Comparison of Linguistic Realization of Advice Giving Between English Language Learners and Native Speakers in Peer-To-Peer Online Forums

Abstract

This study investigated the pragmatics of advice giving between English native speakers in UK and nonnative speakers in Hong Kong in peer-to-peer advice forums. Forty eight and fifty two advice messages were respectively collected from an online forum in UK and an online forum in Hong Kong. The form and content of the advice messages were analyzed in terms of discursive moves. The results showed that English native speakers in UK and nonnative speakers in Hong Kong perceived similar knowledge on the elements that consists an advice giving event, but the syntactic realization and the sequencing of the discursive moves in the advice messages showed some differences. Compared with native speakers, nonnative speakers in Hong Kong tended to offer directions and suggestions in more direct sentence type, and the advice messages are organized in a straightforward way.