchi, Naoko 2018 “Description and Explanation of Pragmatic Development: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods Research.” System 75: 23–32. Taguchi, Naoko 2018 “Description and Explanation of Pragmatic Development: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods Research.” System 751: 23–32. ), which compare the performance of speech acts by different learners at various stages of development. While cross-sectional studies offer insights into the development of pragmatic competence, actual pragmatic change can be observed only through longitudinal studies (Taguchi 2018Taguchi, Naoko 2018 “Description and Explanation of Pragmatic Development: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods Research.” System 75: 23–32. Taguchi, Naoko 2018 “Description and Explanation of Pragmatic Development: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods Research.” System 751: 23–32. ), which trace the development of a given group of participants in the performance of a speech act over an extended period of time. However, the number of longitudinal studies remains small.
Requests, due to their frequent use in daily communication and highly face-threatening nature, are among the most studied speech acts in ILP. To date, the majority of studies have focused on learners of English (Li 2018Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ; Rose 2009 2009 “Interlanguage Development in Hong Kong, Phase 2.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (11): 2345–2364. 2009 “Interlanguage Development in Hong Kong, Phase 2.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (11): 2345–2364. ; Savić 2015Savić, Milica 2015 “ ‘Can I Very Please Borrow it?’: Request Development in Young Norwegian EFL Learners.” Intercultural Pragmatics 12 (4): 443–480. Savić, Milica 2015 “ ‘Can I Very Please Borrow it?’: Request Development in Young Norwegian EFL Learners.” Intercultural Pragmatics 12 (4): 443–480. ; Woodfield 2012Woodfield, Helen 2012 “ ‘I Think Maybe I Want to Lend the Notes from You’: Development of Request Modification in Graduate Learners.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 9–49. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Woodfield, Helen 2012 “ ‘I Think Maybe I Want to Lend the Notes from You’: Development of Request Modification in Graduate Learners.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 9–49. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ), or learners of other Western languages such as German (Barron 2003Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ), Greek (Bella 2012Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1917–1947. Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 441: 1917–1947. ), and Spanish (Félix-Brasdefer 2007Félix-Brasdefer, J. César 2007 “Pragmatic Development in the Spanish as a FL Classroom: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Intercultural Pragmatics 4 (2): 253–286. Félix-Brasdefer, J. César 2007 “Pragmatic Development in the Spanish as a FL Classroom: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Intercultural Pragmatics 4 (2): 253–286. ). Although there has been a growing interest in requests by learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), none of them has been concerned with Australian learners of Chinese. Furthermore, only a few studies (Li 2014Li, Shuai 2014 “The Effects of Different Levels of Linguistic Proficiency on the Development of L2 Chinese Request Production during Study Abroad.” System 45: 103–116. Li, Shuai 2014 “The Effects of Different Levels of Linguistic Proficiency on the Development of L2 Chinese Request Production during Study Abroad.” System 451: 103–116. ; Ren 2019Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 146: 137–149. Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 1461: 137–149. ; Su and Ren 2017Su, Yunwen, and Wei Ren 2017 “Developing L2 Pragmatic Competence in Mandarin Chinese: Sequential Realization of Requests.” Foreign Language Annals 50: 433–457. Su, Yunwen, and Wei Ren 2017 “Developing L2 Pragmatic Competence in Mandarin Chinese: Sequential Realization of Requests.” Foreign Language Annals 501: 433–457. ; Wen 2014Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. ) have investigated the pragmatic development of CFL learners in requests. None has focused on how CFL learners internally modify their requests and how their competence in internal modifiers changes over time. Research (Li 2018Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ) has indicated that there are significant differences between Mandarin Chinese and Australian English in internal modifiers of requests. Therefore, it would be interesting to examine how Australian CFL learners acquire Chinese internal modifiers over time.
In summary, the present study, using a longitudinal design, investigates the pragmatic development of Australian learners of Chinese in internal modifiers of requests. By closely examining how Australian CFL learners change in their knowledge and competence to internally modify requests over the course of a semester, this study aims to contribute to research on the pragmatic development of learners of Chinese in particular, and developmental studies in ILP in general.
2.Literature review
2.1Requests
According to Searle (1969)Searle, John 1969 Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John 1969 Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , requests are illocutionary acts whereby a speaker attempts to get the hearer to perform an act which is beneficial for the speaker. As such, requests by their nature run contrary to the hearer’s face want (Brown and Levinson 1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ). In attempting to get the hearer to do something, the speaker impinges on the hearer’s freedom of action and thus threatens the hearer’s negative face. The speaker’s positive face is also threatened to a certain extent, because if a request is refused the requester’s face want to be approved of may not be satisfied (Barron 2003Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Therefore, a high level of pragmatic competence is required of L2 learners for the successful completion of requests (Bella 2012Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1917–1947. Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 441: 1917–1947. ).
The largest study of requests is the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989)Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper (eds) 1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper (eds) 1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.. According to the framework of the CCSARP, a request consists of a head act, i.e. the minimal unit to realize a request independently of other elements, and internal and external modifiers. Internal modifiers appear within the head act to modify the illocutionary force of the request and comprise downgraders and upgraders. Downgraders include syntactic downgraders, which modify the head act by means of syntactic devices (e.g. continuous aspect, past tense, and conditional clauses), and lexical/phrasal downgraders, which modify the head act through lexical/phrasal choices (e.g. politeness markers, understaters, and subjectivizers). External modifiers are located either before or after the head act and include grounders, preparators and disarmers. The coding scheme of the CCSARP has been used extensively in ILP and will be used to analyse the data in the present study.
2.2Research on interlanguage pragmatic development
Research on L2 pragmatic development adopts either a cross-sectional or a longitudinal design. Cross-sectional designs involve the collection of data from two or more cross-sections of a sample, usually based on differences in level of proficiency in the target language or length of stay in the target community. Longitudinal research, on the other hand, involves the observation of the same participant(s) over an extended period (Kasper and Rose 2002Kasper, Gabrielle, and Kenneth Rose 2002 Pragmatic Development in a Second Language. Oxford: Blackwell.Kasper, Gabrielle, and Kenneth Rose 2002 Pragmatic Development in a Second Language. Oxford: Blackwell.; Taguchi 2018Taguchi, Naoko 2018 “Description and Explanation of Pragmatic Development: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods Research.” System 75: 23–32. Taguchi, Naoko 2018 “Description and Explanation of Pragmatic Development: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods Research.” System 751: 23–32. ).
2.2.1Cross-sectional studies
Most studies on interlanguage pragmatic development were conducted cross-sectionally. For example, Hill (1997)Hill, Thomas 1997 “The Development of Pragmatic Competence in an EFL Context.” PhD diss. Temple University.Hill, Thomas 1997 “The Development of Pragmatic Competence in an EFL Context.” PhD diss. Temple University. examined the development of requests by Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at low, intermediate and advanced levels. Despite an increase in the use of internal modification in the direction of the native speaker (NS) norm with increased proficiency, learners at all three proficiency levels still employed less internal modification than NSs, and the development occurred mainly in the use of syntactic downgraders. Göy et al. (2012)Göy, Elif, Deniz Zeyrek, and Bahar Otcu 2012 “Developmental Patterns in Internal Modification of Requests: A Quantitative Study on Turkish Learners of English.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 51–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Göy, Elif, Deniz Zeyrek, and Bahar Otcu 2012 “Developmental Patterns in Internal Modification of Requests: A Quantitative Study on Turkish Learners of English.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 51–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. examined internal modifiers of requests by beginner and upper-intermediate Turkish learners of English. They found that although both groups underused internal modification, there was a slow development in the employment of both syntactic and lexical/phrasal downgraders. Moreover, Rose (2000Rose, Kenneth R. 2000 “An Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study of Interlanguage Pragmatic Development.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 22 (1): 27–67. Rose, Kenneth R. 2000 “An Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study of Interlanguage Pragmatic Development.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 22 (1): 27–67. , 2009 2009 “Interlanguage Development in Hong Kong, Phase 2.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (11): 2345–2364. 2009 “Interlanguage Development in Hong Kong, Phase 2.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (11): 2345–2364. ) conducted two studies on requests among young Hong Kong EFL learners. The first study involved three groups of primary school students aged seven, nine, and eleven and the second study included three groups of secondary school students aged thirteen, fifteen, and seventeen. While the first study recorded little evidence of pragmalinguistic development, progression was observed in the second study, such as a wider range of modals in the requests of the most advanced group. Little evidence of sociopragmatic development was observed in the above studies due to the lack of situational variation in learners’ use of internal modifiers.
Similarly, in another cross-sectional study, Li (2018)Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. examined email requests by Chinese EFL learners at low and high proficiency levels and found that both learner groups underused internal modifiers. While part of the reason could be attributed to L1 transfer since Chinese NSs used significantly fewer internal modifiers than English NSs, Li argued that learners’ underuse of internal modifiers could also be related to the processing complexity of internal modifiers, the non-transferability of common Chinese internal modifiers into English and the unavailability of common English internal modifiers in Chinese. Moreover, Li found that high proficiency learners showed the opposite status sensitivity to English NSs, using more internal modifiers to a higher status addressee than to a peer, hence no sociopragmatic development.
A number of cross-sectional studies examined requests by learners of other target languages. For example, Félix-Brasdefer (2007)Félix-Brasdefer, J. César 2007 “Pragmatic Development in the Spanish as a FL Classroom: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Intercultural Pragmatics 4 (2): 253–286. Félix-Brasdefer, J. César 2007 “Pragmatic Development in the Spanish as a FL Classroom: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Intercultural Pragmatics 4 (2): 253–286. investigated the development of requests by American learners of Spanish at three proficiency levels. His results showed that learners’ repertoire of internal modifiers increased with increasing proficiency. While beginners relied on the politeness marker por favor ‘please’, intermediate and advanced learners employed a wider variety of internal modifiers such as the conditional. However, the frequency and variety of these mitigators did not approximate the Spanish norms. Likewise, Bella (2012)Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1917–1947. Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 441: 1917–1947. , in her study of developmental patterns of requests by foreign language learners of Greek at different proficiency levels, found that even advanced learners’ performance lagged far behind NSs, particularly in lexical/phrasal modifiers. Moreover, Hassall (2012)Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. examined how Australian learners of Indonesian at different levels modified their requests in Indonesian. He found that learners not only used significantly fewer internal modifiers than NSs, they also never chose the most common native types of internal modifiers. The difficulties that L2 learners had in acquiring Indonesian internal modifiers led Hassall to challenge Bialystok’s (1993)Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. model of pragmatic acquisition, according to which acquiring new pragmatic knowledge is a relatively minor task for adult L2 learners. Hassall argued that acquiring internal modifiers is also a major task. Interestingly, in contrast to the above studies, Al Masaeed (2017)Al Masaeed, Khaled 2017 “Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: Internal and External Modification in L2 Arabic Requests.” Foreign Language Annals 50 (4): 808–820. Al Masaeed, Khaled 2017 “Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: Internal and External Modification in L2 Arabic Requests.” Foreign Language Annals 50 (4): 808–820. , who examined internal and external modifiers among three levels of American learners of Arabic, found that intermediate and advanced learners used more internal modifiers than NSs. Given the inconclusive findings, obviously more developmental studies need to be conducted.
2.2.2Longitudinal studies
One of the earliest longitudinal studies was Ellis’ (1992)Ellis, Rod 1992 “Learning to Communicate in the Classroom: A Study of Two Language Learners’ Requests.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 14 (1): 1–23. Ellis, Rod 1992 “Learning to Communicate in the Classroom: A Study of Two Language Learners’ Requests.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 14 (1): 1–23. two-year observation of requests by two beginning learners of English (aged ten and eleven) in a classroom setting. Despite some developmental progression, Ellis noted that modification did not increase over time. The modifying devices used by the two learners were rather restricted. The only internal downgrader observed was please. Both learners failed to develop the sociopragmatic competence needed to vary their choice of politeness strategies in accordance with situational factors.
However, Achiba’s (2003)Achiba, Machiko 2003 Learning to Request in a Second Language: A Study of Child Interlanguage Pragmatics. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Achiba, Machiko 2003 Learning to Request in a Second Language: A Study of Child Interlanguage Pragmatics. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. study of the acquisition of English requests by her seven-year-old Japanese daughter, Yao, over a seventeen-month period of residence in Australia, showed a steady developmental pattern for internal and external modification. Yao’s requests moved from initially formulaic expressions with repetition as the predominant type of mitigation to a wider repertoire of indirect strategies modified both internally and externally in the final phase of the observation. Unlike the two learners in Ellis’ study, Yao also developed an awareness of the social dimensions of requests and an ability to vary her requests according to goals and addressees.
Most studies using a longitudinal design investigated L2 pragmatic development in a study abroad context. For example, Barron (2003)Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. examined the development of L2 pragmatic competence of advanced Irish learners of German over a ten-month period abroad in Germany. Her results revealed some important development in Irish learners’ L2 requests. For instance, with time in the target speech community, learners’ employment of bitte ‘please’ decreased while their use of the downtoner increased. However, Barron noted that not all changes in learners’ pragmatic competence over the year abroad represented developments towards the L2 norm. For example, the increased level of complexity of syntactic downgrading used by learners in individual situations represented an increase in negative transfer. While providing some support for Bialystok’s (1993)Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. model of pragmatic acquisition, Barron argued that pragmatic knowledge may not be as simple to acquire as Bialystok assumed.
Moreover, Schauer (2009)Schauer, Gila 2009 Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: The Study Abroad Context. London: Continuum.Schauer, Gila 2009 Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: The Study Abroad Context. London: Continuum. examined pragmatic development of German learners of English in a nine-month study abroad sojourn (SA learners) in Britain compared with NSs of English and German learners of English at home (AH learners). Results indicated that a study abroad sojourn had a positive effect on learners’ use of modification. SA learners had a broader repertoire of downgraders than AH learners. While lexical/phrasal downgraders were acquired in both SA and AH contexts, the acquisition of syntactic downgraders was facilitated by exposure to the L2 in the SA context. Schauer’s study suggested that lexical/phrasal downgraders were acquired earlier than syntactic downgraders.
Another longitudinal study by Woodfield (2012)Woodfield, Helen 2012 “ ‘I Think Maybe I Want to Lend the Notes from You’: Development of Request Modification in Graduate Learners.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 9–49. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Woodfield, Helen 2012 “ ‘I Think Maybe I Want to Lend the Notes from You’: Development of Request Modification in Graduate Learners.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 9–49. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. investigated internal and external modifiers of requests by eight ESL learners during an eight-month sojourn in Britain. Her findings revealed a linear decrease in the frequency of internal modifiers, representing a divergence from the NS norm. Moreover, learners displayed a preference for lexical/phrasal downgraders over syntactic downgraders in all three phases of the study.
2.3Research on L1 and L2 Chinese requests
Despite the substantial body of research on requests in a variety of languages, the number of studies on requests by Chinese speakers and learners of Chinese as a second or foreign language remains small (Ren 2019Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 146: 137–149. Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 1461: 137–149. ). The following section first presents studies on L1 Chinese requests, followed by relevant studies of requests by L2 Chinese learners.
Lee-Wong’s (1994)Lee-Wong, Song Mei 1994 “Imperatives in Requests: Direct or Impolite – Observations from Chinese.” Pragmatics 4 (4): 491–515.Lee-Wong, Song Mei 1994 “Imperatives in Requests: Direct or Impolite – Observations from Chinese.” Pragmatics 4 (4): 491–515. study of requests by Chinese NSs from mainland China was among the earliest on L1 Chinese requests. With regard to internal modifiers, findings indicated that Chinese speakers preferred lexical/phrasal to syntactic downgraders; they displayed a great tendency for politeness expressions such as qingwen ‘please ask/excuse me’, mafan ‘trouble’, and bang ‘help’, which are the predominant internal modifiers in Chinese requests. Similarly, Zhang (1995)Zhang, Yanyin 1995 “Strategies in Chinese Requesting.” In Pragmatics of Chinese as a Native and Target Language, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, 23–68. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.Zhang, Yanyin 1995 “Strategies in Chinese Requesting.” In Pragmatics of Chinese as a Native and Target Language, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, 23–68. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. found that politeness markers (PMs) including qing ‘please’ and mafan ‘trouble’, the honorific pronoun nin (v-form of you), and a combination of the two were employed more frequently than any other lexical/phrasal downgraders. Moreover, Zhang noted that Chinese speakers exhibited a preference for tags, often used in the structure: imperative/want statement + tag.
Chinese speakers’ preference for PMs, the honorific pronoun and tag questions was also observed in Li’s (2018)Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. study of email requests. In addition, Li found that Chinese NSs also displayed a marked preference for understaters such as yixia ‘a little’. Moreover, they tended to use more internal modifiers to a higher status addressee than to a peer.
Furthermore, in a study which compared Cantonese and English requests, Lee (2005)Lee, Cynthia 2005 “Cross-Linguistic Study on the Linguistic Expressions of Cantonese and English Requests.” Pragmatics 15 (4): 295–422.Lee, Cynthia 2005 “Cross-Linguistic Study on the Linguistic Expressions of Cantonese and English Requests.” Pragmatics 15 (4): 295–422. found that Cantonese Chinese speakers were inclined to use a higher frequency and a wider range of lexical downgraders but a lower frequency of and fewer syntactic downgraders, in contrast to English speakers who often used more syntactic downgraders but fewer lexical downgraders. Cantonese speakers also tended to use a combination of lexical devices.
Only a few studies investigated pragmatic development in L2 Chinese requests. Using a four-scenario written questionnaire, Wen (2014)Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. conducted a cross-sectional study on requests of American learners of Chinese at lower and advanced proficiency levels. Her findings revealed ample evidence of pragmalinguistic development. For example, as learners’ proficiency increased, their use of downgraders such as adverbial clauses, the modal auxiliary neng ‘can’, and the honorific pronoun increased but their use of qing ‘please’ decreased. Moreover, the data also revealed evidence of sociopragmatic development. The advanced group outperformed the lower group by using more lexical/phrasal downgraders in higher-imposition and higher-status situations than in lower-imposition and equal-status situations. However, Wen’s study also revealed a large discrepancy between learners and NSs, particularly in the use of modifiers which lack clear form-meaning/function connections such as the sentence particle ba, tag questions for permission, and PMs mafan ‘trouble’ and bang ‘help’.
Another cross-sectional study by Su and Ren (2017)Su, Yunwen, and Wei Ren 2017 “Developing L2 Pragmatic Competence in Mandarin Chinese: Sequential Realization of Requests.” Foreign Language Annals 50: 433–457. Su, Yunwen, and Wei Ren 2017 “Developing L2 Pragmatic Competence in Mandarin Chinese: Sequential Realization of Requests.” Foreign Language Annals 501: 433–457. examined pragmatic development of American learners of Chinese in negotiating requests. Their data were collected through role plays from twenty-four learners at three proficiency levels. Results indicated that while learners displayed some development in their ability to sequence their requests, there was little evidence of development in the employment of internal modifiers. All learner groups used internal modifiers less frequently than NSs. Moreover, learners showed no situational variations either within the turn or across turns, hence no sociopragmatic development, which contrasted with Wen’s (2014)Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. findings.
Furthermore, Ren (2019)Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 146: 137–149. Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 1461: 137–149. examined pragmatic development in requests by L2 learners of Chinese from different language backgrounds during their study in China. He collected data through six role plays from 40 learners, classified into three groups according to their length of stay. His results indicated that learners used fewer internal and external modifiers than NSs. Moreover, internal modifiers posed greater difficulties than external modifiers for the learners. For example, learners differed significantly from NSs in the use of politeness markers. Nonetheless, a development trend was observed in learners’ use of internal modifiers such as understaters.
In a longitudinal study, Li (2014)Li, Shuai 2014 “The Effects of Different Levels of Linguistic Proficiency on the Development of L2 Chinese Request Production during Study Abroad.” System 45: 103–116. Li, Shuai 2014 “The Effects of Different Levels of Linguistic Proficiency on the Development of L2 Chinese Request Production during Study Abroad.” System 451: 103–116. investigated requests by American learners of Chinese at intermediate and advanced levels during a fifteen-week study abroad sojourn in China. A computerized oral DCT was used to collect data. Li reported that learners’ employment of internal modifiers was rather limited and remained unchanged throughout the sojourn. Both groups relied exclusively on the PM qing ‘please’, which was absent in NSs’ requests, and displayed no sensitivity to situational variations. They rarely used the understater yixia ‘a little’ or the honorific pronoun favoured by NSs. Furthermore, over time both groups increased their use of the permission-query form keyi ‘may’, which was not favoured by NSs, but continued to underuse the ability-query form neng ‘can’, which was preferred by NSs.
In summary, the literature indicates that despite an increasing number of developmental studies, the majority are cross-sectional designs, which provide indirect information on learners’ pragmatic development. More longitudinal studies, which trace the same participants across a time span and provide direct observation of L2 development, need to be conducted. Moreover, recent longitudinal studies have focused on learners’ pragmatic development in a L2 study abroad context. Few have investigated how learners’ pragmatic competence changes in the foreign language classroom context over time. Furthermore, only a small number of studies have examined pragmatic development in requests by L2 Chinese learners. None has focused on Australian learners of Chinese. Little research has examined in detail how learners internally modify requests in Chinese. In addition, the findings of previous studies regarding the development of internal modification are inconclusive. Therefore, the present study aims to fill these gaps and examine the pragmatic development of Australian CFL learners in using internal modifiers over time. The research questions are as follows:
Is there any evidence of pragmalinguistic development in learners’ use of internal modifiers over time?
Is there any evidence of sociopragmatic development in learners’ use of internal modifiers over time?
3.Methodology
3.1Participants
The learner group comprised thirty-five students undertaking a second-year undergraduate Chinese course at an Australian university. Their proficiency was considered “intermediate” at the university where they were studying. They were all from an Anglo-European cultural background. Twenty-one were female and fourteen were male. All were in the nineteen-to-twenty-three age group.
The Chinese native group included thirty-five undergraduate students studying a translation unit at the same university as the learners. Twenty-three were female and twelve were male. Their ages ranged from nineteen to twenty-four. None had been in Australia for more than two years, and all were Mandarin Chinese speakers (MCs) from mainland China.
3.2Instruments
The main data elicitation method was a discourse completion test (DCT). Informal interviews and perception questionnaires were also used to aid the interpretation of the data.
The DCT was used to collect the main data for the following reasons. Firstly, it ensures control of social and situational variables, so consistency of situations is guaranteed, which enables the comparability of the data collected from different groups and on different occasions and makes it possible to track learners’ progress through time (Barron 2003Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Secondly, it allows the researcher to collect a substantial amount of data from different groups within a short time. Moreover, it can “provide useful information about speakers’ pragmalinguistic knowledge of the strategies and linguistic forms by which communicative acts can be implemented, and about their sociopragmatic knowledge of the context factors under which particular strategies and linguistic choices are appropriate” (Kasper and Rose 2002Kasper, Gabrielle, and Kenneth Rose 2002 Pragmatic Development in a Second Language. Oxford: Blackwell.Kasper, Gabrielle, and Kenneth Rose 2002 Pragmatic Development in a Second Language. Oxford: Blackwell., 96).
Being the most common method, it is not surprising that DCTs have received criticism. A major criticism is that it does not produce data that are representative of actual language use. In contrast to naturally occurring data collected through an ethnographic approach, the DCT data lack the number of turns, repetitions and elaborations, or other features of natural conversation (Kasper and Rose 2002Kasper, Gabrielle, and Kenneth Rose 2002 Pragmatic Development in a Second Language. Oxford: Blackwell.Kasper, Gabrielle, and Kenneth Rose 2002 Pragmatic Development in a Second Language. Oxford: Blackwell.). However, as pointed out by a number of researchers (Morkus 2018Morkus, Nader 2018 American Learners of Arabic as a Foreign Language: The Speech Act of Refusal in Egyptian Arabic. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Morkus, Nader 2018 American Learners of Arabic as a Foreign Language: The Speech Act of Refusal in Egyptian Arabic. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. ; Trosborg 1995Trosborg, Anne 1995 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Trosborg, Anne 1995 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ), an ethnographic approach is more popular with research investigating speech acts in a single language or culture, rather than cross-culturally, because it allows little control over contextual variables and does not guarantee cross-cultural comparability. Moreover, “when collecting a large amount of data, there is no guarantee that the same situation will be repeated even once” (Trosborg 1995Trosborg, Anne 1995 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Trosborg, Anne 1995 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. , 141).
As Rose (2009) 2009 “Interlanguage Development in Hong Kong, Phase 2.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (11): 2345–2364. 2009 “Interlanguage Development in Hong Kong, Phase 2.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (11): 2345–2364. contended, whether an instrument is valid or not depends on whether the instrument selected is valid for the purpose of the study. Since the focus of this study is on the development of Australian CFL learners’ knowledge of internal modifiers at the utterance level of a request over the course of a semester and it involves different groups, an ethnographic approach, invaluable as it is for gaining insights into participants’ linguistic behavior in actual conversation, does not meet the needs of this study. The DCT, on the other hand, fits the present purpose well.
The present DCT includes eight situations. All were designed to resemble those that take place in an academic setting with which the participants were familiar. The situations vary according to relative power (P), and rank of imposition (R), social distance being a constant variable and defined as familiar, i.e., the interlocutors know each other well but are not very close. Relative power, or social status, was treated as a binary value: either the interlocutors are equal (=P) or the addressee is of higher social status and has power over the addresser (+P). Situations in which the addresser has power over the addressee were not included in this study given the fact that it is difficult to find a situation in which a student is in an obviously powerful position at Australian universities. Rank of imposition was described as a dichotomous value. The imposition involved in the requests was either small (−R) or big (+R). Hill (1997)Hill, Thomas 1997 “The Development of Pragmatic Competence in an EFL Context.” PhD diss. Temple University.Hill, Thomas 1997 “The Development of Pragmatic Competence in an EFL Context.” PhD diss. Temple University. suggested that more situations for each variable combination should be included in order to obtain more typical responses from participants. Therefore, the present DCT contains eight situations, two situations for each combination.
| Situations | Power | Imposition |
|---|---|---|
| Reference (ask a lecturer to write a reference) | +P | +R |
| Unit (ask a lecturer to approve selection of a unit) | +P | +R |
| Worksheet (ask a lecturer for a worksheet you missed) | +P | −R |
| Pen (ask a lecturer to lend you a pen) | +P | −R |
| Interview (ask to interview a peer for assignment purposes) | =P | +R |
| Airport (ask a peer to take you to the airport) | =P | +R |
| Notes (ask a peer to lend you their lecture notes) | =P | −R |
| Textbook (ask a peer to share their textbook during class) | =P | −R |
Moreover, following Hassall (2012)Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , judgement of appropriateness was used when learners’ use of an internal modifier was of questionable appropriacy. A perception questionnaire which contained learners’ answers and a description of the situation was distributed to ten Chinese NSs, who were asked to evaluate the level of appropriacy and comment on it. In addition, to better understand learners’ selection of internal modifiers and the possible causes, informal interviews were conducted with learner participants and their instructors where necessary.
3.3Data collection procedure
The learner data was collected twice in the first semester of 2019. The pre-test data was collected in class in Week 1 and the post-test data in Week 13, the last teaching week. The researcher distributed the DCT questionnaire to all the participants. Each session took approximately fifty minutes. The order in which the eight situations appeared in the pre-test questionnaire differed from that in the post-test questionnaire to minimize any practice effect.
The Chinese baseline data were collected in Week 1 of the first semester of 2019. Again, the researcher distributed and collected the questionnaires. The whole data collection process took around thirty minutes.
3.4Data coding and analysis
The data coding method was adapted from the coding schemes of Blum-Kulka et al. (1989)Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper (eds) 1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper (eds) 1989 Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. and Li (2018)Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. . Internal modifiers include downgraders and upgraders. However, upgraders were not observed in this study. Therefore, internal modifiers in the present study only refer to downgraders, which comprise syntactic downgraders, which modify the head act by means of syntactic devices, and lexical/phrasal downgraders, which modify the head act through lexical/phrasal choices. Table 2 presents the internal modifiers observed in this study:
| Internal modifiers | Examples | |
|---|---|---|
| Syntactic downgraders | ||
| Tags |
hao ma/ xing ma/ keyi ma? ‘OK?’ hao bu hao /xing bu xing / ke bu keyi? ‘OK or not’ |
|
| Adverbial clauses of time, condition, reason | nin you shijian de hua…？ ‘If you have time’ | |
| Modal auxiliaries | keyi ‘may’, neng ‘can’, yuanyi ‘be willing’ | |
| Lexical/phrasal downgraders | ||
| Politeness markers | qing ‘please’, qingwen ‘please ask’, mafan ‘trouble’, bang ‘help’ | |
| Honorific pronoun | nin ‘v-form of you’ | |
| Subjectivizer | xiwang ‘I hope’, bu zhidao ‘I don’t know/I wonder’ | |
| Understater | yixia ‘a little’, kankan ‘have a look’ (verb reduplication) | |
| Downtoner | ba, ne, ya (sentence-final particles) | |
| Consultative device | nin kan ‘do you think’ | |
| Terms of address | Laoshi ‘teacher’ | |
The researcher and a trained assistant first coded 1/4 of the data independently. Due to the relative narrow range of internal modifiers and the absence of complication, the interrater reliability was as high as 99%. Therefore, the remainder of the data was coded by the researcher alone.
To examine pragmatic development, the internal modifiers used by learners at pretest and at posttest were compared against those of the MCs. The data were analysed in the frequency and average number of internal modifiers. Both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. Where necessary, the chi-square test was employed to compare the frequency of internal modifiers between groups, and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and an independent samples t-test were employed to compare group means.
4.Results
4.1Pragmalinguistic development
4.1.1Overall use of internal modifiers
Table 3 shows the overall means of internal modifiers for each group in all situations. Learners at both pretest and posttest underused the overall internal modifiers and both types of downgraders. A one-way ANOVA revealed significant differences between the groups in the total means of internal modifiers, F(2, 717) = 126.373, p < .001, lexical/phrasal downgraders, F(2, 717) = 101.505, p < .001, and syntactic downgraders, F(2, 717) = 22.441, p < .001. Post hoc analyses using Tukey’s post-hoc test revealed a significant difference between MCs and learners at either pretest or posttest, p < .001. Moreover, MCs used a larger number of lexical/phrasal downgraders than syntactic downgraders, whereas learners showed an opposite tendency.
| Internal modifiers | Pretest | Posttest | MC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Syntactic downgraders | .75 | .88 | 1.02 |
| Lexical/phrasal downgraders | .43 | .48 | 1.34 |
| Total | 1.17 | 1.34 | 2.35 |
Despite learners’ underuse of internal modifiers, findings indicated a slow development towards the NS norm. As Table 3 indicates, at pretest learners used an average number of 1.17 internal modifiers, whereas at posttest the number increased to 1.34, moving towards the L2 norm (2.35). Similarly, the number of syntactic downgraders increased from 0.75 at pretest to 0.88 at posttest towards the NS norm (1.02). However, there was little development in the employment of lexical/phrasal downgraders.
| Situations | Pretest | Posttest | MC | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SYN | L/PH | SYN | L/PH | SYN | L/PH | |
| Reference | .83 | .67 | .93 | .73 | 1.00 | 2.97 |
| Unit | .50 | .60 | .73 | .53 | .97 | 2.10 |
| Worksheet | .70 | .53 | .80 | .73 | 1.20 | 1.07 |
| Pen | .80 | .33 | 1.00 | .53 | 1.00 | 1.07 |
| Interview | .83 | .27 | .73 | .40 | .87 | 1.10 |
| Airport | .80 | .23 | .87 | .27 | 1.03 | .93 |
| Notes | .77 | .37 | .97 | .30 | 1.17 | 1.10 |
| Textbook | .77 | .40 | 1.03 | .30 | .93 | .40 |
Note.
SYN: syntactic downgraders; L/PH: lexical/phrasal downgraders
Table 4 shows the average number of downgraders in individual situations. Regarding syntactic downgraders, there was development in the direction of the NS norm in all but the interview situation. Significant development was observed in the unit, pen, airport, and notes situations. ANOVA revealed significant differences between the groups in each of these situations, p < .05. The Tukey HSD test showed that the difference between learners at pretest and MCs was statistically significant, p < .05, but no significant difference was found between learners at posttest and MCs, a clear sign of development.
With regard to lexical/phrasal downgraders, significant development was only found in the worksheet situation, in which learners employed a larger number of lexical/phrasal downgraders at posttest than at pretest. ANOVA and the Tukey test showed that the difference between learners at pretest and MCs was statistically significant, p = .037, but there was no significant difference between learners at posttest and MCs, p = .266. Some evidence of development was also observed in the pen and interview situations; however, the differences did not reach statistical significance.
4.1.2Syntactic downgraders
Table 5 shows the overall frequency of individual syntactic downgraders in all situations. There is a clear sign of development in the use of the permission modal verb keyi ‘may’ and the ability modal verb neng ‘can’. At pretest, learners used keyi significantly more often than MCs, χ² (1, N = 480) = 43.502, p < .001, and neng significantly less often than MCs, χ² (1, N = 480) = 121.881, p < .001. At posttest, learners reduced their use of keyi from 60.8% to 43.3% but increased their use of neng from 5% to 20.8%. The differences between pretest and posttest in each case reached statistical significance, p < .001, representing a significant movement towards the NS norm.
| Syntactic downgraders | Pretest | Posttest | MC | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | % | N | % | N | % | ||
| Tag | 8 | 3.3 | 50 | 20.8 | 13 | 5.4 | |
| Adverbial clauses | 2 | 0.8 | 0 | 0.0 | 16 | 6.7 | |
| Modal auxiliary | |||||||
| keyi: permission | 146 | 60.8 | 104 | 43.3 | 74 | 30.8 | |
| neng: ability | 12 | 5.0 | 50 | 20.8 | 120 | 50.0 | |
| hui: ability through learning | 9 | 3.8 | 1 | 0.4 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| yuanyi: willingness | 1 | 0.4 | 0 | 0.0 | 4 | 1.7 | |
| Convenience/availability | 2 | 0.8 | 3 | 1.3 | 16 | 6.7 | |
| Other | 1 | 0.4 | 3 | 1.3 | 0 | 0.0 | |
Further evidence of development was found in the frequency of the modal verb hui. Although both neng and hui can be translated as ‘can’ in English, hui indicates an ability acquired through learning and is not conventionally used to make requests in Chinese. The data shows that none of the MCs used hui. While nine learners used it at pretest, only one used it at posttest, indicating an improvement.
Examination of individual situations provides more detailed information on the use of keyi and neng. Figure 1 shows the frequency of keyi in each situation. There was evidence of development in all but the textbook situation. In the unit and worksheet situations, while learners used keyi more often than MCs at pretest, they used it with the same frequency as or a similar frequency to MCs at posttest. In the reference, pen, interview and airport situations, the difference between learners at pretest and MCs was significant, p < .05, whereas no significant difference was observed between learners at posttest and MCs, p > .05, indicating a significant progression. In the notes situation, however, the differences between groups did not reach statistical significance, indicating relatively slow development. For example:
wo ke bu keyi jie ni de biji? (Pretest #14)
‘May I borrow your notes?’
keyi jie ni de biji ma? (Posttest #20)
‘May (I) borrow your notes?’
Figure 2 presents the frequency of neng used by each group in each situation. Evidence of development was observed in all situations. Notable progress was found in the reference, pen, and airport situations. The chi-square test indicated that the differences between learners at pretest and posttest were all statistically significant, p < .05. Moreover, there was clear evidence of development in the interview situation. While none of the learners at pretest employed neng, learners at posttest overused it, but the difference between posttest learners and MCs was statistically non-significant, χ² (1, N = 60) = .417, p = .519. Development in the other situations was relatively slow. Below are two examples:
Ni neng bu neng jie bi? (Pretest #3)
‘Can you lend (me your) pen?’
Ni neng song wo qu jichang ma? (Posttest #19)
‘Can you take me to the airport?’
While an analysis of the overall frequency of tags indicated a regressive movement away from the NS norm (see Table 5), an examination of individual situations revealed evidence of development towards the NS norm in two situations: reference and interview. As Figure 3 shows, at pretest learners used tags only in 6.7% and 3.3% of their requests respectively; however, at posttest they employed them with the same frequency as MCs (20%, 10% respectively). Below are two examples in the reference situation:
Ni qing xie, hao ma? (Pretest #2)
‘You please write, OK?’
Wo xiang qing ni xie yi ge, hao bu hao? (Posttest #1)
‘I’d like to ask you to write one, OK or not?’
4.1.3Lexical/phrasal downgraders
Table 6 shows the overall frequency of individual lexical/phrasal downgraders in all situations. The most favoured lexical/phrasal downgrader for MCs was the honorific pronoun nin, followed by understaters. In contrast, the most preferred lexical/phrasal downgrader for learners at pretest was the PM qing ‘please’. Over time, learners’ use of qing dropped from 20.4% at pretest to 15.4% at posttest, and their use of understaters increased from 4.2% to 12.5%, moving towards the L2 norm. Learners also doubled their use of nin, from 4.2% at pretest to 8.8% at posttest, although the proportion was still significantly lower than the native level. Little development was recorded in the other lexical/phrasal downgraders.
| Lexical/phrasal downgraders | Pretest | Posttest | MC | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | % | N | % | N | % | |
| PM qing ‘please’ | 49 | 20.4 | 37 | 15.4 | 13 | 5.4 |
| PM qingwen ‘please ask’ | 14 | 5.8 | 4 | 1.7 | 20 | 8.3 |
| PM mafan ‘trouble’ | 0 | 0.0 | 1 | 0.4 | 41 | 17.1 |
| PM bang ‘help’ | 8 | 3.3 | 10 | 4.2 | 30 | 12.5 |
| Honorific pronoun nin ‘you’ | 10 | 4.2 | 21 | 8.8 | 86 | 35.8 |
| Subjectivizer | 6 | 2.5 | 7 | 2.9 | 19 | 7.9 |
| Understater | 10 | 4.2 | 30 | 12.5 | 81 | 33.8 |
| Downtoner | 1 | 0.4 | 1 | 0.4 | 16 | 6.7 |
| Consultative device | 1 | 0.4 | 0 | 0.0 | 13 | 5.4 |
| Term of address | 2 | 0.8 | 3 | 1.3 | 3 | 1.3 |
Figure 4 presents the frequency of qing ‘please’ in individual situations. Learners showed considerable development in four situations. In the unit situation, at pretest learners (36.7%) used qing significantly more often than MCs (13.3%), χ² (1, N = 60) = 4.356, p = .037; however, at posttest their selection (16.7%) approximated that of MCs. In the pen and textbook situations, at posttest learners used qing with the same frequency as MCs. In the notes situation, learners reduced their use from 16.7% at pretest to 6.7% at posttest towards the L2 norm.
Figure 5 shows the frequency of understaters in each situation. Evidence of development was first observed in the textbook situation. Learners increased their use of understaters from 13.3% at pretest to 23.3% at posttest, moving towards the Chinese norm of 30%. In the pen situation, at pretest only one learner used understaters; however, at posttest learners included them in 30% of their requests. In the notes situation, despite the low proportion in comparison to MCs (96.7%), learners increased their use from 10% at pretest to 20% at posttest, indicating a slow development. Moreover, in the reference and worksheet situations, while none of the learners chose understaters at pretest, they used them with the same frequency as MCs at posttest.
Wo keyi jie ni de biji yixia ma? (Pretest #26)
‘Can I borrow your notes?’
Ba ni de biji jie gei wo yong yixia, keyi ma? (Posttest #1)
‘Lend me your notes for a while, OK?’
With regard to the honorific pronoun nin, evidence of development was observed in the unit and pen situations. Learners increased their use from 6.7% and 3.3% at pretest to 23.3% and 13.3% at posttest in the respective situations, slowly moving towards the Chinese norms of 83.3% and 96.7%.
4.2Sociopragmatic development
4.2.1Power
Table 7 presents the overall means of internal modifiers and the two types of downgraders in relation to relative power. Sociopragmatic development was observed in the means of internal modifiers. MCs used a significantly greater number of internal modifiers to a higher-status addressee (2.83) than to a peer (1.88), t(238) = −7.117, p < .001. Although at pretest learners displayed a similar tendency, the difference in the means of internal modifiers between equal (1.11) and higher-status situations (1.22) was non-significant, t(238) = −1.303, p = .097. However, at posttest learners resembled MCs in that they employed a significantly larger number of internal modifiers to a higher-status addressee (1.49) than to a peer (1.22), t(238) = −2.971, p < .002, a clear sign of development.
| Internal modifiers | Pretest | Posttest | MC | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| =P | +P | =P | +P | =P | +P | |
| Syntactic downgraders | .79 | .71 | .90 | .87 | 1.00 | 1.04 |
| Lexical/phrasal downgraders | .32 | .53 | .32 | .63 | .88 | 1.80 |
| Total | 1.11 | 1.22 | 1.22 | 1.49 | 1.88 | 2.83 |
With regard to the two types of downgraders, learners showed no sociopragmatic development in the means of syntactic downgraders since they displayed an opposite tendency to MCs at both pretest and posttest. Only slight evidence of development was found in the means of lexical/phrasal downgraders. Learners increased the selection from 0.53 at pretest to 0.63 at posttest in higher-status situations.
| Downgraders | Pretest | Posttest | MC | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| =P | +P | =P | +P | =P | +P | |
| PM qing ‘please’ | 15.0 | 25.8 | 10.0 | 20.8 | 0.0 | 10.8 |
| PM qingwen ‘please ask’ | 5.0 | 6.7 | 0.0 | 3.3 | 1.7 | 15.0 |
| PM bang ‘help’ | 0.8 | 5.8 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 2.5 | 22.5 |
| Honorific pronoun nin | 0.0 | 8.3 | 0.0 | 17.5 | 0.0 | 71.7 |
| Understater | 7.5 | 0.8 | 13.3 | 11.7 | 50.8 | 16.7 |
| Downtoner | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 10.0 | 3.3 |
| Consultative device | 0.0 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.7 | 9.2 |
Table 8 shows the frequency of individual downgraders when making a request to a higher-status vs. equal addressee. Only the modifiers which MCs used significantly differently in different situations are presented here. MCs used PMs qing, qingwen and bang, the honorific pronoun nin, and consultative devices significantly more often but understaters and downtoners significantly less often to a higher-status addressee than to a peer, p < .05. Only slight sociopragmatic development was evidenced in learners’ use of nin. Like MCs, learners only used nin in the higher-status situations, and they selected it more frequently at posttest (17.5%) than pretest (8.3%), moving slowly towards the Chinese norm of 71.7%.
With regard to qing, at first glance it appeared that learners were moving towards the L2 norm. They displayed the same tendency as MCs to increase the employment of qing with the increasing power of the addressee. However, a closer inspection indicated that they were moving away from the L2 norm.
Table 9 shows the use of qing in the low- and high-imposition situations respectively. MCs only used qing in higher-status situations, whereas learners used it in both higher-status and equal situations. Moreover, in the low-imposition situations, MCs only slightly increased their use of qing when the addressee is of higher status; however, learners at posttest used it significantly more often to a higher-status person than to a peer, p < .05. In the high-imposition situations, MCs increased their use of qing from nil to 16.7% as the addressee’s social status increased, p < .05. While at pretest learners displayed the same tendency as MCs (p < .05), at posttest they used qing with a similar frequency, moving away from the L2 norm.
| Situations | Pretest | Posttest | MC | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| =P | +P | =P | +P | =P | +P | |
| Low-imposition situations | 16.7 | 21.7 | 3.3 | 21.7 | 0.0 | 5.0 |
| High-imposition situations | 13.3 | 30.0 | 16.7 | 20.0 | 0.0 | 16.7 |
4.2.2Rank of imposition
Table 10 shows the means of internal modifiers used by learners and MCs in relation to rank of imposition. MCs employed significantly more internal modifiers, t(238) = −5.406, p < .001, and lexical/phrasal downgraders, t(238) = −6.831, p < .001, but significantly fewer syntactic downgraders, t(238) = 2.438, p < .008, in high-imposition than low-imposition requests. While learners displayed no sociopragmatic development in the means of internal modifiers and lexical/phrasal downgraders, they became more nativelike in their use of syntactic downgraders over time. Like MCs, at posttest learners selected significantly fewer syntactic downgraders in +R than −R requests, t(238) = 2.136, p = .017.
| Internal modifiers | Pretest | Posttest | MC | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| −R | +R | −R | +R | −R | +R | |
| Syntactic downgraders | .76 | .74 | .95 | .82 | 1.08 | .97 |
| L/PH downgraders | .41 | .44 | .47 | .48 | .91 | 1.77 |
| Total | 1.15 | 1.18 | 1.41 | 1.30 | 1.98 | 2.73 |
Table 11 presents the frequency of individual downgraders in −R and +R requests by each group. The chi-square test indicated that MCs used these modifiers significantly more often when making a big request than a small one, p < .05. However, learners displayed little sensitivity to the size of imposition involved in a request and showed little progression over time.
| Downgraders | Pretest | Posttest | MC | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| −R | +R | −R | +R | −R | +R | |
| Availability | 0.8 | 0.8 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 2.5 | 10.8 |
| PM qing ‘please’ | 19.2 | 21.7 | 12.5 | 18.3 | 2.5 | 8.3 |
| PM mafan ‘trouble’ | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.8 | 8.3 | 25.8 |
| PM bang ‘help’ | 0.0 | 6.7 | 0.0 | 8.3 | 0.0 | 25.0 |
| Honorific pronoun nin | 4.2 | 4.2 | 7.5 | 10.0 | 26.7 | 45.0 |
| Subjectivizer | 2.5 | 2.5 | 3.3 | 2.5 | 0.8 | 15.0 |
| Consultative device | 0.0 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 2.5 | 8.3 |
With regard to the PM qing, despite the fact that learners appeared to display the same tendency as MCs to use it more often in a big request than a small one, a closer examination indicated that learners’ use of qing was not nativelike.
As Table 12 shows, when making a request to a peer, none of the MCs used qing, whether the request was big or small. In contrast, learners used it in both situations at both pretest and posttest. When making a request to a higher-status person, MCs used qing significantly more often in +R than −R situations, p = .04. Although at pretest learners displayed the same tendency as MCs, they made little differentiation between situations at posttest, indicating a regressive movement away from the NS norm.
| Situations | Pretest | Posttest | MC | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| −R | +R | −R | +R | −R | +R | |
| Equal-status situations | 16.7 | 13.3 | 3.3 | 16.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Higher-status situations | 21.7 | 30.0 | 21.7 | 20.0 | 5.0 | 16.7 |
4.3Judgement of appropriateness
In this study, learners at posttest were found to overuse tag questions. As we can see from Figure 3, in all the situations except the reference and interview situations, learners either selected tags significantly more often than MCs or employed tags when none of the MCs used them. To determine the appropriateness of learners’ tag questions, ten Mandarin speakers were asked to complete a perception questionnaire including all the fifty-one tags used by the learners at posttest as well as the situations. They were asked to rate the (in)appropriateness of the tags on a three-point scale (appropriate, acceptable, inappropriate) and give their comments. Results indicated that approximately 40% of the tags used by learners were judged to be appropriate or acceptable, while the rest were inappropriate. Tags were perceived as inappropriate mainly because (i) the structure of the sentence was incorrect; (ii) the forms of the tags were inappropriate. Tags in Chinese often follow the structure: imperative/want statement + tag. However, 37% of the learners’ tag questions used an interrogative or a statement with modal auxiliaries keyi ‘may’ or neng ‘can’, followed by a tag, which creates a non-L2-like effect. For example, nin neng bu neng xie tuijianxin, keyi ma? ‘Can you write a reference, can you’, and wo keyi jie ni de biji, hao bu hao? ‘I can borrow your notes, OK or not?’. Moreover, in this study learners used a variety of tag questions, e.g. keyi ma? xing ma? xing bu xing? hao ma? hao bu hao? hao bu hao ma? and neng bu neng?. The last two are rarely used to form tag questions in Chinese. In contrast, the majority of MCs used keyi ma? and xing ma?. Apart from the last two forms, all informants stated that tags in the form of hao bu hao and xing bu xing, which accounted for 41% of the learners’ tags, were inappropriate in high-status situations. In equal-status situations some informants considered them acceptable while the others still preferred keyi ma. Below is the translation of a comment from an informant regarding the reference situation:
This is a conversation with the teacher. You should pay attention to your tone. hao bu hao and xing bu xing are strong in tones and convey the impression of urging and demanding someone to do something. They are often used when you talk with your friends, among equals, or with juniors. When you talk to seniors, you should use a more ‘inquiring’ tone. keyi ma expresses a stronger sense of asking for an opinion and is more suitable for this situation.
5.Discussion
The findings showed that there was evidence of pragmalinguistic development in the learners’ use of internal modifiers over the course of a semester. Despite the overall underuse of internal modifiers, evidence of movement towards the Chinese norm was found in the learners’ increased use of internal modifiers over time. The development was more pronounced in syntactic downgraders than lexical/phrasal downgraders. There were four situations where learners displayed significant development in the means of syntactic downgraders, whereas there was only one situation where learners exhibited significant progression in the use of lexical/phrasal downgraders. This seems to suggest that lexical/phrasal downgraders are more difficult to acquire than syntactic downgraders in Chinese requests. This finding contrasts with Schauer (2009)Schauer, Gila 2009 Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: The Study Abroad Context. London: Continuum.Schauer, Gila 2009 Interlanguage Pragmatic Development: The Study Abroad Context. London: Continuum. and Woodfield (2012)Woodfield, Helen 2012 “ ‘I Think Maybe I Want to Lend the Notes from You’: Development of Request Modification in Graduate Learners.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 9–49. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Woodfield, Helen 2012 “ ‘I Think Maybe I Want to Lend the Notes from You’: Development of Request Modification in Graduate Learners.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 9–49. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. but supports Bella (2012)Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1917–1947. Bella, Spyridoula 2012 “Pragmatic Development in a Foreign Language: A Study of Greek FL Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 441: 1917–1947. , Hill (1997)Hill, Thomas 1997 “The Development of Pragmatic Competence in an EFL Context.” PhD diss. Temple University.Hill, Thomas 1997 “The Development of Pragmatic Competence in an EFL Context.” PhD diss. Temple University., and Trosborg (1995)Trosborg, Anne 1995 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Trosborg, Anne 1995 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. . Trosborg contended that lexical/phrasal downgraders present inherent difficulties for learners, because adding lexical/phrasal downgraders to a bare head act is likely to increase the complexity of the pragmalinguistic structure.
With regard to the frequency of syntactic downgraders, the present findings revealed significant improvement in the learners’ use of the modal auxiliaries keyi ‘may’ and neng ‘can’. Over time there was a significant decrease in the frequency of keyi and a significant increase in the frequency of neng. Development was also found in the learners’ use of hui ‘can’. These findings lend support to Wen’s (2014)Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. cross-sectional study of requests by American CFL learners, in which learners’ use of neng increased and their use of hui decreased with increasing proficiency.
The present study also indicated that learners overused tag questions, which merits discussion. Previous studies (Li 2018Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ; Zhang 1995Zhang, Yanyin 1995 “Strategies in Chinese Requesting.” In Pragmatics of Chinese as a Native and Target Language, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, 23–68. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.Zhang, Yanyin 1995 “Strategies in Chinese Requesting.” In Pragmatics of Chinese as a Native and Target Language, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, 23–68. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.) found that Chinese speakers demonstrated a preference for tags. However, in this study, in six of the eight situations learners at posttest either used tags more frequently than MCs or used them in the situations where tags were absent in the native data. Learners’ overuse of tags cannot be explained by L1 interference. Hassall (2012)Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. and Li (2018)Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. observed that tags are not a favoured strategy to make requests in Australian English. One possible reason for the overuse could be related to formal instruction. Tag questions appeared in two of the lessons that the learners learned when the data were collected. They were discussed twice in class in different weeks. Since tags come at the end of a sentence and are syntactically uncomplicated, students might find them easy to acquire. The overuse might be due to the learners’ desire to show off this new competence. Moreover, research has shown that L2 learners tend to overgeneralise the use of the forms which are easily produced (Barron 2003Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ; Kasper 1982Kasper, Gabriele 1982 “Teaching-Induced Aspects of Interlanguage Discourse.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 4 (2): 99–113. Kasper, Gabriele 1982 “Teaching-Induced Aspects of Interlanguage Discourse.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 4 (2): 99–113. ). Informal interviews with an instructor and students revealed that while different forms of tag questions including keyi ma? xing ma? xing bu xing? hao ma? and hao bu hao? were introduced in class, no explicit explanation was given of the context in which tags are used, although the examples provided by the instructor included both student-student and student-teacher conversations. Therefore, being unaware of the sociopragmatic norms, learners overgeneralised the use of tags and applied them to all situations.
The above discussion on tags also points to the importance of explicit instruction in comparison to implicit instruction. Although a more detailed analysis would be interesting, it is beyond the scope of the present study.
With regard to lexical/phrasal downgraders, some evidence of progression was observed in the reduction in the use of qing ‘please’ and the increase in the use of the honorific pronoun nin and understaters, although the development was less apparent. The finding regarding the developmental decrease in the use of please was consistent with Wen (2014)Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. and studies of learners of other languages (e.g. Barron 2003Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ; Félix-Brasdefer 2007Félix-Brasdefer, J. César 2007 “Pragmatic Development in the Spanish as a FL Classroom: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Intercultural Pragmatics 4 (2): 253–286. Félix-Brasdefer, J. César 2007 “Pragmatic Development in the Spanish as a FL Classroom: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Intercultural Pragmatics 4 (2): 253–286. ). Moreover, while the finding regarding nin was compatible with Wen (2014)Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. , the finding regarding understaters contrasted with her study. Wen observed no evidence of development in the use of understaters by her American CFL learners, which she attributed to a lack of transparency in the form-meaning/function connection of this modifier. However, Ren (2019)Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 146: 137–149. Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 1461: 137–149. noted a clear developmental pattern towards the NS norm in the use of understaters by the learners in his study. In contrast to the above studies, Li’s (2014)Li, Shuai 2014 “The Effects of Different Levels of Linguistic Proficiency on the Development of L2 Chinese Request Production during Study Abroad.” System 45: 103–116. Li, Shuai 2014 “The Effects of Different Levels of Linguistic Proficiency on the Development of L2 Chinese Request Production during Study Abroad.” System 451: 103–116. research showed that learners used the understater yixia and the honorific pronoun nin to an almost negligible extent. They underused internal modifiers throughout the study abroad period; no notable change was observed over time. Given the inconclusive findings, it is apparent that more such research needs to be conducted.
Despite their pragmalinguistic development in some aspects, the present study revealed that learners’ overall use of internal modifiers, particularly lexical/phrasal downgraders, lagged far behind that of NSs. The average number of the two types of downgraders used by learners at both pretest and posttest was significantly lower than that of MCs, p < .001, which means that their repertoire of internal modifiers was significantly smaller than that of NSs. This study indicated that MCs showed an overwhelming preference for multiple PMs such as mafan ‘to trouble’, bang ‘to help’ and qingwen ‘please ask’, apart from qing ‘please’ and the honorific pronoun nin. For example, neng mafan nin bang wo xie yi feng ma? ‘Can I trouble you to do me the favour of writing a reference letter?’ Politeness expressions accounted for approximately 60% of all MCs’ lexical/phrasal downgraders. Lee-Wong (1994)Lee-Wong, Song Mei 1994 “Imperatives in Requests: Direct or Impolite – Observations from Chinese.” Pragmatics 4 (4): 491–515.Lee-Wong, Song Mei 1994 “Imperatives in Requests: Direct or Impolite – Observations from Chinese.” Pragmatics 4 (4): 491–515. claimed that PMs are the predominant internal modifier in Chinese requests. However, the present data showed that learners mainly relied on qing despite the reduction in its use over time, e.g. wo xiang qing ni xie yi ge ‘I want to ask you to write one’. Qing is the least preferred PM by MCs. L2 learners’ overuse of please has been discussed in previous studies (Faerch and Kasper 1989Faerch, Claus, and Gabriele Kasper 1989 “Internal and External Modification in Interlanguage Request Realization.” In Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies, ed. by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper, 221–247. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Faerch, Claus, and Gabriele Kasper 1989 “Internal and External Modification in Interlanguage Request Realization.” In Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies, ed. by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper, 221–247. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.; Göy et al. 2012Göy, Elif, Deniz Zeyrek, and Bahar Otcu 2012 “Developmental Patterns in Internal Modification of Requests: A Quantitative Study on Turkish Learners of English.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 51–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Göy, Elif, Deniz Zeyrek, and Bahar Otcu 2012 “Developmental Patterns in Internal Modification of Requests: A Quantitative Study on Turkish Learners of English.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 51–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). One possible reason for the overuse relates to its explicitness: a highly transparent marker of politeness and an illocutionary force indicator clearly signalling the requestive force of the locution (Faerch and Kasper 1989Faerch, Claus, and Gabriele Kasper 1989 “Internal and External Modification in Interlanguage Request Realization.” In Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies, ed. by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper, 221–247. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Faerch, Claus, and Gabriele Kasper 1989 “Internal and External Modification in Interlanguage Request Realization.” In Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies, ed. by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriele Kasper, 221–247. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.). Another possible reason could be the influence of formal instruction. Qing was introduced as early as in Lesson 2, Volume 1 of the textbook (Wu 2015Wu, Zhongwei 2015 Contemporary Chinese. Beijing: Sinolingua.Wu, Zhongwei 2015 Contemporary Chinese. Beijing: Sinolingua.) used by the present CFL learners. According to an interview with the tutors, while students were taught that qing is used to express politeness in Chinese, the context in which qing is used was never discussed in class. This might lead the students to conclude that qing was a safe word to use on any occasions. Moreover, learners’ overuse of qing may have something to do with L1 transfer. Both qing and its English equivalent please are pragmatic routines and also syntactically easy to use, so students can readily draw on their L1 pragmatic knowledge when making L2 Chinese requests. In contrast, the other PMs preferred by NSs such as mafan and bang are not commonly used as PMs in English, so learners cannot modify their requests by simply resorting to their L1 pragmatic knowledge. The difficulties experienced by the present learners in the acquisition of Chinese PMs were also observed by Wen (2014)Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. Wen, Xiaohong 2014 “Pragmatic Development: An Exploratory Study of Requests by Learners of Chinese.” In Studies in Second Language Acquisition of Chinese, ed. by Zhaohong Han, 30–56. Bristol: Multilingual. and Ren (2019)Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 146: 137–149. Ren, Wei 2019 “Pragmatic Development of Chinese during Study Abroad: A Cross-Sectional Study of Learner Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 1461: 137–149. .
With regard to sociopragmatic development, only slight evidence was recorded in this study. MCs were sensitive to the addressee’s social status and the size of imposition of their request, and chose a significantly larger number of internal modifiers in +P and +R situations than =P and −R situations. They also used mitigators such as the honorific pronoun nin and PMs qing, mafan, and bang significantly more frequently in the former situations. However, learners showed little sensitivity to social status and rank of imposition. Significant sociopragmatic development was only observed in the overall means of internal modifiers. Development in the other areas was negligible. Despite the higher frequency of qing and tag questions in the learner data than in the native data, learners made little differentiation between different situations in the use of these mitigators. Therefore, the present findings suggest that learners’ pragmalinguistic development precedes sociopragmatic development, lending support to Barron (2003)Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , Göy et al. (2012)Göy, Elif, Deniz Zeyrek, and Bahar Otcu 2012 “Developmental Patterns in Internal Modification of Requests: A Quantitative Study on Turkish Learners of English.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 51–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Göy, Elif, Deniz Zeyrek, and Bahar Otcu 2012 “Developmental Patterns in Internal Modification of Requests: A Quantitative Study on Turkish Learners of English.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 51–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , and Li (2018)Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. .
The challenges that Australian learners faced in acquiring Chinese internal modifiers may have several causes. Firstly, as discussed in Li (2018)Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , common Chinese downgraders such as reduplication of verbs (understater), particles (downtoner), and the honorific pronoun have no formal equivalents in English. PMs such as mafan and tag questions do have formal equivalents in English; however, they are not conventionally used with a downgrading function in English requests. Hence learners had little experience of using these mitigators to express politeness in their L1. Secondly, common English downgraders such as past tense, continuous aspect, and the subjectivizer I was wondering have no formal or functional equivalents in Chinese. Thus, learners cannot rely on their existing L1 pragmatic knowledge when making requests in L2 Chinese. Furthermore, as Trosborg (1995)Trosborg, Anne 1995 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Trosborg, Anne 1995 Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. and Hassall (2012)Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. observed, it may be inherently difficult for L2 learners to add internal modifiers because adding internal modifiers to a bare head act may increase the complexity of pragmalinguistic structure and require extra processing efforts. Lastly, pragmatic components have seldom been included in the syllabi and textbooks for teaching L2 Chinese. All of these might contribute to the difficulties that L2 Chinese learners have in acquiring internal modifiers.
The above discussion suggests that acquiring new pragmatic knowledge may not be as simple as Bialystok (1993)Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. assumed. In a discussion of the development of L2 pragmatic competence, Bialystok claimed that adult L2 learners have two tasks to complete: acquiring knowledge and acquiring control over attention to this knowledge. She argued that the main task for adult L2 learners is to develop control over the selection of pragmatic knowledge. Although L2 learners need to continue acquiring new pragmatic knowledge, it is a relatively minor task. However, this study indicates that the acquisition of internal modifiers in Chinese requests is not a minor task. As described above, learners used significantly fewer internal modifiers than MCs. The lack of use of internal modifiers often made the almost “bare” head act of their request look direct, impolite and strikingly non-nativelike. Moreover, they seldom used MCs’ most favoured modifiers such as mafan and bang. Also, they overgeneralized the use of qing and tag questions, irrespective of the situations. Therefore, in line with Barron (2003)Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Barron, Anne 2003 Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics: Learning How to Do Things with Words in a Study Abroad Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , Hassall (2012)Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hassall, Tim 2012 “Request Modification by Australian Learners of Indonesian.” In Interlanguage Request Modification, ed. by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, and Helen Woodfield, 203–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , and Li (2018)Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Li, Wei 2018 Pragmatic Transfer and Development: Evidence from EFL Learners in China. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , the present study only lends partial support to Bialystok’s (1993)Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. model. The development of control over the selection of pragmatic knowledge is not the only important task for L2 learners; the acquisition of new pragmatic knowledge is also a major task.
6.Conclusion
This study investigates the pragmatic development of Australian CFL learners in using internal modifiers of requests over time. The findings revealed some notable pragmalinguistic development; however, only slight sociopragmatic development was observed, thus pointing to the precedence of pragmalinguistic over sociopragmatic development. The study confirmed the previous finding that L2 learners tended to underuse internal modifiers and pointed out that acquiring internal modifiers is not a simple task as Bialystok (1993)Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. Bialystok, Ellen 1993 “Symbolic Representation and Attentional Control in Pragmatic Competence.” In Interlanguage Pragmatics, ed. by Gabriele Kasper, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 43–59. New York: Oxford University Press. claimed.
This longitudinal study focused on Australian learners of Chinese, a group of learners that have been under-explored, and thus adds to the small body of research on pragmatic development in L2 Chinese. It sheds additional light on research in interlanguage pragmatics in general. Moreover, this study also has pedagogical implications. It explained the possible causes for the problems that Australian CFL learners had in acquiring internal modifiers, which will help language teachers guide their students towards more native-like pragmatic behaviour. The study highlighted the importance of the inclusion of pragmatic components in the curriculum of teaching Chinese as a foreign language.
This study has pointed out several areas for future research. Firstly, the present data were elicited through a DCT. Despite its incomparable advantages, the DCT data are only representative of what the speakers think they would say. Future studies could use an ethnographic research method to collect more authentic data. Secondly, the present study examined learners’ pragmatic development over only one semester. A longer period of observation might provide more comprehensive data regarding L2 developmental patterns. Thirdly, the present data suggests that explicit instruction plays an important role in learners’ L2 pragmatic development. Future studies could investigate how explicit instruction of L2 pragmatics can be effectively incorporated into foreign language teaching.