1.3　Methodology of the research

The present study is conducted by following the observational approach together with a combination of the quantitative and the qualitative approach.The reasons for taking such a combination of approaches are as follows.

According to different subjects of study and aims of research，the approaches of linguistic research can be divided into three types，i.e.logic approach，observational approach and experimental approach.The logic approach is usually used in studying the linguistic system，while the observational approach is mostly utilized in studying language use(He，2003a：929).Besides，the experimental approach is also popular in the research of language use.The scope of pragmatic research is so wide that different approaches are required to meet different demands.The approach adopted in the dissertation is thus in general observational.

The observational approach can be subdivided into qualitative research and quantitative research.The difference between quantita-tive and qualitative research methods is distinct.The quantitative research is similar to the experimental approach in that they require the researchers to do research out of a certain hypothesis.The qualitative research aims at investigating human conduct under certain circumstances，in which researchers do not set any specific hypothesis beforehand but observe what is relevant to the focus of the research.It is developed in social sciences to enable researchers to study social and cultural phenomena.Examples of qualitative methods are action research，case study research and ethnography.The qualitative research involves the use of qualitative data，such as interviews，documents，and participant observation data to understand and explain social phenomena.In this dissertation，both qualitative and quantitative researches are conducted，and the data are taken from the observation of the survey and the existing documents related to the research.

The motivation for doing qualitative and quantitative research comes from the consideration of balance between subjectivity and objectivity to guarantee both validity and reliability of the research concerned.The theories of pragmatic transfer，pragmatic failure，interlanguge pragmatics(ILP)，and the like，will be adopted for the case study of ethnic minority English majors' interlanguage pragmatic competence development in the dissertation.To learn a language is to learn how to communicate in that language accurately，fluently，appropriately and strategically(He，2005；passim 2008：217).But in daily communication with native speakers，many Chinese learners，especially learners of English in ethnic universities fail to do so.This dissertation aims to figure out the underlying causes of pragmatic failure.The types and causes of pragmatic failure will be highlighted for the establishment of a tentative instructional model accompanied by corresponding pedagogical strategies and suggestions.

According to Kasper & Dahl(1994)，three methods are mainly used when researchers are doing research of interlanguage pragmatics.They are theoretical interpretation，contrastive analysis，and data collection methods.

Theoretical interpretation means that interlanguage pragmaticians make a hypothesis and interpret it in the light of learners' target language pragmatic production，comprehension and pragmatic development.Taking contrastive analysis as a method in ILP，researchers observe a variety of phenomena and features originated from learners' using the target language，and contrast the phenomena and features with native speakers' norms.There are often two kinds of research adopted in contrastive analysis of ILP，i.e.longitudinal design，and cross-sectional design.

In teaching，different input for the students of experimental and comparative groups can bring about pragmatic changes in their understanding of native speakers' acts and in their performing speech acts in the target language.Researchers usually use data collection methods in their research of L2 pragmatic development.There are many methodological options for data collection.Kasper & Rose (2002)have grouped them into three categories：spoken interaction(authentic discourse，elicited conversation，and role play)，questionnaires(DCTs，multiple-choice，and scale-response)，and oral and written self-report(interviews，diaries，and verbal protocols).Different forms of questionnaire data are the most commonly used data types in interlanguage pragmatics.They are the optimal data-gathering techniques for the goals of the study.Three types of questionnaire are most frequently used in cross-cultural pragmatics researches：discourse completion tasks(DCTs)，multiple-choice，and scaled-response.Multiple-choice and scaled-response questionnaires provide fixed response alternatives from which the participant has to choose one that he thinks most appropriate.

Collecting data is important for investigation.Observational method is generally acknowledged as the best one of intercultural pragmatics(Hong，1991：57)，which uses a recorder to record the conversations between a native speaker and a foreign language learner in real situations(cf.Ellis，1994：162 -165).In this way，it is possible to determine to what extent learner performance differs from native-speaker performance.However，if this approach is applied in our research where English is used as a foreign instead of a second language，it is difficult to gather suffi-cient and authentic data from foreign language learners to ensure the quality of the survey.First，it is time-consuming.English in China is a foreign language，and it is very difficult to collect sufficient authentic language date needed.Second，in natural conversations，many factors such as the topic in question，the relation between speaker and hearer，the sex and age of the participants may play an important role in the speaker's choice of linguistic forms to perform a certain speech act.Thus，it is very difficult to decide which one of the factors influences the speaker's choice of a certain linguistic form.Motivated by such considerations，data collection in this research is conducted in the form of questionnaire，which will be described in detail later in section 4.2.

In short，inspired by the researches mentioned above and the detailed introduction and discussion of methodology in the collection of pragmatic data made in A New Introduction to Pragmatics (He，2000：350 -371)，the present study is conducted by taking the observational approach together with a combination of the quantitative and the qualitative approach；and instruments such as multiple-choice questionnaire and true-or-false judgment for each item are adopted.