An Empirical Study On English Pragmatic Competence Of Chinese Non-English Majors

The present study addressed a recently raised issue in the field of interlanguage pragmatics, particularly in examining the relationship between Chinese non-English majors'English pragmatic and linguistic competence, sexual differences and personality differences in pragmatic competence and strategies use in their pragmatic competence development. To this end, one questionnaire was administrated to 279 Chinese non-English majors. The questionnaire consists of an English pragmatic competence test and learner strategies investigation for pragmatic knowledge learning. The English pragmatic competence test is selectively taken from何自然's"A Survey of Pragmatics"and何自然&阎庄's"Chinese Students'Pragmatic Failure in English Communication". The learner strategies investigation is based on Oxford's SILL. According to the results of the questionnaire, 14 students are selected to attend an interview, which was aimed to look into the problems in pragmatic knowledge teaching and find out the essential reasons for learner strategies use. By using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the present study offers some interesting findings. Chinese non-English majors'English pragmatic competence is closely related to their English linguistic competence. There are significant sexual differences in English pragmatic competence of Chinese non-English majors while personality differences in their English pragmatic competence are not so significant. In English pragmatic competence development, Chinese non-English majors mainly use communication strategies, and the awareness of context and culture differences as well as adequate understanding has a significant correlation with their English pragmatic competence. There is no significant difference between students with high English pragmatic competence and with low English pragmatic competence in the use of seven categories of learner strategies for pragmatic knowledge learning, but in some items, such as summarizing proper context for different English patterns or adequate understanding of utterances, the differences are significant. According to these findings, this study offers some suggestions for college English teaching. For example, input of English pragmatic knowledge in proper contexts should be increased; Students'sexual differences and personality differences should be treated appropriately in English teaching. And learner strategies training should be integrated into English pragmatic knowledge teaching. The pedagogical implications and limitations of the study are also mentioned, followed by suggestions for further studies.