Representation Of Speech Act In English Textbooks In Chinese Senior High Schools

Foreign language teaching has attracted much attention in the field of linguistics,covering vocabulary,syntax,grammar,semantics and pragmatics.In recent years,increasing attention has been paid to the teaching of pragmatic competence in EFL contexts.Previous studies have found that EFL learners? development pragmatic competence does not necessarily correspond to their development of lexicogrammatical competence(i.e.,vocabulary and grammar).In order to promote EFL learners? pragmatic competence,scholars at home and abroad have examined the representation of pragmatic knowledge in EFL textbooks.However,currently very few studies have investigated the representation of pragmatic knowledge in secondary EFL textbooks.In the few such studies,the majority have focused on examining vocabulary and grammar,whereas less attention has been paid to the pragmatic aspect.To bridge this gap,this study adopts both quantitative and qualitative methods to comprehensively analyze the representation of pragmatic knowledge in secondary EFL textbooks,by zooming into the latest version of Chinese high school English textbooks,to promote the teaching of foreign languages.Specifically,the study analyzes the pragmatic knowledge,focusing on speech acts,represented in the textbooks by examining seven high school English textbooks used in Chinese senior high schools.The research questions I seek to answer include:(1)To what extent are speech acts and their realizations represented in English textbooks that are currently used in Chinese senior high schools?(2)Does the representation of pragmatic knowledge such as speech acts increase with grades?(3)Do the representation of speech acts and their realizations meet the requirements set by the National English Curriculum Standards,and if not,what implications can the current investigation offer for adapting or designing textbooks that can better facilitate the teaching of pragmatic knowledge in the Chinese context?Based on the data analysis,this study found that:(1)An average of eight speech acts was represented in each of the seven textbooks,and there were three ways of presenting them,namely through dialogue,grammar,and lists of expressions.(2)The representation of speech acts did not increase as students progressed through the grades,but rather,the representation was random and illogical.(3)The seven textbooks under examination presented a limited number of speech acts and their realizations,which suggested that they do not meet the requirements of the new curriculum for the representation of pragmatic knowledge.With regard to the problems in representing pragmatic knowledge in the selected textbooks,the study offers the following suggestions for English teaching practitioners and teaching materials writers to improve the representation of pragmatic knowledge:(1)Teachers could increase the number of speech acts during instruction.(2)Teachers could increase the diversity of speech acts realizations when teaching speech acts.(3)Textbook compilers could arrange the realizations of speech acts in a logical way.(4)Textbook compilers could add more meta-pragmatic information in textbooks.To conclude,as textbooks are the most important sources of pragmatic and lexicogrammatical knowledge for EFL learners,it is of vital importance to evaluate the content of textbooks to see if they meet the needs of EFL learners?.This study would have some implications and applications for the design and adaption of EFL textbooks.