An Investigation Of The Non-English Majors' Pragmatic Competence

Pragmatic competence is a frequently-discussed concept in linguistic research andEnglish as foreign language teaching (EFLT). Pragmatic competence means the abilityof appropriately choosing linguistic forms for a specific context, or of correctly usingthe language in social interaction. Learning a foreign language means not only thecultivation of linguistic competence, but more importantly, the cultivation of pragmaticcompetence. The investigations on pragmatic competence of the Chinese learners ofEnglish made by domestic researchers during the last twenty years reveal that thedevelopment of the linguistic competence and pragmatic competence of Chineselearners of English is incongruous, with the latter one falling greatly behind the formerone. Due to the poor pragmatic competence, pragmatic failures or even communicationbreakdown will be given rise to in real communication. Many pedagogical suggestionson how to raise the pragmatic competence of the learners have been put forward bythese researchers.Nowadays, the English learning environments in our country are improved greatly.Has the pragmatic competence of the Chinese learners been improved with theimprovement of these conditions? How about their pragmatic competence at present?Based on this research background, and with the aim of investigating Non-Englishmajors' pragmatic competence and summing up the advantages and disadvantages oftheir pragmatic competence and also exploring the corresponding methods in raisingtheir pragmatic competence, the present author investigates the pragmatic competenceof 279 non-English majors in Shandong Province. The investigation is undergone inthe form of questionnaire and interview. The subjects are grouped as group A, group Band group C respectively. When they finish the questionnaire, 20 students in eachgroup are chosen as the interviewees in order to investigate their understanding on theconcept of pragmatic competence and their trains of thoughts in choosing the answers.The result shows that their pragmatic competence is still of low level;they areincompetent in applying pragmatic principles, insensitive to cultural differences andthey still lack the awareness of using language in context. The pragmatic competenceand the linguistic achievements of CET4 are slightly correlated, which implies thataccumulation of linguistic knowledge is significant for the development of pragmaticcompetence. According to the weaknesses and problems, the present author proposessome pedagogical suggestions aimed at developing the non-English majors' pragmaticcompetence, including: teaching language in context, integrating cultural knowledge inthe teaching process, increasing exposure to authentic materials, encouraging languageoutput and using task-based classroom and teaching pragmatic theories and pragmaticknowledge. Needless to say, the 279 samples cannot fully represent all the Chineselearners of English, and the problems appeared in these subjects cannot cover all theproblems that will appear in the learning process of all the Chinese learners of English.Due to these limitations, it is pertinent to undergo pragmatic competence investigationin larger scale. Though the present author is still deficient in theoretical accumulationand research methods, this thesis is still an improvement for both theoretical andempirical research in pragmatic competence research.The present thesis consists of four chapters. In the first chapter, the authorintroduces the researches on pragmatic competence both at home and abroad anddiscusses the necessity of the present research. The second chapter is the theoreticalfoundation of the thesis, in which the author expounds the concept of pragmaticcompetence, linguistic competence and communicative competence, the relationshipamong the three factors, the definition of pragmatic failure, the knowledge needed fora pragmatically competent learner and the present situation of English as foreign EFLTin our country is. In the third chapter, the methodology, the process and the results ofthe investigation are introduced. According to the weaknesses and problems reflectedin the investigation, the present author proposes some pedagogical suggestions in thehope of through the practice of which the Chinese learners of English' pragmaticcompetence can be improved.