Refusals in Japanese and Spanish: Pragmatic Transfer in L2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/ala.14.2.93-119Keywords:
interlanguage pragmatics, politeness, pragmatic transfer, speech acts, refusalsAbstract
The article presents a heuristic approach to studying the strategies of refusal employed by advanced Japanese learners of Spanish as a foreign language when compared with those of native speakers of Spanish and of Japanese. It examines responses of refusal to requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions while observing the linguistic phenomena of pragmatic transfer used by the speakers. We administered a discourse completion to elicit refusal strategies from participants. The data include 1101 strategies employed in 432 responses formulated by 54 participants comprising advanced Japanese learners of Spanish, native speakers of Spanish, and native speakers of Japanese We found that linguistic ability among Japanese learners correlated positively with pragmatic transfer. The findings demonstrate how cultural priming and the degree of freedom with which learners prompt their responses are interrelated within their mental pragmatic interface in given situations.
Downloads
References
Abed, A. (2011). Pragmatic Transfer in Iraqi EFL Learners’ Refusals. International Journal of English Linguistics, 1(2), 166–185. DOI: 10.5539/ijel.v1n2p166
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1999). Exploring the Interlanguage of Interlanguage Pragmatics: A Research Agenda for Acquisitional Pragmatics. Language Learning, 49, 677–713. DOI: 10.1111/0023-8333.00108
Beebe, L. M., Takahashi T., & Uliss-Wltz, R. (1990). Pragmatic Transfer in ESL Refusals. In R. C. Scarcella, E. S. Andersen & S. D. Krashen (Eds.), Developing Communicative Competence in a Second Language (pp. 55–73). New York: Newbury House Publishers.
Blum-Kulka, S. (1982). Learning to Say What You Mean in a Second Language: A Study of the Speech Act Performance in Learners of Hebrew as a Second Language. Applied Linguistics, 3(1), 29–59. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/III.1.29
Bravo, D. (2005). Categorías, Tipologías y Aplicaciones. Hacia Una Redefinición de la Cortesía Comunicativa. In D. Bravo (Ed.), Estudios de la (Des)Cortesía en Español. Categorías Conceptuales y Aplicaciones a Corpora Orales y Escritos (pp. 21–52). Buenos Aires: Dunken.
Briz, A. (2007). Para un Análisis Semántico, Pragmático y Sociopragmático de la Cortesía Atenuadora en España y América. Lingüística Española Actual, 29(1), 5–40.
Council of Europe. (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
Crystal, D. (Ed.). (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Escandell et al. (2020). Pragmática. Madrid: Akal.
Faerch, C., & Kasper, G. (1989). Internal and External Modification in Interlanguage Request Realization. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-Cultural Pragmatics (pp. 221–247). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Félix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2004). Interlanguage Refusals: Linguistic Politeness and Length of Residence in the Target Community. Language Learning, 54(4), 587–653. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9922.2004.00279.x
Félix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2008). Perceptions of Refusals to Invitations: Exploring the Minds of Foreign Language Learners. Language Awareness, 17(3), 195–211. DOI: 10.1080/09658410802145859
García, O., & Kano, N. (2014). Translanguaging as Process and Pedagogy: Developing the English Writing of Japanese Students in the US. In J. Conteh & G. Meier (Eds.), The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Benefits for Individuals and Societies (pp. 258–277). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Hasegawa, Y. (2014). Japanese: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haristiani, N., Christinawati, D., & Sudjianto, S. (2023). Pragmatic Transfer in Intermediate Japanese Learners' Apology Speech Act. Journal of Japanese Language Education and Linguistics, 7(1), 63-87. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18196/jjlel.v7i1.15260
House, J., & Kasper, G. (1987). Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requesting in a Foreign Language. In W. Lörscher & R. Schulze (Eds.), Perspectives on Language in Performance: Festschrift for Werner Hüllen (pp. 1250–1288). Tübingen: Narr.
Ishihara, N., & Cohen, A. D. (2014). Teaching and Learning Pragmatics: Where Language and Culture Meet. Abingdon: Routledge.
Jiang, L. (2015). An Empirical Study on Pragmatic Transfer in Refusal Speech Act Produced by Chinese High School EFL Learners. English Language Teaching, 8(7), 95–113. DOI: 10.5539/elt.v8n7p95
Kasper, G. (1992). Pragmatic Transfer. Second Language Research, 8(3), 203–231. DOI: 10.1177/026765839200800301
Kasper, G., & Blum-Kulka, S. (1993). Interlanguage Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kwon, J. (2014). The Role of Proficiency in Pragmatic Transfer: A Study of Refusals by Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced Korean EFL Learners. Asian EFL Journal, 16(4), 6–56.
MacSwan, J. (2017). A Multilingual Perspective on Translanguaging. American Educational Research Journal, 54, 167–201. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216683935
Maeshiba, N., Yoshinaga, N., Kasper G., & Ross, S. (1996). Transfer and Proficiency in Interlanguage Apologizing. In S. Gass & J. Neu (Eds.), Speech Acts Across Cultures: Challenges to Communication in a Second Language (pp. 155–187). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Morkus, N. (2021). Negative Pragmatic Transfer and Language Proficiency: American Learners of Arabic. The Language Learning Journal, 49(1), 41–65. DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2021.1890671
Okazaki, S. (1993). Stating Opinions in Japanese: Listener-Dependent Strategies. In E. Alatis (Ed.), Strategic Interaction and Japanese Acquisition (pp. 69–95). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Osuka, N. (2021). The effect of study-abroad on pragmatic transfer. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 44(1), 3–20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/CJAL-2021-0001
Olshtain, E., & Cohen, A. (1989). Speech Act Behavior Across Languages. In H. W. Dechert & M. Raupach (Eds.), Transfer in Production (pp. 53–67). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Pedrosa García, I. (2020). Estrategias de Uso del Rechazo a Invitaciones por Hablantes Nativos Españoles y Japoneses. Cuadernos CANELA, 31, 5–18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2107/canela.31.0_5
Robinson, M. A. (1992). Introspective Methodology in Interlanguage Pragmatics Research. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Japanese as Native and Target Language (pp. 27–82). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center.
Rose, K. R., & Kasper, G. (2001). Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Salazar Campillo, P., Safont, M. P., & Codina, V. (2009). Refusal Strategies: A Proposal From a Sociopragmatic Approach. Revista Electrónica de Lingüística Aplicada, 8, 139–150.
Selinker, L. (1992). Rediscovering Interlanguage. London: Longman.
Takahashi, S. (1996). Pragmatic Transferability. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18(2), 189–223. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100014881
Takahashi, T., & Beebe, L. M. (1987). The Development of Pragmatic Competence by Japanese Learners of English. Japan Association for Language Teaching Journal, 8(2), 131–155. DOI: 10.1017/S0272263100014708
Takahashi, S., & DuFon, P. (1989). Cross-Linguistic Influence in Indirectness: The Case of English Directives Performed by Native Japanese Speakers. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i at Manoa.
The Jamovi Project. (2024). Jamovi (Version 2.5) [Computer software]. Retrieved from https://www.jamovi.org
Thomas, J. (1983). Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure. Applied Linguistics, 4, 91–112. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/4.2.91
Wannaruk, A. (2008). Pragmatic Transfer in Thai EFL Refusals. Regional Language Center Journal, 39(3), 318–337.
Wolfson, N. (1989). Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. New York: Newbury House.
Yamagashira, H. (2001). Pragmatic Transfer in Japanese ESL Refusals. Kagoshima Junshin Joshi Tanki Daigaku Kenkyū Kiyō Dai 31 Gō.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Pedrosa García, Ignacio
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
