A Cross-Culture Study of Giving Condolences by EFL Learners of Taiwan

• Main Authors: Chen, Pei-Yu, 陳姵豫
• Other Authors: 鍾榮富
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 104
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/34grym

碩士 === 南臺科技大學 === 應用英語系 === 103 === This study aims to compare the different performances of giving condolences by English as foreign language learners (EFL) of Taiwan and the native speakers of English. Furthermore, in this dissertation, it investigates and classifies the interlanguage manners of condoling by EFL learners of Taiwan. Learning foreign languages is not just focus on vocabularies and grammar, more than that is the culture background. Pragmatic competence is a momentous role of the communicative ability. According to Yule (1996), it would be a great social accomplishment to say the right thing to the right person at the right time. Also, Wolfson(1989) claimed that a grammatical or pronunciation error may be easily forgiven by the native speaker, but not a pragmatic. Specifically, there are considerably different cultures among the East and the West. Especially, the taboo of death is so individual in Taiwanese culture. It is interesting to discuss that when EFL students of Taiwan in the situation of condoling, whether they can use their pragmatic awareness and personal pragmatic competence appropriately to condole with others. Since 1980s, the issue of interlanguage pragmatics has attracted attention from being given by researchers. Unfortunately, due to there has been far less research on the topic of giving proper condolences, this study aims to investigate a comparative analysis of giving condolences across native speakers of English and EFL Learners of Taiwan. In the current study, it contains the questionnaires and informal interviews. The participants were all from the same program and the national university in Tainan. And the data were collected through open-ended questionnaire of Discourse Completion Task (DCT). It aims to find out the similarities and differences between native speakers and non-native speakers of English. The results revealed the differences between speakers from different languages and cultures. It showed EFL learners of Taiwan hardly express their emotion on condoling and they consequently use formulaic way to condole; even they are in advanced level in English. For this reason, the findings of patterns in condoling from this current study have contributed to a better understanding of the use of appropriate linguistic forms for EFL students to improve their pragmatic competence in English. In addition, the research data could provide teachers to keep a watchful eye on the ignorance of pragmatic issue in condoling and turn to concern more.