S UMMARY

The study was mainly an attempt to investigate the effect of contextual factors on EFL learners’ choice of disagreement strategies from cross-cultural perspective and to examine the learners’ transfer of disagreement strategies and linguistic features. However, abundant cultural differences in perception of disagreement and choices of disagreement strategies among the two groups of Chinese and English native speakers have provided rich evidence and explanations interpreting learners’ language performance through comparison of social values evidenced by the perception data: SRQ and opt-out reasons.

Overall results from the SRQ, opt-out reasons, and DCT showed that the Chinese native speakers were highly aware of face concept, which contributed to their higher frequency of ‘no disagreement’ while the English native speakers used more ‘direct disagreement’ adjoined by positive remarks. In the SRQ data, the Chinese speakers perceived the act of disagreement much more face-threatening than the English speakers did, even so in terms of every contextual factor, such as disagreeing in public or in private, with interlocutors of different social distance, social status, speaker gender, and interlocutor gender, and on different topics.

The speakers’ choice of opt-out reasons also supported high value of face in Chinese society.

While the Chinese were concerned more about the interlocutor’s and their own face, social harmony and interpersonal relationships, the English native speakers were more concerned about condition of the context for disagreement. The DCT data, therefore, showed that the Chinese speakers were more constrained by using more ‘avoidance’ while the English speakers were more verbally expressive by using more ‘contradiction’ adjoined by various and original positive remarks. The difference could be decoded as their being in divergent

societies, one in collectivist society emphasizing ‘we’ concept and the other in individualist society emphasizing ‘I’ concept.

There seemed to be influence of native language from Chinese on EFL learners’ choice of disagreement strategies in that the EFL- high realized disagreement strategies, yet not target-likely, closer to the English L1 group while the EFL- low performed closer to the Chinese L1 group. In more details, the EFL- low speakers showed strong pragmatic transfer in several disagreement strategies, such as ‘avoidance’ and ‘contradiction’. On the other hand, the EFL-high speakers attempted to display their foreign language proficiency through unusually overperforming certain strategies, such as ‘challenge to the interlocutor’.

A further investigation into the effect of various contextual factors on language performance revealed intra- group and inter- group differences. The data demonstrated similar tendency in perception and frequency of disagreement strategies for the four groups of speakers when disagreeing with different interlocutors. With regard to social distance, both SRQ and opt-out reasons suggested the speakers’ higher face concern and solidarity need for the close friend and the acquaintance, the concern of the unknown potential for aggression with the stranger, however in the DCT, seemed to have outweighed the need for maintenance of relationships and the speakers tended to disagree the least directly with the stranger. On the other hand, the four groups of speakers demonstrated high consciousness of status difference, especially when disagreeing with the higher status, although there was no as much difference in face concern of the three interlocutors.

When it comes to inter-group difference, the results showed that the more distant the interlocutor was, the bigger group difference in language performance was. Therefore, the Chinese L1 group and English L1 group mostly differed in disagreement with the stranger and the lower status. The results could be attributed to cultural difference in distinction of

‘in-group’ and ‘out-‘in-group’. The Chinese L1 held clearer division of familiars and unfamiliars.

Therefore, they disagreed with the stranger much less often than the English speakers did.

In addition to social distance and social status, formality of context could be another influential factor governing the speakers’ language performance. The close friend was the person the speakers were most significantly conscious of context difference to disagree with.

All the four groups were the least willing to disagree with the close friend in public and the most eager to disagree with them in private. The need for maintenance of relationship seemed to be more critical when a public context was involved while there was less face concern in contradicting them in private. On the other hand, the significant gap of face concern between public context and private context was not fully reflected in disagreement strategies for the lower status as well. There was no much difference in using disagreement strategies in public and in private by the speakers to the lower status while they disagreed much more directly in private than in public with the higher status and the equal status.

As for interlanguage, the two EFL groups’ frequency of disagreement strategies lay between the Chinese group’s and the English group’s when disagreeing with most of the interlocutors. The two EFL groups also increased their use of positive remarks when disagreeing in English. However, the EFL-high deviated from the other three groups in overusing the strategy ‘challenge to the interlocutor’ with the close friend. These unusual behaviors might be aimed at demonstrating their English proficiency, and the close friend is the safest person to challenge, as Schiffrin suggested: “the interactants’ relationship is close enough to withstand what would be considered by outsiders to be verbal assaults.” (Schiffrin, 1984: 331). The EFL-low experienced strong transfer from Chinese in several strategies.

Data on linguistic features also exhibited transfer of the two EFL groups in using such contrast marker ‘but’ and in distinguishing strong form of negation from its weak form.

Gender difference was another factor that exerted influence in language choice.

Although there was no much difference in performance of male speakers and female speakers, both male and female speakers of the four groups were disagreeing more directly with the female interlocutor than with the male interlocutor. The tendency might provide another evidence of the power inequality and dominance between two sexes.