Likelihood of Gratitude Expectation

Table 4.7 and figures 4.15-4.18 showed the result of both groups’ responses to the perceptional question, likelihood of gratitude expectation.

Table 4.7 Means and Standard Deviations for NS-C’s & NS-E’s Responses to the Contextual Factors-Likelihood of Gratitude Expectation

*p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

i. Distance

Overall, NS-E group felt that the benefactors would expect their gratitude more than

NS-C NS-E Contextual

factors

Mean SD F/T Mean SD F/T

Social Distance ^{.921 5.563}

Stranger ^{2.5458 1.14529 3.5708** 1.24557}

Acquaintance ^{2.4583 1.11959 3.2000**/* 1.46422}

Intimate ^{2.6000 1.19553 3.5167* 1.22378}

Status ^{2.964 .219}

High ^{2.2167 1.13656 3.2208 1.36804}

Equal ^{2.4583 1.11959 3.2000 1.46422}

Low ^{2.3813 1.11662 3.2646 1.20489}

Imposition ^{14.159 18.820}

High ^{2.8306*** 1.15871 3.9153*** 1.08974}

Low ^{2.0306*** .97773 2.7639*** 1.22779}

Interlocutors ^{.691 4.360}

Male ^{2.4514 1.13136 3.4875*** 1.23908}

Female ^{2.4097 1.15679 3.1917*** 1.33403}

NS-C group did among the interlocutors of different social distances as suggested in figure 4.15. As suggested in the discussion of the overall SRQ pattern, the tendency seemed to contradict the general conception that NS-Cs are more reciprocity-oriented than NS-Es are. NS-E group was significantly more sensitive to relative distance as suggested in table 4.7. Instead of the intimates, both groups felt acquaintances would least likely expect their expressions of gratitude. The result seemed to contradict the phenomenon in Chinese society that the closer relationship between each other, the less expressions of gratitude is expected. Again, the situational difference can explain the result.

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Stranger Acquaintance Intimate Social distance

Means of likert scale response

NS-C NS-E

Figure 4.15 Cultural Group x Social Distance on Likelihood of Gratitude Expectation

ii. Status

Though the statistical result didn’t reach to significant level, figure 4.16 showed that NS-C group was more sensitive to relative power than NS-E group when judging benefactors’ expectation. NS-C group felt interlocutors of equal position were those who are most likely to expect their gratitude, followed by interlocutors of lower position and higher position accordingly. NS-E group on the other hand, felt the one most likely expect their gratitude were interlocutors of lower position, followed by higher position and equal position accordingly.

0

Figure 4.16 Cultural Group x Status on Likelihood of Gratitude Expectation

iii. Imposition

As figure 4.17 showed, both groups generated similar patterns. That is, both group felt benefactors who were given greater imposition would most likely expect their gratitude. Both groups’ perceptions on the two dimensions reached significant level as shown in table 4.7.

Figure 4.17 Cultural Group x Imposition on likelihood of Gratitude Expectation

iv. Interlocutor

As shown in figure 4.18, NS-E group was more sensitive to interlocutors’ gender difference when judging the likelihood of gratitude expectation. Overall, both groups felt that male interlocutors would more likely expect their gratitude than females would. It corresponded to what previously mentioned that both native groups

significantly felt they had caused greater imposition to male interlocutors.

0 1 2 3 4

Male Female

Gender of interlocutor

Means of likert scale response ^NS-C

NS-E

Figure 4.18 Cultural Group x Interlocutor Gender on likelihood of Gratitude Expectation

v. Summary

Overall, when judging the likelihood of gratitude expectation, NS-E group perceived greater degree on this dimension than NS-C group did. Both groups felt that females and acquaintances were those who least likely to expect their gratitude and benefactors who were given greater imposition would most likely expect their gratitude. NS-C group felt interlocutors of equal position were those who most likely expect their gratitude while NS-E group felt interlocutors of equal position were those who least likely expect their gratitude. Corresponding to the results of degree of gratefulness and of imposition, NS-C group was more sensitive to relative status while NS-E was more sensitive to relative social distance.

The statistical results suggested that both groups followed the same overall pattern, say, the greater the degree of imposition, the greater the degree of gratefulness, and the greater likelihood of gratitude expectation. Overall, NS-E group tended to assume that their benefactors would expect their gratitude. When taking the four contextual factors into consideration, it was found that NS-C group was more sensitive to relative power while NS-E group was sensitive to relative social distance.

Though both groups felt they had caused greater imposition to male interlocutors than to females, they didn’t generate the same pattern in terms of degree of gratefulness.

NS-C group felt more grateful to females while NS-E to males. Among the two cultural groups, the results of the three perceptional questions were consistent with the degree of imposition that the scenarios loaded and echoed the overall pattern.

However, it was also found that the contextual factors were not the only concern in deciding the perceptional judgment. Situational difference is influential too.

4.2 The Number of Gratitude Strategies & Length of Utterances

This section aims at presenting the overall performance of strategy use and length of utterance among the four groups in considering the situational differences.

Table 4.8 showed that the average number of strategies used by NS-E was larger than the number used by NS-C (NS-E: NS-C=1.71:1.45) and English majors generated greater amount of strategies than non-English major group did (1.64:1.46).

It was noteworthy that NS-C group was the group that used the least strategies among the four groups. That NS-E group’s perception on the likelihood of benefactor’s expectation of receiving gratitude was significantly higher than NS-C group may explain NS-E group’s greater amount of strategy use. That is, NS-E group tended to generate more expressions to satisfy the benefactor’s expectation. Table 4.8 also suggested EFLs’ pragmatic development. It was found the number of strategy use among the four groups was in the order: NS-E (1.71) > English major (1.64) >

Non-English major (1.46) > NS-C (1.45). In other words, EFLs were in the transitional stage: the more advanced they were, the more native-like they were.

Besides the number of strategies, the average length of utterance of English major group was longer than non English major group’s, as shown in figure 4.19. In

other words, table 4.8 and figure 4.19 indicated that when expressing gratitude, non-English majors had greater limitation in terms of both strategy choices and length of utterances. It was noteworthy that both EFL groups generated shorter and small number of strategies than EL1 group did. It was inconsistent with Blum-Kulka &

Olshtain’s (1986) finding that learners would say more than necessary.

Since Blum-Kulka & Olshtain’s finding was derived from the speech act of request instead of expressions of gratitude, the nature of the speech act may explain the inconsistent result. As Searl’s (1979) taxonomy of illocutionary acts displays, making request is an act of Directives, which refers to the speaker’s intention to get the hearer to do something while thanking is an act of Expressives, which refers to the speaker’s intention to express his or her psychological state. In order not to hurt the hearer’s negative face wants, which refers to the want that the individual claim for not being impeded by others, speakers may try to say more to reduce the degree of directness. In other words, speakers would be more indirect when making request.

However, in expressing gratitude, speakers are supposed to express their gratitude as directly as possible to make sure their psychological state is properly addressed. In other words, speakers don’t need to weigh their utterances for fear of impeding the hearer’s actions when expressing thanking. Accordingly, the nature of the speech acts is supposed to have influence on EFLs’ performance. Faerch and Kasper (1989) found learners would overuse supportive moves to play it safe to increase their confidence.

However, the “playing-it-safe” strategies in thanking seem to be different from strategies in requesting for the fact that a formulaic expression is sufficient to express gratitude. It also should be noted that the content of language instruction is influential.

Expressions of gratitude such as thank you, appreciate, grateful which are sufficient to convey gratefulness are explicitly introduced in textbooks. Hence, learners don’t have to work on the expressions to make sure their intention is addressed as the way

they did in making request.

Table 4.8 Numbers of gratitude strategies used by NS-E, NS-C, English Major, and Non-English Major Groups

Groups Numbers of gratitude strategies NS-C

(N=60) Total number of strategies 2083 2458 1183 1051 Mean number of strategies used

in each response

1.45 1.71 1.64 1.46

Note. Mean number of NS-C & NS-E= Total number of strategies/60x24

Mean number of English major & non-English major= Total number of strategies/30x24 N=number of participants

Figure 4.19 Average Length of Utterances Generated by NS-E, English Major and Non-English Major Groups

In the discussion of the SRQ result, it was found that among the four contextual factors, it was the degree of the situational imposition that consistently influenced both cultural groups’ perceptions. That is, both cultural groups felt they had caused greater imposition to the benefactors in situations of greater imposition hence felt

more grateful, and it was assumed that the benefactor would tend to expect receiving gratitude from the speaker and vice versa. Compared with the number of strategy use, it was found that overall, the four groups all used more strategies in situations of heavier imposition despite the nature of the situation, say situations of being offered beneficial act and situations of asking for a favor. Figure 4.20 displayed the overall tendency among the four groups. Figure 4.21 displayed EFL groups’ length of utterance in comparison with NE-E group’s. It indicated that though there existed proficiency difference among EFL groups, participants would manage their utterances in accordance with the situations. Both figures 4.20 & 4.21 suggested that though proficiency level would limit participants’ strategy use in terms of amount of strategy use and length of utterance, participants of both EFL groups still perceived the necessity to accommodate their performance in accordance with the contexts and the significantly statistical result displayed in Table 4.9 supported the inference.

In terms of the influence of contextual factors on the length of utterances, it was found that besides the significantly lengthier utterances generated in situations carrying heavier imposition, both native groups significantly said more to females than to males as shown in Table 4.9. That both native groups siginificantly said more in situation carrying heavier imposition echoed the SRQ result that both groups’

perceptions on the three perceptional questions were significantly influenced by the degree of imposition that the scenario carried.In orther words, the result is consistent with Eisenstein & Bodman (1986, 1993) that the degree of indebtedness the speaker felt toward the benefactor is influential for the length of utterance. Figures 4.14 &

4.18 indicated that both native groups felt they had caused greater imposition to male interlocutors and accordingly felt that male interlocutors would tend to expect signs of gratitiude than females would. However, Table 4. 9 seemed to suggest that the significantly different perception on interlocutor gender didn’t generate the

correspondent pattern of length of utterances.

As to the consideration of social distance, though not to a significant level, it was found NS-Cs said more to intimates, then to strangers and then to acquaintances while NS-Es said more to strangers, then to intimates and then to acquaintances. In other words, both groups said least to acquaintances. The result happened to be consistent with the pattern generated in Figure 4. 15 regarding the influence of social distance on likelihood of gratitude expectation. With regard to social status, it was found NS-Cs said more to interlocutors of higher status, then to equal status and then to lower status while NS-Es generated the opposite result. The result contradicted to Wolfson’s Bulge theory, which states that the two extremes of social relationship, social status and social distance, yield similar behaviors while the center-toward relationships yield marked differences. Speakers would say the most to acquaintances and interlocutors of equal status because the center-toward relationships are open for negotiation (Wolfson, 1989). One possible explanation for the inconsistent pattern could be the design of the scenarios. For example, the benefactor in one of the scenarios invloving interactions with acquaintances is the third party instead of the interlocutor him/herself; hence, the speaker’s intention to express gratitude may have been restrained because of the absence of the benefactor. Besides the scenario that a classmate collects assignments for the whole class usually elicited a ritual thanking, thanks/thanking only. Accordingly, both native groups were shown to say least to the benefactors. In other words, it was the situational differences that contributed to the inconsistent result with Bulge theory. The statistical result displayed in Table 4.9, however, seemed to suggest that other than the situational imposition, the language production and the perception on personal relationship didn’t necessarily correlate.

Table 4.9 Length of Utterances x Contextual Factors Generated by the Four Groups

Figure 4.20 The Overall Distribution of Strategies among the Four Situational Categories

NS-C NS-E English Major Non-English Major

Contextual

Stranger ^{6.6000 5.25564 5.5417 5.55971 6.0083 4.92719 4.7000 3.64980} Acquaintance ^{6.1458 6.43990 5.1250 4.90165 5.6167 5.10097 4.9417 6.05479} Intimate ^{6.7125 5.73296 5.5125 5.08257 6.4000 4.89967 5.4583 5.83800}

Status ^{.196 .698 .873 2.159}

High ^{6.3042 6.29963 4.8708 4.32323 5.2167 3.68094 3.8417 2.98736} Equal ^{6.1458 6.43990 5.1250 4.90165 5.6167 5.10097 4.9417 6.05479}

Low ^{6.0125 5.47149 5.3083 4.78393 5.8875 4.65638 4.2417 3.47976}

Imposition ^{18.713 17.366 12.480 11.032}

High ^{8.46*** 6.058 7.11*** 5.711 7.6111*** 5.08796 6.0639*** 5.19790}

Low ^{4.13*** 4.594 3.45*** 3.017 4.0611*** 3.40762 3.0778*** 2.82144}

Interlocutors ^{-3.711 -5.054 3.430 -.842}

Male ^{5.86*** 5.419 4.80*** 4.359 6.3083** 5.07843 4.4472 4.47369} Female ^{6.74*** 6.117 5.76*** 5.381 5.3639** 4.19289 4.6944 4.40511}

8.77

Figure 4.21 The Overall Distribution of Length of Utterances among the Four Situational Categories

It is noteworthy that though situational imposition was found to have influence on the length of utterances, it didn’t contribute to the same effect in terms of the use of explicit thanking. Both native groups used more explicit thanking in situations carrying heavier imposition (NS-C: H:L=563:616; NS-E: H:L=555:612). The seemed to be contradictory result could be explained by the fact that both groups would also use bare thanking in situations of carrying small imposition while in situations of high imposition, combinations of other strategies took place of the explicit thanking. It implied that contextual factors had influence on the use of strategy combination instead of a single strategy use.

Though it was found that NS-Cs were more sensitive to social status while NS-Es were more sensitive to social distance and both groups would generate more strategies in situations carrying heavier imposition, the distribution of number of strategy and length of utterance didn’t tell much about the realization of the strategy use. Hence in the following section, the realization of the strategies of the two native groups will be presented and the presentation of EFL groups’ performance follows.

4.3 The Realization of Gratitude Strategy

The purpose of this section is to capture the overall picture of possible expressions of the two native groups and EFL groups’ performance in gratitude-provoking situations.

The term “strategy” referred to the codes adopted to describe the elicited responses.

Table 4.10 and Figure 4.22 showed the overall distribution of the twenty strategies among the four groups. Without considering situational differences, the overall pattern of gratitude strategy showed that there was no obvious difference interms of the range and distribution among the four groups as displayed in figure 4.22.

Table 4.10 Overall occurrence number and mean occurrence of the 20 gratitude strategies used by NS-C, NS-E, English Major and Non-English Major Groups

Note. Mean number of NS-E & NS-C= number of strategies/60*24

Mean number of English major & non-English major=number of strateies/30*24

0

Figure 4.22 The distribution of mean occurrence of the twenty main strategies among NS-C, NS-E, English Major and Non-English Major Groups

Strategy NS-C NS-E EFL-H EFL-L

N ^Mean N ^Mean N ^Mean N ^Mean A. explicit expression of thanking/gratitude ^{1179 0.8188 1355 0.9410 639 0.8875 617 0.8569} B. suggesting indebtedness ^{166 0.1153 163 0.1132 56 0.0778 44 0.0611}

However, the specific cultural differences can’t be observed with the overall pattern. Apart from that, the overall pattern could be misleading. For example, the similar mean utterrence of Strategy I used by the two native groups might lead readers to conclude that NS-Cs and NS-Es had similar pattern in using terms of calling.

Nevertheless, though the number of use of strategy I (terms of calling) was similar, the distribution of the sub-strategies was opposite: NS-C stated terms of address more frequently (NS-C: NE-E=181:41) while NS-E stated interlocutors’ names (NS-C:

NS-E =118:14) and terms implying short distance (NS-C: NE-E = 5:49) more frequently. The distribution of sub-strategies was noteworthy since it could suggest both cultural differences among the two native groups and the potential linguistic performance of EFL groups. The following section therefore, would focus on the analysis of the sub-strategies. Since only Strategy A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J and L were further categorized into sub-strategies, the following analyses would be mainly concerned with these strategies made by the NS-C, NS-E, English major and non-English major groups.

Strategy-A

Among sub-A strategies, both NS-Cs and NS-Es preferred A-1 (direct expression of thanking), 謝謝(你) [xie-xie (ni)], and thanks (you) respectively. The mean number of sub-A-3 strategies (gratitude+reason) of each group indicated that sub-A-3 was less used among the two native groups. Compared with sub-A-3 (gratitude+reason) strategies, sub-A-1-1 (thanking+reason) and sub-A-2-1 (appreciation+reason) strategies were relatively frequently used by both native groups. There were distinct differences distributed in three sub-strategies, A-1-1-1, A-2, and A-2-1-1. Sub-strategy A-1-1-1, thanking on the object/affair, and A-2-1-1, appreciating on the object/affair

were used more frequently by NS-Es than by NS-Cs while A-2, direct appreciation expression were favored by NS-Cs. As a whole, NS-Es preferred A-1-1 (thanking+reason) and A-2-1 (appreciation+reason) which were sub-strategies further indicated the reason deserving gratitude expressions while NS-Cs didn’t specifically tell interlocutors whether their gratitude expressions were addressed to the interlocutors or to the deeds had been done for them. The difference can be observed from example (4.1). Note that 謝謝你的幫忙 (xie-xie ni de ban-mang= Thanks for your help) dominated NS-Cs’ use of A-1-1(thanking+reason) while NS-Es generated more variations in response to scenarios. The result was shown in table 4.11 and figure 4.23.Note that the great number of strategy A-2-1-1 (appreciating on the object/affair) contributed by NS-Es could result from the fact that “appreciate” is a transitive verb. But it is also possible that it is the being specific tendency contributed it as a transitive verb.

As to EFL group’s preference, interestingly, the two EFL groups favored strategy A-1-1-1 (thanking on the object/affair) more than A-2 (appreciation). In other words, the use of strategy A-1-1-1 (thanking on the object/affair) didn’t suggest L1 transfer. However, the use of strategy A-2-1-1 (appreciating on the object/affair), on the other hand, seemed to suggest transfer since the pattern was similar to NS-C group.

Note that both of the strategies (A-1-1-1 & A-2-1-1) indicated further elaboration and NS-C disfavored them. This might result from the usage of vocabulary. That is, to EFL students, ‘thank/thank you’ was easier than ‘appreciation’. The ‘difficult’ word prevented them from using further illustration. Hence, though figure 4.23 suggested that both EFL groups’ use of A-2-1-1 (appreciating on the object/affair) conformed to CL1 group’s, it still can’t simply be attributed to L1 transfer.

(4.1) NS-C: 謝謝 你 的 幫忙。

Xie-xie ni de ban-mang。

Thanks you de-part. help.

“Thanks for your help.”

NS-E: Thanks for getting the coal for me.

Table 4.11 Occurrence number and mean occurrence of the sub-strategies distributed under Strategy A

A-3-1-2. showing gratitude on the object/affair indicating compliment

A-3-2. implicit codes of gratitude expressions ^{1 0.0007 2 0.0014 8 0.0111 4 0.0056} A-3-3. inability to express gratitude ^{3 0.0021 4 0.0028 21 0.0292 6 0.0083} A-4. acknowledge the ac ^{0 0.0000 0 0.0000 0 0.0000 3 0.0042} TOTAL ^{1179 0.8188 1355 0.9410 639 0.8875 617 0.8569}

Note. Mean number of NS-E & NS-C= number of strategies/60*24

Mean number of English major & non-English major=number of strateies/30*24

0

Figure 4.23 The distribution of mean occurrence of Sub-A stra. among NS-C, NS-E, English Major and Non-English Major Groups

Strategy-B

Table 4.12 and figure 4.24 showed total numbers and mean numbers of occurrence of

Table 4.12 and figure 4.24 showed total numbers and mean numbers of occurrence of