中間言語における社会的変動性 : 日本人英語話者のスタイル・シフティングからの考察

The aim of the present study is to examine the interlanguage (IL) trait found in the style-shifting by the Japaneseusing English, which is compared with the pattern by the native speakers of American English, a target language(TL) group. What is unique to the present study is that pragmatic interference of the learners' native language (NL)is studied by the analysis of interplay between a social variable and language use, a computation of correlationcoefficient between them. The evidence of such interference is found in the meta-communicative judgment governedby the Ide's (2006) notion of wakimae [discernment] to select adequate strategies. Thus, NL system influences ILemployment of an apology for softening the impact of Face Threatening Acts (FTA) rather than that of a reason, theconveyance of a justification for FTA. However, the social variable affecting an apology frequency in the Japaneselanguage differs from the one in the English used by the Japanese. With higher correlation coefficient, the socialdynamics is found in a Japanese apology interacting with the perceived degree of imposition from FTA, while in theEnglish performance of the Japanese, apology interacts with the perceived degree of power on the hearer. At any rate,even if it interacts with the different factors among the Japanese informants, this socially controlled unit of their NL,which is an apology, the self-humiliative move, more strongly influences their IL performance than non-social unit,which is a reason, the self-defensive move, does. Indeed, apology in the Japanese discourse seems to function as acompliance gaining tool, whose universal validity should be further studied.