A Pragmatic Study on Ostensible Invitation Speech Acts of Chinese EFL Learners

Abstract

In cross-cultural communication, ostensible invitations, as a prototypical form of indirect speech acts, significantly influence the effectiveness of social interaction. Existing research has predominantly focused on politeness principles, neglecting the impoliteness phenomena triggered by ostensible speech acts and the pragmatic transfer mechanisms among Chinese EFL learners. This study aims to: 1) identify the types of ostensible invitation strategies employed by Chinese EFL learners; 2) map proficiency-driven divergences in strategy use among learners at different levels; 3) diagnose L1 cultural transfer in their English pragmatic performance. Adopting a mixed-method approach, the research utilizes Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) and Scaled Response Questionnaires (SRQs) to analyze data from 18 participants across proficiency levels. Key findings include: 1) lower-proficiency learners are more candidly acknowledge insincerity; 2) “Strategy Specialization” marked by TEM-4 learners’ overreliance on vague temporal markers/emojis and TEM-8 learners’ academicized justifications; 3) “Cultural Hybridity" in CET-6 learners’ workplace communication, blending Chinese high-context norms with English pragmatic conventions and challenging Hall’s (1976) high/low-context dichotomy. The study enriches empirical research on ostensible speech acts in cross-cultural pragmatics theoretically, providing culture-specific evidence for Speech Act Theory and Face Theory. Practically, it advocates explicit instruction on manipulating felicity conditions (e.g., teaching vague time markers as insincerity signals) to enhance learners’ cross-cultural pragmatic competence.