大学生英语语用能力与其英语水平之关系研究

A Study on the Relationship between University EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Competence and Their English Proficiency

本文通过问卷和访谈调查了兰州理工大学65名非英语专业一年级本科生和57名英语专业三、四年级本科生的英语语用能力,以考察其英语水平对其语用能力的影响。结果表明,不同英语水平学习者之间的语用能力在总体上存在显著性差异,特别在请求和打招呼的言语行为上也存在显著性差异,但在对赞扬语的回应、对邀请的回应、对节日问候的回应、对送礼物的回应、店员向顾客提供帮助、(劝)进餐等言语行为上没有显著性差异。此外,尽管学习者英语水平具有明显差异,但其语用能力的发展有一些共同特征,即对一些常见的言语行为(如对赞扬的回应、对节日问候的回应)掌握比较熟练。但总体来看,学习者英语语用知识匮乏,且有明显的语用迁移倾向。

This article investigated 65 first-year non-English majors and 57 third/fourth-year English majors from Lanzhou University of Technology by employing questionnaire and interview as research instruments to examine the relationship between their English pragmatic competence and English proficiency. It was found that there was a significant difference in their pragmatic competence as a whole between two groups of learners. In addition,there was a significant difference between two groups at the speech acts of'request' and'greeting', while there was no significant difference when some speech acts were concerned such as response to compliments, response to invitation,response to regards on festivals,response to sending gift and shop assistant’s providing customers with help and so on. Furthermore,despite the great difference between two groups in their English proficiency,they shared some similarities in the development of their pragmatic competence,that is,both groups could appropriately perform some speech acts,which they had mastered(i.e.,response to compliments and response to regards on festivals);both groups did not have enough knowledge of English pragmatic norms;and both groups had an apparent tendency to transfer the pragmatic norms of their mother tongue to the target language communication.