'No...because': A study of pragmatic transfer in refusals among Puerto Rican teenagers speaking English.

摘要

This study was constructed to investigate the kind of transfer exhibited in the speech act of refusing in English among Puerto Rican teenagers. The research examined refusals among native speakers of Spanish, beginning and advanced nonnative speakers of English, and native speakers of American English. The Spanish and English data produced in identical situations were compared and contrasted in terms of the content/tone, order and frequency of semantic formulas in an effort to understand better the forms and patterns that are transferred from Spanish to English.; Data were collected from 80 male subjects, 4 groups of 20 each: 20 Native Puerto Rican speakers of Spanish; 20 Puerto Rican Speakers of English, low proficiency; 20 Puerto Rican speakers of English, high proficiency; 20 native speakers of American English. The data collection instrument was a written discourse completion questionnaire designed to elicit refusals from subjects in situations of requests, invitations and offers. Additionally, within the six situations subjects responded to interlocutors of equal and higher status.; First, a comparison of the semantic formulas used by native speaker of Puerto Rican Spanish was made with native speakers of American English. Second, evidence of pragmatic transfer was sought in the responses of nonnative Puerto Rican speakers of English. Finally, whether pragmatic transfer was more evident among beginning speakers of English than among advanced speakers of English was examined.; The results of the research provide evidence that pragmatic transfer occurred, and it was more evident among beginning speakers of English than advanced speakers of English. Moreover, Spanish speakers tended to be more direct than native speakers of English and carried this communicative behavior into English.