陌生人開啟話題策略與教學應用：華語與西班牙語對比研究

Abstract

任何形式的人際關係，最初皆始於陌生（Berger& Calabrese，1975），各文化族群對於不確定性的認知各異，因而提高跨文化陌生人交際的難度。華語學習者處於目的語環境，需與陌生對象建立人際關係，本研究遂透過跨文化語料分析，對比台灣地區華語母語者及中南美洲國家之西班牙語母語者的語篇補全測試書面語料，另蒐集華語母語者及西語母語之華語學習者中介語口語語料，研究兩文化陌生人之間如何開啟話題及互動。 語料分類的架構以Svenneig（1999）之分類為基礎，並結合降低不確定性理論（Uncertainty Reduction Theory）（Berger& Calabrese，1975）加以劃分。在語境設定上，包括性別、已知交際對象背景與否、是否有熟識友人在場等情境變因。此外，為將策略分布與其母語文化聯結，本研究並輔以問卷調查，以了解兩母語文化對於陌生人交際行為之觀感。 不同於文獻將華語及西語皆認定為集體主義的交際模式，本研究結果以不確定性理論為主軸，為華語及西語的交際規約異同提出不同角度的詮釋。母語者語料結果顯示，西語受試者對於不確定性的接受度高於華語受試者，華語受試者以自我揭露及尋求共同交集為主要策略；西語受試者則偏好以對方為焦點，同時善用場域線索作為話題資源。西籍學習者語料結果顯示，華語受試者及西籍學習者的陌生人交際皆以不斷提問為主要策略，華語受試者偏好不確定性低的已知資訊提問，西籍學習者則不受此制約，但是學習者的提問形式較為單一，需於教學中加強。鑒於上述研究結果，筆者提出教學建議，培養學習者與陌生人的交際能力，需要在導入華語語用概念的條件下，獨立訓練豐富多元的提問策略，以協助學習者與陌生人交際更為順暢。 When living in a target language environment, Chinese learners are forced to establish social networks with strangers. All relationships start with being strangers, which makes the feeling of uncertainty inevitable when confronting strangers (Berger& Calabrese, 1975). In order to reduce this uncertainty, people are inclined to communicate and develop relationships with strangers. Berger & Calabrese (1975) introduced the Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) to explain this phenomenon. URT implies a sense of insecurity during the process of developing relationships. It assumes that the sense of uncertainty causes cognitive pressure. As a result, people tend to focus on reducing the uncertainty when confronting strangers (Berger & Calabrese, 1975). This theory explains why people naturally yield communication to strangers. Different cultures define uncertainty in various ways, which renders cross-cultural communication more difficult. This research utilizes Svennveig (1999)'s framework by employing a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) to investigate how Spanish speakers and Chinese speakers initiate conversations with strangers. Meanwhile, role plays are conducted to investigate how Chinese learners of Spanish1 initiate conversations with Chinese speakers in Chinese with the purpose of comparing how object and gender variables affect strategies of initiating conversations. As opposed to previous research defining Chinese and Spanish culture as collective cultures, this research explains the differences of communication norms from the point-of-view of Uncertainty Reduction Theory. The DCT results show that Taiwanese Chinese speakers use self-closure and common ground as main strategies of conversation initiation; Spanish speakers, however, focus on the listener and use setting topics as a resource for conversation. The outcome of the conducted role plays shows that Chinese monolingual speakers2 limit their questions due to feeling uncertain about the backgrounds of the listeners, whereas Chinese learners of Spanish ask questions without much limitation from uncertainty. However, Chinese learners of Spanish need to diversify their question style. According to the results mentioned above, this research concludes with teaching suggestions to develop Chinese learners’ cross-cultural communication skills, which is to train their questioning ability based on the target language culture pragmatically, in order to enhance fluency when communicating with strangers.