The Effect Of Explicit/Implicit Instruction On The Development Of Business English Students' Pragmatic Competence In "You-attitude"

In recent years,more and more researches in the field of interlanguage pragmatics focus on studying learners' development of pragmatic competence in foreign language classrooms.Most of them have proved the positive effect of instruction on learners' pragmatic competence,however,the suitable form and the long-term effect of instruction are rather controversial until now(Liddicoat and Crozet,2001;Takimoto, 2006).In fact,only few of empirical studies are conducted under the circumstances of China and targeted non business English major students.So this study can provide some implications in business English major students' pragmatic competence improvement and the pedagogical model of business English teachingBased on Schmidt's(1993) Noticing Hypothesis and Bialystok's(1993) Two-dimensional Model,the study attempts to answer four research questions:(1)Do learners' pragmatic competence of "You-attitude" improve after instruction?(2)Does explicit instruction have an advantage over implicit instruction in improving learners' pragmatic competence of "You-attitude"?(3)Do both explicit instruction and implicit instruction have long-term effect on learners' pragmatic awareness and the pragmatic appropriateness of their production of "You-attitude"?(4)Does explicit instruction have an advantage over implicit instruction in its long-term effect on learners' pragmatic awareness and the pragmatic appropriateness of their production of "You-attitude"?Ninety-two sophomore college students from Business English Major of Hei Longjiang University were randomly assigned to three groups(explicit group,implicit group and control group).The three groups were exposed to the same essays materials. However,the explicit group received explicit metapragmatic rules,and practiced them through direct consciousness-raising task,and then received metapragmatic feedback. While,the implicit group was provided with a combination of implicit techniques comprising typographical enhancement and indirect consciousness-raising task,then provided with implicit feedback without metapragmatic information. Results from the study indicate that:(1)Learners who received instruction,explicit or implicit,at least temporarily outperformed those who didn't;(2)In the short run learners' awareness of "You-attitude" equally benefited from both explicit instruction and implicit instruction,but the pragmatic appropriateness of their production benefited more from explicit instruction;and(3)The positive effect of instruction maintained in the long run and;(4)The explicit group gained an advantage over the implicit one in terms of their pragmatic awareness and the pragmatic appropriateness of their production.