The Pragmatic Transfer of Javanese Sojourners’ English in Conversation Strategies

The use of home cultural schemas in English interactions in an English-speaking host country as a form of
discrepancy leading to misunderstanding. This study investigated the pragmatic transfer phenomenon, namely
the use of Javanese culture in English conversation. It aimed at finding an occurrence of pragmatic transfer in
the Javanese English conversation in the host country; the conversation strategies the transfer takes place
and the tendency of pragmatic transfer in the conversational strategies. The data were collected through
semi-structured interviews and field notes. The analysis used the narrative analysis using emergent key
themes based on the principle of the pragmatic transfer, the conversational strategy and the Javanese
norms. The result indicated the availability of negative and positive pragmatic transfer in four strategies,
namely making the most of others’ praise, indirect response, denial over compliments, mitigating taboo or
imposition marked with Javanese terms, idioms and jargon insertion. In addition, motivation is the most
important aspect that determines the existence of pragmatic transfer in English interactions.