A Study On The Pragmatic Competence Of English Majors In A Normal University

Economic globalization brings about the increase of cross-culturalcommunication, hence, cultivating learners’ communicative competence in foreignlanguage teaching is obviously becoming more and more important. However, thepromotion of communicative competence not only relies on linguistic competence,which consists of the ability of grasping and commanding language itself that fallsinto grammatical knowledge, but also pragmatic competence, which refers to theability of using language properly in specific situations. Linguistic competence is aperquisite condition to achieve a successful communication, and pragmaticcompetence determines the effectiveness of communication. However, the currentsituation in English teaching is that more attention goes to the promotion of linguisticcompetence of students from elementary school to college; as a result, the imbalanceleads to the deficient development of pragmatic competence among students atdifferent levels.The thesis draws on intercultural communication as theoretical framework,184English majors from a normal university participated the research. By employing theresearch instrument of the questionnaire, which was selectively taken from He Ziran’s(1988) and Zhao Feifei’s (2006) study, the thesis attempts to examine their pragmaticcompetence from the following aspects.1） The general picture of pragmatic competence of English majors in a normaluniversity;2) The relationship between students’ pragmatic competence and linguisticcompetence;3） The comparison and analysis of pragmatic failure of different types;The results indicate that1In general, the pragmatic competence of Englishmajors is beyond basic level but at a relatively low level, they are incompetent inappropriately applying linguistic forms to a concrete context2Students’ pragmaticcompetence is not consistent with their linguistic competence; this is to say, thedevelopment of linguistic competence is not parallel with the development ofpragmatic competence.3In terms of pragmatic failure, pragmalinguistic failure andsociopragmatic failure are analysed through a comparison. In contrast withpragmalinguistic failure, sociopragmatic failure is committed more frequently and thespeech act of apology contributes most in sociopragmatic failure. Pragmalinguisticfailure occupies a less proportion in pragmatic failure and the most common seenpragmalinguistic failure comes from attaching Chinese pattern including semantic and structure to English expressions.The thesis offers some pedagogical suggestions for improving pragmaticcompetence from the perspective of teachers and students. For example, cultural inputshould be integrated into foreign language teaching. Besides, cultivating students’pragmatic awareness and taking various pragmatics-oriented classroom activitiesshould also be considered and the exposure of authentic materials should be as moreas possible. What’s more, teachers’ self-improvement in pragmatic competencecan’t be ignored either.