NEGATIVE PRAGMATIC TRANSFER: THE CASE OF ADVICE
NEGATIVE PRAGMATIC TRANSFER: THE CASE OFADVICE

Author(s): Viorica Cebotaroş
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Biblioteca Ştiinţifică a Universităţii de Stat Alecu Russo
Keywords: advice-giving; cultural norms; pragmatic competence; pragmatic transfer; negative pragmatic transfer;
Summary/Abstract: Negative pragmatic transfer is often regarded as one of the causes of intercultural misunderstanding. The present study aims to investigate cases of negative pragmatic transfer in advice-giving. Thirty EFL students whose mother tongue was Romanian completed a Discourse Completion Test containing six situations which required advice-giving. The results showed that EFL learners tend to transfer the cultural norms of speaking from their mother tongue into English. Since this is highly likely to lead to breakdowns in communication, more attention should be paid to developing EFL learners’ pragmatic competence.

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