Pragmatics in Chinese Graduate Students’ English Gratitude Emails

Abstract

This paper aims to codify pragmatic features of China English in email discourse by investigating gratitude emails produced by competent Chinese English users across two different proficiency levels. A total of 78 Chinese graduate students of non-English majors took part in this study, and they were divided into two groups according to their English exams. The participants were required to write a thank-you email to a professor in a hypothetical situation. Findings include that the more advanced group wrote significantly longer emails to express their gratitude to a professor than did the less advanced group. However, no significant difference was found in terms of the frequency of overall pragmatic strategies and that of individual pragmatic strategies. The two groups of participants displayed the same tendency with respect to the types of greetings in emails to professors, although more deviant usages were found in the less advanced group’s emails. Both groups showed a strong preference for ending their emails to a professor with rather formal use. The implications of the present study are discussed with respect to varieties in local Englishes in the Expanding Circle countries, and the legitimacy of L1 pragmatics and culture in local Englishes in the Expanding Circle.