Agreement strategies among Malaysian Chinese speakers of English

摘要

This research aims to discover the agreement strategies adopted by Malaysian Chinese speakers of Englishudin an academic discussion. Using Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Principle and Speech Acts asudframeworks, it seeks to find out the reasons governing their choice of agreement strategies. Studentuddiscussions were recorded, transcribed and analysed. Review sessions were also carried out to gain insightudinto the speakers’ choice of strategies. Analysis of the data revealed five agreement strategies employed byudthe students during a discussion. During the discussions, the students expressed the speech act of agreement,udwhich support the hearer’s positive face, by directly agreeing with the previous speaker, building upon theudprevious speaker’s turn, completing and repeating part of the previous speaker’s utterance and givingudpositive feedback. Of all the strategies, the most often employed and is sustained throughout the discussionsudis positive feedback. This is followed by building upon utterances, completion of the previous speaker’sudutterance and direct agreement. Apart from the Chinese cultural values which may influence the group’sudagreement strategies, the findings also reveal that gender has an influence in the participants’ choice ofudagreement strategies since four out of the five strategies are mainly employed by the female participants. Inudsum, Malaysian Chinese speakers of English have their own communicative style when expressingudagreement acts which is influenced by their cultural values and gender.