A Dissertation by GRACE HUI-CHIN LIN Submitted to the Office of ...

corresponding to the speakers’ first language structure, was not applicable for
Taiwanese EFL speakers. Taiwanese speakers had restrictions in searching for similar
rules and structures in English because Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Hakka (also
spoken in Taiwan) were three languages from a Chinese origin, which were different
from the Germanic, Greek, and Latin origins of English. inter/intralingual
transferring strategy was more relevant to speakers whose languages belonged to the
same origins as English. Finally, the nonlinguistic strategies used to support the
verbal strategies could be applied less by Chinese people because of their Chinese
conservative and introverted personalities.
In a word, code switching and interlingual transferring would make the
speeches generated too foreign and non-native like. The language created might
surprise or confuse the intercultural interlocutors from different language
backgrounds. inter/intralingual transferring was not applicable for Chinese speakers
whose languages had very little common spellings and structures like English.
Additionally, the nonlinguistic strategies were not introduced to students because the
researchers assumed that the Taiwanese learners might not apply them. Taiwanese
English speakers might not feel accustomed to using body language during talking.
In a word, the five adopted communication strategies were selected according to
Taiwanese students’ language backgrounds and cultural characteristics.
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