Research Paper on:
Compliment Responses of Native Turkish ELT Students and Non-Native Turkish ELT Students: A Research Proposal

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
result, intercultural communications can be hindered when learners fall back on the normative speech patterns or linguistic characteristics of their primarily language (Rizk, 2003). This issue is commonly referred  to as pragmatic transfer and can be positive, in terms of an individuals application of universal linguistic characteristics, or negative, in which miscommunications occur because of the first language pragmatic  knowledge and its application for the second language (Rizk, 2003). This study assesses the compliment responses of native Turkish ELT students and non-native  Turkish ELT students, in order to determine whether responses to compliment patterns are linked to pragmatic language knowledge. Researchers have recognized that the sequence and pattern of compliment responses  is often standardized within a given culture. Understanding the standardization of compliment responses and the use of pragmatic first language knowledge through a comparative view of respondants with differing  primary languages can be beneficial to contextualizing the problem of pragmatic transfer. Sociolinguistic Theory The sociolinguistic theory that is the basis  for this study is pragmatic transfer. A number of researchers have studied the impact of sociolinguistic transfer as it impacts intercultural communications. Rizk (2003) maintains that pragmatic transfer is  the "influence of learners pragmatic knowledge of language and culture other than the target language on their comprehension, production, and acquisition of L2 pragmatic information" (p. 404). Essentially, pragmatic  transfer can result in positive outcomes if linguistic responses are universal, or it can be negative, if pragmatic knowledge results in the translating of formulaic expressions and the misplacement of  these expressions inappropriately as a component of the response (Rizk, 2003). The more that learners are aware of language-specific features of responses to compliments, the more likely they are