Expressing gratitude by non-native speakers of English: Using the International Corpus of English (Hong Kong component)

Abstract

This paper presents research findings from the analysis of corpus linguistic data generated by the International Corpus of English (ICE) project (Nelson 1996). Specifically, the research reported on in this paper focuses on the use of expressions of gratitude in spoken discourse, and presents results derived from the data from the Hong Kong component of the International Corpus of English project (ICE-HK). Whereas previous studies of thanking expressions have dealt with issues relating to a repertoire of conversational routines of expressing gratitude, this present study confines itself to the analysis of expressions of gratitude containing the stem ‘thank’, and also includes a discussion of methodological issues. Such issues include, first, the traditional way of studying expressions of gratitude in (interlanguage) pragmatic research, and, second, the corpus linguistic analytic approach adopted in this study. A key argument here is that the corpus-linguistic methodology used in such studies has an important effect on throwing up salient pragmatic patterns in the use of expressions of gratitude. The results show that Hong Kong speakers of English do not employ a wide variety of thanking strategies investigated in previous literature. Their expressions of gratitude are usually brief, with thanks and thank you being the most common forms of gratitude expression. They are frequently used as a closing signal and as a complete turn. The Hong Kong Chinese tend to be rather reserved in expressing their gratitude explicitly and thus they seldom show appreciation of the interlocutors in their expression of gratitude, nor do they employ an extended turn for thanking. In addition, it is less likely for them to express gratitude and reject an offer. Responses to an act of thanking seem to be infrequent in ICE-HK and only a few strategies are represented. The paper also considers the pedagogical implications of the way this function can be acquired in a second/foreign language with the help of the corpus findings. Corpus data can provide us with information which is not easily accessible by intuition, such as frequency information. While two thanking strategies, namely, the ‘thanking + stating reason’ and ‘thanking + refusing’ structures, are commonplace in native-speakers’ interactions (Schauer and Adolphs 2006: 127), my investigation has shown that Hong Kong speakers of English seldom adopt the latter strategy. The frequency of occurrence of different strategies of expressing gratitude can thus be used as one of the guiding principles for the selection and prioritising of language content i.e. sequencing in ELT materials (e.g. Leech 2001) with regard to the teaching of formulaic sequences.