PRAGMATIC TRANSFER: AN INTERLANGUAGE STUDY OF PASHTO AND SIRAIKI ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Abstract

Based on the interlanguage study of Pashto and Siraiki English language learners, this article investigates the functions and effectiveness of learners’ pragmatic transfer from L1 to L2 that facilitates learning English as target language. This study investigates the Learners accomplishment of speech acts such as apology and requests in the target language by relying on the linguistic conventions and pragmatic norms of their mother tongue. The present effort is made to explore this phenomenon of pragmatic transfer in the realisation of these speech acts duly observed among Pashto and Siraiki English language learners belonging to monolingual and monoculture backgrounds who come to the university to pursue higher studies. A qualitative method and two data collection tools are used in the process of collecting and analyzing the data that is written discourse completion tasks (DCTs) and semi-structured interviews. Only eight participants belonging to Pashto and Siraiki cultural and linguistic backgrounds respectively from whom data is collected through DCTs and were also interviewed later. In the entire process of analysis, findings revealed that Pashto speakers were more pragmatic and indirect in the realisation of speech acts on requests and more direct in apologies whereas Siraiki speakers were more indirect and polite during the accomplishment of speech acts.