A Comparative Study On Pragmatic Information In Chinese And Foreign EFL Textbooks

Pragmatics is the systematic study of appropriate language use in context,and has important implications for second and foreign language learning and teaching.In fact,the Notional-functional Syllabus that developed in Europe in the 1970s,the Communicative Language Teaching that emerged in the 1980s,and the Task Based Language Teaching that rose in the 1990s all emphasized the important role of pragmatic knowledge in foreign language teaching and learning.Therefore,how to integrate pragmatic knowledge into foreign language teaching and improve students'pragmatic competence and awareness are important issues that must be explored in foreign language teaching.However,the existing research mainly discusses the students'second language pragmatic competence and its influence factors,and some other studies have explored how to input pragmatic knowledge in formal teaching.The investigation of pragmatic information in teaching materials is severely inadequate and there is little research focusing on the similarities and differences of pragmatic information in Chinese and foreign English textbooks.Teaching materials are the main instruments of classroom teaching,and they serve as the main source of knowledge input.Therefore they play a crucial role in developing students'foreign language competence.Given the importance of teaching materials and pragmatic knowledge in foreign language teaching and learning,and taking the shortcomings of existing research into consideration,the present study compares pragmatic information between Chinese and foreign EFL textbooks in terms of representation manners,topics and frequencies.The study selected 3 most widely-used EFL textbooks in China and abroad separately,the proficiency level of which are all between CEFR B₁ to B₂.After a detailed analysis of the chosen textbooks,the present study turned out the following major findings:?1?As for the pragmatic topics,both the pragmatic topics in general and the subtypes in particular of speech acts are far from enough to be exposed to learners in textbooks,especially for Chinese textbooks.?2?In terms of representation manners,both groups of textbooks have used the ways of presenting explanations,giving examples and doing exercises,among which doing exercises is the most frequently used manner.The way of presenting explanations appears much more frequently in foreign EFL textbooks than in Chinese textbooks.?3?With regard to frequencies,foreign EFL textbooks include much more pragmatic topics and subtypes of speech acts,while pragmatic knowledge is under-presented in Chinese textbooks.The present study has important practical implications for textbooks compilation and pragmatic competence teaching and learning in China.