Backward Pragmatic Transfer: An Empirical Study on Compliment Responses among Chinese EFL Learners

Abstract

This present study aims at investigating compliment response strategies used by different groups of Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in order to find out the evidence of the existence of backward transfer from foreign language (FL) or second language (L2) English to their first language (L1) Chinese at pragmatic level. The data is collected through a written Discourse Complete Task (DCT) among four levels of EFL learners in a university in China. The data suggests that backward transfer occurs in their L1 Chinese compliment response. Moreover, backward pragmatic transfer is enhanced by EFL learners’ L2 proficiency. The results of this study are compared with those of Qu & Wang (2005) to see the great changes in the past ten years. The results of this study point to the complexity of language transfer and its interaction with L2 proficiency.