Pragmatic transfer in Turkish EFL learners’ compliments and compliment responses from L1 Turkish to L2 English

Abstract

The present study aimed to figure out whether Turkish EFL learners transfer their L1 Turkish pragmatic norms to their L2 English compliments and compliment responses. Six senior ELT students took part in the study, carried out at a state university in Turkey. An open role play adapted from Tran (2006) in English and in its Turkish version were used to elicit the compliment and compliment response data in the given languages. The data analysis was carried out according to two different coding schemas. The compliment strategy framework, used to analyze compliment strategies, consisted of two macro levels as direct compliments and indirect compliments and sub-categories. The second framework that was used to analyze responses to compliments yielded three main categories as Accept compliments, Reject compliments, Deflect/ Evade compliments and their sub-categories. The results of the study implied that there was a sign of negative pragmatic transfer from L1 Turkish to L2 English in Accompanied by Explanations compliment strategy at the level of direct compliments and the results also suggested that Turkish EFL learners transferred the use of Deflect/ Evade compliment response strategy especially in the sub-category of Explanation from their L1 to their L2 English.

Keywords

• speech act
• ompliment strategy
• compliment responses; pragmatic transfer

References

1. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon
2. Billmyer, K. (1990). ‘‘I really like your lifestyle’’: ESL learners learning how to compliment. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 6, 31–48.
3. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. New York: Cambridge University.
4. Cheng, D.(2011). New insights on compliment responses: A comparison between native English speakers and Chinese L2 speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 2204-2214. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.02.003
5. Gass, S., Behney, J., & Plonsky, L. (2013). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. New York: Routledge.
6. Golato, A. (2002). German compliment responses. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(5), 547-571.
7. Han, C. (1992.) A comparative study of compliment responses: Korean females in Korean interactions and in English interactions. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 8, 17 31.
8. Herbert, R. (1989). The ethnography of English compliments and compliment responses: A contrastive sketch. W. Oleksy (Ed.), Contrastive pragmatics, 3-35, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

9. Holmes, J. (1988). Paying compliments: a sex-preferential politeness strategy. Journal of Pragmatics 12, 445-465.
10. Istifci, I. (2017). Comparison of Chinese and Turkish EFL learners on the use of Compliment Responses. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 13(2), 14-29.
11. Kasper, G. (1992). Pragmatic transfer. Second Language Research, 8 (3). 203-231.
12. Kasper, G. (1999). Data collection in pragmatics research. University of Hawai'i Working Papers in English as a Second Language 18 (1).
13. Kasper, G., & Dahl, M. (1991). Research methods in interlanguage pragmatics. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13, 215–247.
14. Lorenzo-Dus, N. (2001). Compliment responses among British and Spanish university students: A contrastive study. Journal of Pragmatics, 33 (1), 107-127. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378 2166(99)00127-7
15. Lin, C.Y., Woodfield, H., & Ren, W. (2012). Compliments in Taiwan and Mainland Chinese: The influence of region and compliment topic. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1486-1502. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.06.012
16. Miles, M. B. & Huberman A.M. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis : An Expanded Sourcebook. (2nd Edition). Calif. : Sage Publications.
17. Pomerantz, A. (1978). Compliment responses. Notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints. In: Schenkein, J. (Ed.), Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction. Academic Press, New York, San Francisco, London, pp. 79–112.
18. Ruhi, Ş. (2006). Politeness in compliment responses: A perspective from naturally occurring exchanges in Turkish. Pragmatics, 16(1). 43-101. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.16.1.03ruh
19. Saito, H., & Beecken, M. (1997). An approach to instruction of pragmatic aspects: implications of pragmatic transfer by American learners of Japanese. Modern Language Journal, 81(3), 363–377. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1997.tb05497.x
20. Şakırgil, C., & Çubukçu, H. (2013). Formulas and topics in Turkish and English compliments. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 70, 1126 – 1135. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.168
21. Tran, G. Q. (2006). The naturalized role-play: An innovative methodology in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics research. Reflections on English Language Teaching, 5(2), 1 24.
22. Thomas, Jenny, 1983. Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied Linguistics, 4, 91–112.
23. Tüzün, D. (2003). Compliment responses in English and Turkish with implications for language learning (Unpublished Master's thesis). Uludağ Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Ensititüsü, İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Anabilim Dalı, Bursa.
24. Varol, B. (2015). Transfer effects in compliment responses of efl learners. International Journal of Arts & Science, 08(06), 513-522.
25. Yu, M. (2005). Sociolinguistic competence in the complimenting act of native Chinese and American English speakers: A mirror of cultural value. Language and Speech, 48(1), 91 119. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309050480010501
26. Yuan, Y. (2002). Compliments and compliment responses in Kunming Chinese. Pragmatics, 12 (2), 183-226. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.12.2.04yua