Pragmatic deviations in the oral production of Chinese students in intercultural communication

Abstract

This study aims to clarify how Chinese students behave pragmatically in their oral production of the Spanish language. Learning a foreign language is not limited to the acquisition of grammar, but also to the acquisition of pragmatic competence in intercultural communication. The present study examines the pragmatic competence of Chinese students from an intercultural perspective. The data is part of an oral corpus composed of six conversations between a native speaker and a Chinese learner. Using discourse analysis techniques, we examine Chinese students' pragmatic mismatches from textual coherence, conversational styles, conversational strategies, and receptive errors. The results obtained indicate that the students, influenced by their native language and culture, have not been able to adequately handle pragmatic strategies and pragmatic resources when carrying out an intercultural interaction.