Say What?: Filipino ESL Learners’ Semantic Formula in Expressing Complaints
Main Article Content
Abstract
Complaining is one of the difficult tasks one has to do because when one complains, one does not only express some displeasure but also expects some form of repair. Hence, it is important for language learners to be taught how to effectively do so. Despite this, the teaching of the speech act of complaint has been taken for granted: either very little is included or it is absent in the language classroom instruction. This study attempts to examine how Filipino ESL learners structure their complaints. Featuring 18 situations calibrated on three social variables (interlocutors’ social power and social distance, as well as the complainable acts’ degree of severity), the discourse completion task elicited respondents’ written expression of complaints, which were then analyzed using Schaefer’s (1982, as cited in Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000) framework for analyzing the semantic formula of complaints. Results of the study provide a baseline data on respondents’ language of complaining, which provides many pedagogical implications and serves as a springboard for the development of classroom resource materials leading to an informed and judicious teaching of pragmatics.
Article Details
References
Archer, D., Aijmer, K., & Wichmann, A. (2012). Pragmatics: An advanced resource book for students. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Baxter, L.A. (1984). An inverstigation of compliance-gaining as politeness. Human Communication Research, 10 (3), 427-456.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Celce-Murcia, M., & Olshtain, E. (2000). Discourse and context in language teaching: A guide for language teachers. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Chen, Y., Chen, C.D., & Chang, M. (2011). American and Chinese complaints: Strategy use from a cross-cultural perspective. Cultural Pragmatics,8 (2), 235-275. DOI: 10.1515/IPRG.2011.012
De Leon, K.D., & Parina, J.C.M. (2016). A study of Filipino complaints in English and Tagalog. 3L; Language, Linguistics, and Literature, The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 22 (1), 191-206.
Edwards, A., & Laporte, S. (2015). Outer and expanding circle English: The competing roles of norm orientation and proficiency levels. English World-Wide, 36 (2), 135-169.
Hall, E.T. (1976). Beyond culture. NY: Anchor Press – Double Day.
Hofstede, G. (1993). Cultural constraints in management theories. The Executive, 7 (1), 81-94.
Johnson, R.B., & Onwuegbuzie, A.J. (2004). Mixed methods research: A research paradigm whose time has come. Educational Researcher, 33 (7), 14-26.
Ghaznavi, M.A. (2017). The speech act of complaining: Definition and characterization. Retrieved from http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/DQ1YTkzN/AhmadiComplaining.pdf
Kachru, B.B. (1997). World Englishes and English-using communities. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 17, 66-87.
Li, R., & Suleiman, R.R.R. (2017). Language proficiency and the speech act of complaint of Chinese EFL learners. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal for Language Studies, 23 (1), 60-74.
Mackey, A., & Gass, S.M. (2005). Second language research: Methodology and design. Mahwah, NJ: Routledge.
Nakhle, M., Naghavi, M., & Razavi, A. (2014). Complaint behaviors among native speakers of Canadian English, Iranian EFL learners, and native speakers of Persian: Contrastive pragmatic study. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 98, 1316-1324.
Olshtain, E., & Weinbach, L. (1987). Complaints: A study of speech act behavior among native and nonnative speakers of Hebrew. In M.B. Papi & J. Verschueren (Eds.). The Pragmatic Perspective: Selected Papers from the 1985 International Pragmatics Conference (pp.195-197). Benjamin, Amsterdam.
Parker, F., & Riley, K. (2005). Linguistics for nonlinguists (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Longman.
Pe-Pua, R., & Protacio-Marcelino, E. (2000). Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino Psychology): A legacy of Virgilio G. Enriquez. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 3, 49-71.
Spencer-Oatey, H., & Zegarac, V. (2010). Pragmatics. In N. Schitt, An introduction to applied linguistics (pp. 70-88). UK: Hodder & Stoughton.
Trenchs, M. (2000). Complaining in Catalan, complaining in English: A comparative study of native and EFL speakers. Retrieved from dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/dcfichero_articulo?codigo=1958176
Trosborg, A. (1995). Interlanguage pragmatics: Requests, complaints and apologies. Berlin: Monton de Gruyter.
Yarahmadi, A., & Fathi, S. (2015). A cross cultural study on Iranian EFL students’ pragmatic transfer. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 192, 498-505.
Yumul-Florendo, M.R. (2012, July). Initial study of emerging features of academic Philippine English among freshmen in the University of the Philippines Baguio. Educational Research, 3 (7), 566-571.