Abstract:This paper is focusing on Chinese non-English majors and Americans’ production of requests in English. The primary objective is to explore the features of Chinese non-English majors’ interlanguage and the influence of pragmatic transfer and language proficiency on Chinese English learners’ interlanguage. 100 Chinese English learners (CELs) and 30 American English speakers (AESs) participate in the present study. The data are collected by means of a modified written Discourse Completion Test, and the analysis is conducted statistically regarding request strategies,query preparatory modal and lexical downgraders. The result shows that CELs and AESs have more similarities in terms of choosing request strategies while the differences are noticeable with regards to query preparatory categories and lexical downgraders. In addition, results reveal that students’ language proficiency plays a minor role in the appropriate demonstration of the interlanguage and pragmatic failure is inevitable in Chinese request behavior.