investigating efl learners’ pragmatic failure: case of master’s one students at tlemcen university

Abstract

The aim of this research is to investigate the issue of EFL learners’ pragmatic failure at the University of Tlemcen by studying the different strategies used in performing the speech acts of: apology, request, thanking and compliment response in English. After comparing the results obtained from the questionnaire and the DCT, that were answered by Master’s one students, to the strategies used by English native speakers; the findings revealed that EFL learners do face pragmatic failure while performing the different speech acts in the different contexts especially at the sociopragmatic level. This type of pragmatic failure happens generally because of the lack of interaction with natives and the absence of the pragmatic awareness and the knowledge about the socio-cultural norms governing the language use in English.