Pragmatic Analysis Of Indirect Reply In Listening Comprehension-A Case Study Of Chinese EFL Learners

Pragmatic ability, which is an important part of the language proficiency construct, is the ability to use language appropriately according to the communicative situation. Processing pragmatic meaning differs from processing linguistic meaning because pragmatic meaning requires the listener to understand not only linguistic information, such as vocabulary and syntax, but also contextual information, such as the role and status of the interlocutor. Pragmatic competence plays an important role in comprehending indirectness. This thesis introduced pragmatic competence in understanding indirect replies and investigated whether second language (L2) proficiency affects pragmatic comprehension, namely the ability to comprehend implied meaning ( indirect reply) in spoken dialogues, in terms of accuracy. An attempt is made to analyze Chinese EFL learners'pragmatic failures and success in comprehending the indirect replies uttered by native English speakers and to discover some relevant factors and causes of such pragmatic failure or success and implications for Chinese English language teaching as well as learning.