華法電子郵件請求語之對比分析及教學應用

Abstract

請求為人際交往中經常發生的言語行為，也一直是語用學研究的熱點之一。近幾十年來，人們透過網路溝通的情況增加，以電子郵件為媒介的請求行為也愈益頻繁；對華語學習者而言，掌握華語請求電子郵件的撰寫要領，可協助其在網際溝通時代與華語人士進行更有效的交流。然而，過往對電子郵件請求語言的研究多以英語語言為主，而缺乏其它語種的論述。有鑒於此，本文從華語出發，討論華語和法語請求類電子郵件中語言使用之異同，以期為母語為法語的華語學習者，在其華語能力有限的情況下，找出最簡單、有禮的電子郵件請求方式。 本文藉由線上問卷收集語料，並採用多變量變異數分析（MANOVA）及單因子變異數分析（ANOVA），從國別、「相對權勢」、「社會距離」等角度，比較華法電子郵件在標題成份、書信格式成份、中心行為策略、內部修飾、支援策略以及語篇排序等方面的異同。同時，本文也透過郵件評量訪談，從收件者的角度探討有效郵件的撰寫要領。 研究結果顯示，首先，華法請求郵件差異在標題成份、書信格式成份、中心行為策略、內部修飾、支援策略等項度上都達到統計顯著。整體架構上，華語郵件傾向用較直接、多筆的中心行為搭配較大量的支援策略，而法語郵件則偏好以間接、單一的中心行為搭配較少量的支援策略。其次，「相對權勢」和「社會距離」在兩組郵件大部分的項度之上也都造成顯著影響。語篇排序上，華法郵件都傾向將一半以上的支援策略置於中心行為之前，偏好有適度鋪陳的間接語篇。再者，華語的「集體主義」文化和法語的「個體主義」文化，主要反映於兩組間師生關係以及禮貌模式的差異上。此外，電子郵件媒介以及請求言語行為本身的特色也影響了本文語料的表現。 最後，本文根據研究結果，在語用教學理論及法國漢語教材回顧的基礎上，以選修課形式設計請求電子郵件寫作教學。

With the explosion of the Internet in the past few decades and its increasing use as a means of communication, the study of requests by emails has evolved. For students of the Chinese language, learning how to make email requests in Chinese would help them to communicate more efficiently with other Chinese speakers. Most previous studies in this area have been conducted around the use of the English language. This study, however, aims to provide a comprehensive comparison between request strategies used in Chinese and French emails so that French speakers can write more appropriately in Chinese email communications. Using online questionnaires, the researcher collected and analyzed emails written by forty Taiwanese and forty French University students. “Subject lines”, “letter formats”, “head acts”, “internal modifications”, “supportive moves” and “discourse sequencing” were compared as were the effects of “social distance” and “relative power”. In addition, interviews with native speakers of both languages were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of email requests and also the principles of etiquette that should be adopted. The results of the research illustrated that Chinese and French emails are markedly different in their subject lines, letter formats, head acts, internal modifications and supportive moves. Regarding the written content of the emails, the Chinese tend to use a couple of head acts with a larger number of supportive moves while the French prefer to use a single indirect head act with fewer supporting moves. Furthermore, both “social distance” and “relative power” have significant effects on the language adopted. In relation to the information sequence, both Chinese and French email requests prefer an “indirect discourse,” where the first head acts used after several supporting moves are used. In addition, the study highlighted the difference of “collectivism” in Chinese culture and the “individualism” in French culture. Finally, the researcher proposes a pedagogical model that can be adopted when writing emails and also extends to teaching plans that can be adopted for Chinese language classes in French universities.