Volume 03 Issue 09-2023
51
International Journal of Advance Scientific Research
(ISSN
–
2750-1396)
VOLUME
03
ISSUE
09
Pages:
51-57
SJIF
I
MPACT
FACTOR
(2021:
5.478
)
(2022:
5.636
)
(2023:
6.741
)
OCLC
–
1368736135
A
BSTRACT
Pragmatic competence is as an essential aspect of communicative competence. Does environment have an
effect on developing pragmatic competence? Do levels of pragmatic competence differ between English as
a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) students? Most studies have shown
greater pragmatic awareness among ESL students than EFL students, indicating that the target language
(TL) environment has a positive influence on the appropriate use of sociopragmatics. This review of the
literature finds that input alone is insufficient for pragmatic competence: learners must notice linguistic
forms in their use.
K
EYWORDS
Pragmatic competence, second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EFL), sociopragmatic,
pragmalinguistic, pragmatic transfer.
I
NTRODUCTION
In recent decades, the goal of most second
language (L2) learning has been to become
communicatively competent and use the
language necessary for a given social context
(Hymes, 1972). The construct of pragmatics has
been recognized as an essential aspect of
communicative competence (Canale, 1983;
Canale & Swain, 1980), especially as it is tied to
grammatical knowledge (Bachman & Palmer,
1996). Only recently, however, has pragmatics
Journal
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Research Article
PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE AS A STRUTURAL COMPONENT
OF STUDENTS' COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN A
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Submission Date:
September 10, 2023,
Accepted Date:
September 15, 2023,
Published Date:
September 20, 2023
Crossref doi:
https://doi.org/10.37547/ijasr-03-09-09
Xayrullayeva Nilufar Azam qizi
Andijan region PYMOMM teacher, Uzbekistan
Volume 03 Issue 09-2023
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International Journal of Advance Scientific Research
(ISSN
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2750-1396)
VOLUME
03
ISSUE
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Pages:
51-57
SJIF
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(2021:
5.478
)
(2022:
5.636
)
(2023:
6.741
)
OCLC
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1368736135
been recognized as a distinct construct worthy of
research and assessment in its own right to
discover implied meaning through the use of
contextual,
sociolinguistic,
sociocultural,
psychological, and rhetorical factors (Purpura,
2004). Attempts to define pragmatic competence
require a definition of pragmatics as a whole, a
task that has been difficult because of the
inherently fluid nature of this construct that is
context-dependent (Grabowski, 2009). Perhaps
the clearest and most concise is an oft-cited
definition from Crystal (1985) that focuses on the
interactional nature of this construct: Pragmatics
is the study of language from the point of view of
users, especially of the choices they make, the
constraints they encounter in using language in
social interaction and the effects their use of
language has on other participants in the act of
communication. (p. 240) Based on this social
definition, pragmatic competence can then be
defined as knowledge of how to use language to
achieve goals in language interaction, or rather,
competence of language interaction in a
sociocultural context (Kasper, 1997). As
pragmatic competence entails whether or not an
utterance is acceptable and appropriate to other
users of the language in conveying the speaker's
intended meaning, it can be further divided into
pragmalinguistic
and
sociopragmatic
components. According to Leech (1983) and
Thomas (1983), pragmalinguistics refers to the
linguistic resources needed for communicative
acts (e.g., strategies and routines) and
pragmalinguistic failure, therefore, refers to
simply using inappropriate linguistic forms.
Sociopragmatics, on the other hand, comprises
the sociological realm of pragmatics and refers to
proper social behavior in the target language
where learners must become aware of the
consequence of their pragmatic choices.
Sociopragmatic failure is then regarded as more
difficult to overcome than pragmalinguistic
failure because of the need for awareness. The
consequences of pragmatic failure (both
sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic) can be
serious in a variety of spheres from formal
international politics (e.g., translation errors that
impede diplomacy) to interpersonal relationships
(Takahashi & Beebe, 1987, p. 133). If pragmatic
competence is then essential to successful
communicative language ability, what is the effect
of environment on developing pragmatic
competence? In particular, do levels of pragmatic
competence differ between English as a second
language (ESL) and English as a foreign language
(EFL) students? To date, most studies have shown
greater pragmatic awareness among ESL
students than EFL students (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig &
Dörnyei, 1998; Schauer, 2006; Tagashira, Yamato,
& Isoda, 2011), thus indicating that the TL
environment has a positive influence on the
appropriate use of sociopragmatics. ESL learners
invariably receive more pragmatic input through
their daily lives if they are motivated to interact
with the TL community and have positive social
interactions. The classroom also provides a
setting for pragmatics instruction as teachers
model and demonstrate how to perform tasks. In
addition, questions about language use in context
naturally arise in the ESL classroom when
students bring in their outside experiences, for
example, and ask why something happened to
Volume 03 Issue 09-2023
53
International Journal of Advance Scientific Research
(ISSN
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2750-1396)
VOLUME
03
ISSUE
09
Pages:
51-57
SJIF
I
MPACT
FACTOR
(2021:
5.478
)
(2022:
5.636
)
(2023:
6.741
)
OCLC
–
1368736135
them in a particular way when communicating
with a native speaker (NS) or if a word or phrase
could be used to convey alternative meanings.
Some studies, however, have yielded a very
different outcome (e.g., Niezgoda and Röver,
2001; Taguchi, 2008) that not only challenges
previous research, but defies the common-sense
assumption that living in the TL environment
with exposure to authentic input would better
help pragmatic competence flourish in ESL
learners than in their EFL peers. These studies
shed light on the notion of individual differences,
such as motivation and pragmatic transfer, as
factors in overcoming the burden of environment
and contribute to existing research on the effect
of positive attitude in acquiring language
(Schumann, 1986). The purpose of this paper is to
investigate what role the ESL and EFL
environment plays in L2 learners' pragmatic
competence and whether individual differences
can have a more effective influence than the
constrains of the language-learning environment
itself. First, the effect of the environment on
developing pragmatic competence will be
addressed with regards to the role of pragmatic
transfer. The effect of motivation on pragmatic
knowledge will then be discussed, followed by a
discussion of the findings and methodological
issues in measuring pragmatic competence in ESL
and EFL settings. Finally, recommendations for
future research as well as important sociological
considerations with regards to NS norms will be
addressed.
The role of pragmatic transfer . One factor in
developing pragmatic competence in an L2 is
pragmatic transfer, the "influence of the learners'
knowledge of other languages and cultures on
their pragmatic use and development on the use
of the L2," (Kasper, 1992, as cited in Ishihara &
Cohen, 2010, p. 78). While some pragmatic
knowledge is strictly tied to individual languages
and thus can lead to overgeneralizations and
pragmatic failure, some pragmatic knowledge is
universal (Ochs, 1996), and some can be
transferred from learners' first language (L1)
(Kasper, 1997). One of the earliest investigations
into the differences in pragmatic awareness
between ESL and EFL populations was Takahashi
and Beebe's (1987) qualitative study among
Japanese L2 learners of English. The researchers
sought to find evidence of pragmatic transfer (ie.,
transfer of L1 sociocultural norms in L2
communication) while investigating the effects of
L2 proficiency levels and environments. Two
main questions guided this research: 1) Will there
be evidence of pragmatic transfer in both learning
contexts (EFL and ESL) and at both proficiency
levels (low and high)? and 2) Will there be a
difference in the amount of transfer according to
the different learning environments and
proficiency levels? The researchers analyzed the
written refusals of Japanese ESL and EFL learners,
compared to Japanese and American NSS'
respective refusals. All of the participants
completed a discourse completion test (DCT)
where participants had to insert a refusal to
interlocutors of different statuses in the following
categories: requests, invitations, offers, and
suggestions. After examining the typical order of
formulas for Japanese NSS and American English
NSS, Takahashi and Beebe (1987) compared the
Volume 03 Issue 09-2023
54
International Journal of Advance Scientific Research
(ISSN
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2750-1396)
VOLUME
03
ISSUE
09
Pages:
51-57
SJIF
I
MPACT
FACTOR
(2021:
5.478
)
(2022:
5.636
)
(2023:
6.741
)
OCLC
–
1368736135
refusal data of the ESL and EFL participants,
finding evidence of pragmatic transfer in both the
ESL and EFL contexts, as well as at both
proficiency levels. In particular, there was more
evidence of pragmatic transfer in the EFL context
than in the ESL context, in spite of the EFL
learners' higher average proficiency. Therefore,
the tendency toward pragmatic transfer may be
explained by the EFL learners having fewer
opportunities for authentic input, causing them to
rely more heavily on their LI. Alternatively, as the
ESL population was more direct in their refusals
and thus more TL-like, this could be explained by
their lower proficiency and lack of knowledge of
less direct, more complicated expressions.
Nonetheless, the EFL learners appeared less
pragmatically competent than their ESL. peers
because they used their more advanced L2 skills
to convey LI expressions and sentiments.
Yamagashira (2001) researched pragmatic
transfer in 9 Japanese ESL learners without an
EFL component. He used a DCT and a follow-up
interview to study how his participants reacted to
refusals and to determine if pragmatic transfer
occurs when Japanese speakers refuse in English,
if time spent in the TL community affects
pragmatic transfer, and if explicit metapragmatic
instruction has an effect as well. Like Takahashi
and Beebe (1987), lower proficiency participants
tended to transfer more often than their higher
proficiency peers. However, results also indicated
that increased time spent in the TL environment
caused participants to respond in a more TL-like
fashion, thus indicating that the length of
exposure in the environment has an effect on
transfer. In addition, explicit instruction in
pragmatics whether in a formal classroom setting
or through interactions with NSS-allowed
participants who took advantage of such
instruction to become more pragmatically
competent. Barron (2003) investigated the effect
of a prolonged stay in the TL community on the
development of L2 pragmatic competence
without a comparison to a foreign language
group. She focused on a group of 33 advanced
Irish L2 learners of German over a ten-month
study- abroad period in Germany. Her research
questions were: 1) Is there evidence of changes in
learners' L2 pragmatic competence towards or
away from the L2 norm over time spent in the TL
community? 2) Does pragmatic transfer increase
or decrease with time in the TL culture? 3) What
implications do any changes or lack of changes in
learners' L2 pragmatic competence have for our
understanding of the development of 1.2
pragmatic competence? 4) Can one speak of
stages of acquisition of L2 pragmatic
competence? She performed a quantitative
analysis in the form of production questionnaires
administered before and after the study-abroad
experience, as well as a qualitative analysis
focusing on retrospective interviews. Data was
elicited three times over the year abroad and was
compared to L2 data gathered from 34 German
NSS and L1 data from 27 Irish English NSS. The
study showed that exposure to L2 input helped
many participants achieve more TL- like
pragmatic competence. The Irish learners'
increased use of pragmatic routines indicated an
increase in fluency, efficiency in communication,
and the potential for membership into the L2
speech community. The NS norm, however, was
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SJIF
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)
(2022:
5.636
)
(2023:
6.741
)
OCLC
–
1368736135
rarely reached. Data revealed that many of the
learners "associate language use with an
individual's personality and identity rather than
with the foreign language itself," (Barron, 2003, p.
349). As the participants felt secure in their own
personalities, they did not see any reason to
change their L1 preferences of language use and
transferred (either consciously or not) their LI
sentiments into the L2 Therefore, pragmatic
transfer had a mostly negative effect on these
participants, who, in addition, may not have taken
full advantage of the study-abroad experience by
not establishing deep relationships with NSs, thus
failing to either notice, or be motivated to change
their speech. chose to study the development of
L2 pragmatic competence on a language other
than English. He investigated compliment
responses of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL)
and second language (JSL) learners by
administering oral DCTs because of the more
natural and spontaneous nature of speech
production than written DCTs. The oral DCTs
were analyzed for compliment response
strategies, patterns of semantic formulas, and
lexical/phrasal characteristics to determine
adherence to Japanese pragmatic norms. Shimizu
(2009) found that although JSL and JFL
participants differed from Japanese NSS in their
use of positive and negative strategies, the JSL
group was still closer to more TL-like responses.
As only the JSL participants used TL-like
avoidance strategies, the JSL learners used more
pragmatically
appropriate
and
TL-like
avoidances in compliment responses, while the
JFL learners emphasized negation at all three
levels. Interestingly, Shimizu found that unlikel
Takahashi and Beebe's (1987) Japanese ESL and
EFL data, the JSL and JFL responses differed
significantly from the American NSS' own English
responses, thus implying that L1 transfer alone
does not account for their divergences in
Japanese. Instead, he implied that it was "transfer
of training" that could account for the emphasis
on negation strategies. Classroom instruction, he
contends, emphasizes the "modesty maxim" in
Japanese culture, thus leading to an overuse of
unnatural or inauthentic strategies. In fact,
Shimizu found that the textbooks employed in his
study encouraged learners to use rejection
strategies above all others. Therefore, it is likely
that the L2 participants learned that rejection is
the only appropriate response to compliments.
Follow-up participant interviews confirmed his
assumption and revealed that the JFL tendency
toward negation may have stemmed from their
textbooks (i.e., transfer of training), rather than
L1 transfer. Importantly, it is possible that the JSL
learners' interactions with NSS gave them
opportunities to modify the knowledge gained
from textbooks. In line with both Long's (1996)
Interaction Hypothesis and Schmidt's (1993)
Noticing Hypothesis, the JSL participants noticed
that Japanese NSs used positive and avoidance
strategies more frequently than had been taught
in JSL classes. This account has clear pedagogical
implications for teachers to use more authentic,
real-life examples of language use and not rely on
textbooks to provide accurate pragmatic
instruction, as textbooks often include gross
oversimplifications in terms of pragmatic
instruction. Shimizu added that this is especially
true for EFL learners who have "little opportunity
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)
(2023:
6.741
)
OCLC
–
1368736135
to engage in authentic interaction and revise their
hypothesis about the target pragmatic norms
formed through transfer of training" (p. 187).
Finding that environment has a definite but
complex role to play in the acquisition of
pragmatic competence, set out to determine if
there are differences in the development of
speedy and accurate comprehension of implied
speaker intentions between learners in ESL and
EFL environments. Her study included 60
Japanese EFL learners and 57 ESL learners in the
U.S., all enrolled in college and between the ages
of 18-28. Importantly, three of the EFL students
had 9-11 months prior residency in a TL country,
thus making them unique in comparison to the
EFL participants in previous comparison studies.
Nonetheless, both participant groups had
beginning level proficiencies based on TOEFL
scores administered at the start of the study,
thereby eliminating proficiency as a factor in this
study.
Taguchi
(2008)
administered
a
computerized listening task that measured the
ability to comprehend indirect refusals (eg,
providing an excuse to a request without
explicitly denying said request) and indirect
opinions (eg, expressing a negative opinion of a
movie by saying, "I'm glad when it was over.") and
analyzed the results for speed and accuracy to
provide a developmental account of pragmatic
comprehension. The task was administered to
each group twice, before and after approximately
120-130 hours of classroom instruction. Results
indicated that the EFL learners made many more
gains in accuracy than speed, while the ESL
learners greatly improved their speed, but only
minimally improved their accuracy. In particular,
the EFL group made significantly greater
improvement than the ESL group in the accurate
comprehension of indirect refusals, but not of
indirect opinions. This could be a general issue of
second language acquisition where refusals are
learned before opinions, but it may also be an
instance of pragmatic transfer. Both Japanese and
English share certain patterns of refusal (e.g.,
provide a reason for refusing an invitation), but
not of indirect opinions. Based on the EFL
learners' wide gains over their ESL peers in the
realm of indirect refusals, it seems that pragmatic
transfer had more of an effect on developing
pragmatic competence than the environment
itself. "The actual environment of learning may
thus be of secondary importance as long as it
affords sufficient instruction and practice to
promote general listening skills," (Taguchi, 2008,
p. 443). Therefore, Taguchi argues that length of
residence itself is an insufficient variable to
developing pragmatic competence. In addition, as
there were greater pragmatic gains among the
EFL participants, it is important to note that these
students were studying in an English immersion
program in Japan. Thus, the EFL students chose
this institution because of their strong motivation
to study English at an advanced level. The results
of these studies that investigate the effect of
transfer on pragmatic competence demonstrate
that failure to acquire L2 pragmatic competence
cannot be fully accounted for by proficiency,
length of stay, etc. Most importantly, the level of
motivation to actively notice pragmatic transfer
or explicit instruction remains unclear,
necessitating qualitative research with more
participants over a prolonged period of time.
Volume 03 Issue 09-2023
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International Journal of Advance Scientific Research
(ISSN
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2750-1396)
VOLUME
03
ISSUE
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Pages:
51-57
SJIF
I
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(2021:
5.478
)
(2022:
5.636
)
(2023:
6.741
)
OCLC
–
1368736135
Conclucion While ESL environments generally
afford more opportunities for pragmatic
development than EFL settings, the dynamic
relationships between environment, motivation,
and pragmatic transfer all indicate that individual
differences have a greater role to play than just
exposure in the TL community. Thus, theory,
research and, most importantly, language
pedagogy must evolve to address the complexity
and difficulty of developing and assessing
pragmatic competence. As pragmatic competence
"containing cultural aspects and features of social
context
and
conventions
cannot
be
conceptualized without a target language and
culture in mind", future research should also
make explicit how the TL features to be measured
are tied to the TL culture at hand and what effect
deviations from the pragmatic norm have on
overall communicative competence, as well as
their relationship to both pragmatic transfer and
motivation.
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Bouton, L. F. (1988). A cross-cultural study
of ability to interpret implicatures in
English. World Englishes, 17, 183-196.
3.
Shimizu, T. (2009). Influence of learning
context on L2 pragmatic realization: A
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