Pragmatic Errors and Transfer of Foreign Learners of Indonesian: The Case of Refusals

Pragmatic transfer, an emerging part of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP), has been receiving serious attention from applied linguists currently. This study was aimed at investigating pragmatic errors and pragmatic transfer learners made and effect of second language (L2) proficiency to their pragmatic transfer. Eighteen students of Darmasiswa who have been learning Indonesian language and culture form Bali State Polytechnic (PNB) and from Teacher Training Institute of Saraswati Tabanan, Bali, Indonesia were involved as research participants. Discourse completion test (DCT) consisting of nine situations designed with sociocultural aspect of power, distance, and rank of imposition (PDR) was used to elicit data of refusal strategies. The data were analysed to see pragmatic errors, pragmatic transfer, and effect of L2 proficiency on participants’ pragmatic transfer. Result of analysis revealed that learners’ pragmatic competence was still low. They were pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic errors made dealing with Indonesian noun phrase (NP) structure, the use of verb, noun, prepositions which are very different from English patterns. Moreover, pragmatic transfer was frequently made due to learners’ shortage of L2 pragmatic proficiency and learners’ L1 cultural knowledge. In addition, learners’ pragmatic transfer was found to be strongly influenced by learners’ L2 proficiency.