The multimodality of complaint: a case study of Chinese EFL learners

The study employs role-play tasks to investigate the realization of speech acts of complaint among 18 pairs of advanced Chinese EFL learners in scenarios of different languages and social distances from a multimodal perspective. The results demonstrate two major conclusions. 1) In terms of the language used by the interlocutors, it had an effect on their choices of complaint strategies. In the Chinese scenarios, verbal complaints were more direct and rapid; in contrast, the English scenarios witnessed a process from implicit to explicit expression of complaint. In terms of the nonverbal modes in the two scenarios, these presented significant differences, which was particularly evident in the greater frequency of gestures and head movements in the English scenarios compared to their Chinese counterparts. 2) Social distance exerted no influence on the verbal level of complaint, but it had a pronounced effect on nonverbal performances, which is manifested in that they adopted more gestures and head movements to acquaintances than to strangers. This study provides reference for empirical research on L2 pragmatics from a multimodal perspective.