本研究旨在探討以華語為第二語言的英語與日語學習者對中文安慰策略的有效度判斷以及使用情形，並驗證不同操縱變因（如：被安慰者的社會權力高低、事件嚴重程度及情境類型）對安慰策略的影響程度。研究對象共為十二名英語和十七名日語的中級華語學習者以及二十名中文母語者作為對照組，參與本研究的兩項測驗：一為有效度判斷，二為口頭完成情境對話。研究發現如下：
一、 情境類型的操縱因素對受試者的有效度判斷及使用情形影響最大，其次是事件嚴重程度，而被安慰者的權力高低影響則最小。
二、 提供支持、建議和鼓勵策略在有效度判斷中較同情及安撫策略有效。然而只有建議策略在口頭情境完成的測驗中仍被大量使用，其他兩種策略被安撫策略所取代。
三、 除了對提供支持策略的有效度評價不如中文母語人士高之外，英語和日語的華語學習者的表現大致與對照組相同。
四、 受試者普遍採用組合式的安慰策略，受歡迎的組合通常皆含有建議策略。
五、 日語學習者在面對更高權力的被安慰者的情況下比英語學習者更加看重安撫策略，並且在嚴重度高的情況下採用更多鼓勵策略。另一方面，英語組的人均安慰策略總數比日語組要來的多。
根據上述結果，我們認為三種操縱因素各發揮了不同程度的影響，也證實對於安慰策略的有效度判斷與實際策略使用間確實存在影響差異。而且，跨文化差異仍存在於安慰策略的學習中。

The present study aims to investigate the perception and production of Chinese comforting strategies by English and Japanese learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) under the three manipulation factors: power, severity, and situation types. A total of 12 English and 19 Japanese intermediate CSL learners together with 20 Chinese controls were recruited to complete two tasks (i.e., an effectiveness evaluation task (EET) and an oral discourse completion task (ODCT)). The major findings are summarized as follows:
1. The factor of situation types was found to have the greatest impact on the perception and production of comforting strategies by both groups, followed by severity, and power had the least influence.
2. In the perception of strategy effectiveness, the strategies of offer of support, advice, and encouragement were considered more effective than the strategies of sympathy and soother. However, only the advice strategy was still used greatly in the production task, and the other two strategies were replaced by the strategy of soother.
3. The English and Japanese CSL learners performed similarly to the Chinese natives except the evaluation of the offer of support strategy: They deemed it as significantly less effective than the Chinese controls.
4. Using combined strategies rather than single strategies was verified as a universal trend. The patterns with favored combined strategies of comforting mostly contained the advice strategy.
5. The Japanese group viewed the soother strategy more effective in the condition of facing comfortees of higher power and used a larger proportion of the encouragement strategy in the severe condition than the English group. On the other hand, the English produced more tokens of strategies per capita than the Japanese.
The results indicated that the three moderating factors exerted their influence to different degrees, and that there were indeed discrepancies between the subjects’ perception and production of comforting strategies. Moreover, it was found that the intercultural variations played a part during the acquisition process of comforting act.

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