Investigating Pragmatic Awareness among EFL Learners : The Case of 3rd Year Students at the Department of English, Tlemcen University

Abstract

The present study seeks first and foremost to show the great importance of developing pragmatic competence to acquire a second language.Nowdays, pragmatic competence has been recognized as an essential constituent of communicative competence . However , there is a total scarcity of pragmatic aspects and their teaching seems to be marginalized compared to other aspects of the target language. Consequently , learners find difficulties in using the language appropriately in different contexts , and breakdowns in communication can not be escaped . Among these breakdowns is the so called pragmatic failure . In our study , we cast light on aspects of pragmatic failure among 3rd year EFL students in Tlemcen University by examining students’ productions and perceptions of three different speech acts . To this end, a mixed methods approach was selected to collect data using a questionnaire , a test in the form of DCTs and an interview. The analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data indicated that learners have an average pragmatic competence which still requires more endeavour to develop. Learners proved to fail at different levels as they demonstrated instances of pragmalinguistic failure (especially transfer from their L1) and also sociopragmatic failure. This calls for serious intervention to repair the situation and direct more attention to the pragmatic dimension in the teaching of English in the context under investigation.