A Study Of The Relationship Between EFL Learners' Motivation And Their Pragmatic Competence

Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP) is a new interdisciplinary domain that emerges on the basis of pragmatics and second language acquisition (SLA) in recent years. One of its central concerns that appeal to many researchers is second or foreign language learners' pragmatic development. Since pragmatic competence is a long neglected component of communicative competence, much remains to be scrutinized about its development. ILP draws theories from SLA to explain how learners' pragmatic competence develops. Motivation is assumed by many ILP studies (Dufon, 1999; Kasper & Rose, 2002; Locastro, 2003) as an important factor that influences the pragmatic development, yet few researches have examined the correlation between motivation and pragmatic competence with confident data support.The present study is an attempt to probe into the relationship between learners' motivation and their pragmatic competence in Chinese EFL context, in order to gain a better knowledge of ILP and provide suggestions on how to improve learners' pragmatic competence. Based on a review of studies on pragmatic competence and several motivational models, the current study examines learners' pragmatic competence together with four motivational variables, namely cultural motivation, instrumental motivation, attitude towards pragmatic learning and motivational intensity.The author conducts an empirical study among 86 non-English major students in Xiamen University, employing both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The quantitative research reveals that: 1) There is an imbalance between language proficiency and pragmatic competence. Although learners' pragmatic competence has been improved in certain aspects, many students still demonstrate insufficient pragmatic competence. 2) College students nowadays have a relatively stronger cultural motivation in English learning, especially strong interest in English movies and they generally hold a positive attitude towards pragmatic learning. 3) Cultural motivation is positively correlated with pragmatic competence, whereas instrumental motivation is negatively correlated with pragmatic competence. The qualitative research shows that the most crucial differences between the high pragmatic level learners and the low pragmatic level learners is that the former are driven by stronger cultural motivation and manifest higher level of pragmatic awareness through their metalinguistic reflection behaviors over their input.In the light of the above findings, the relationship between motivation and pragmatic competence can be generalized as follows: cultural motivation has a facilitative effect on learners' pragmatic development by enhancing their pragmatic awareness. There is, therefore, a need for teachers to initiate and sustain learners' cultural motivation besides integrating pragmatic teaching into regular English course. Specific suggestions are also offered for teachers on raising learners' pragmatic awareness and utilizing English movies effectively in EFL classroom settings.