Using a pragmatic approach to develop the English learners’ pragmatic communicative strategies

Abstract

The present thesis aims at contributing to research works which stress the need and the importance of incorporating pragmatics in a more substantial way into English language teaching. It studies the case of Master students at the Department of letters and the English Language, University of Constantine 1. It focuses on the pragmatic communicative strategies learners may deploy to avoid the inhibition of communication and miscommunication. It also emphasizes that efficient English language teaching must integrate pragmatic factors and issues in order to obtain satisfactory results not only in the classrooms but, more importantly, when learners use the English language in real and authentic contexts. The hypothesis stated that an approach to teaching English which takes into consideration all of the linguistic, pragmatic and functional aspects of language would enhance the pragmatic and communicative strategies of the learners. To test this hypothesis, the study makes use of two research instruments, a questionnaire administered to a sample of teachers and a Written Discourse Completion Task administered to a sample of students. The questionnaire aims at investigating the current teaching approaches and practices in the classroom. The Discourse Completion Task is used to elicit the different strategies Master students use in different communicative situations. A theoretical framework for a more pragmatic approach and a syllabus based on a pragmatic view of language use are suggested. These are significantly different from the usual approaches in that they rely substantially on a more up to date conception of language use in different social and cultural contexts.