Cross-cultural and Acquisitional Aspects of Interlanguage Pragmatics

Abstract

This study aims to examine the characteristics and the source of Korean English L2 learners’interlangauge pragmatics focusing on request. Based upon nine request strategy types that reflected various contexts according to the social distance and dominance, 48 advanced level of Korean English L2 learners and 14native speakers of English were required to answer 18 English elicitation items in Discourse Completion Test (DCT, Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984). Subsequently, Korean English L2 learners performed Korean DCT. The findings presented that Korean English L2 learners were not hindered by their L2 grammatical competence and produced as many sentences as native English speakers did. However, there were some aspects that they showed conspicuous differences from their counter group. By and large, the Korean group overused direct and explicit request strategies regardless of the formality of the context and preferred suggestion formulas which native speakers of English did not really put to use. In addition, it was noteworthy that these differences were based upon their L1 pragmatics. Therefore, the present study asserts that L1 pragmatics transferability can be a critical factor in the development and acquisition of interlangauge pragmatics.