Differences in the Advice-giving Behavior Between Korean EFL Learners and English Native Speakers

Abstract

This paper investigates whether Korean EFL learners'(KEL) advice-giving patterns are significantly different from those of English native speakers (ENS), using a discourse completion test. Thirty-five Korean graduate students and twenty-two English native speakers completed the test, which includes four different advice-giving situations. Each situation was different in the degree of face-threat and urgency, and had four different addressees varying the social and psychological distances. The findings show that KEL give significantly more direct advice than ENS, especially when KEL think that the addresses are psychologically close. KEL were also found to be more sensitive to the degree of face-threat and urgency of the situations. The pedagogical implication of this study is that EFL classroom instruction needs to introduce proper ways of advice-giving for various situations from English native speakers' viewpoint. Since the results suggest that KEL's more direct advice-giving behavior is partly due to their low English proficiency, it will be also helpful to provide learners with useful advice-giving expressions frequently employed by English native speakers.