Chinese Efl Learners’ Pragmatic Competence And Development: An Interlanguage Pragmatic Perspective

Pragmatic competence refers to the ability to appropriately use a target language (TL) inactual contexts, which is an essential component of communicative competence. The studyand exploration of pragmatic development belongs to the field of interlanguage pragmatics(ILP).Oriented in1980s, ILP is a disciplinary branch across pragmatics and second languageacquisition (SLA), which mainly deals with language learners’ pragmatic competence tounderstand and perform certain speech acts in given contexts besides studying thedevelopment of their pragmatic competence from the pragmatic perspective.In the past30years, scholars and researches have done abundant researches on the relation betweenlinguistic competence and pragmatic competence, but research on the development ofpragmatic competence as an independent variable is not well explored. As the ultimate goal ofEnglish teaching should be cultivating EFL learners’ communicative competence, anincreasing number of language educators and scholars begin to realize the significance ofdeveloping EFL learners’ pragmatic competence.Based-on interlanguage pragmatic perspective, this paper intends to explore andinvestigate the current state of interlanguage pragmatic competence and interlanguagepragmatic development for Chinese English learners’ through both cross-sectional andlongitudinal perspectives.In cross-sectional research, data indicated that the average level of Chinese Englishlearners’ interlanguage pragmatic competence is not in parallel with their linguisticcompetence or language proficiency. In regard to the relationship between linguisticcompetence and interlanguage pragmatic competence, they are separate from each other. Linguistic competence development will not naturally lead to the appropriate use of targetlanguage. To change the imbalance of the present situation, interlanguage pragmaticknowledge should be imparted to the students through all stages of language teaching in aseparate and explicit way besides grammatical knowledge of the language.In longitudinal research, the writer noticed that after receiving a15-week-longclassroom-based explicit interlanguage pragmatic instruction, the experimental classdemonstrated a great improvement in interlanguage pragmatic performance, whereas thecontrolled class didn’t show any magnificent progress. Data got from the research indicatedthat interlanguage pragmatic knowledge is teachable. Moreover, the imbalance lies betweenthe pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic performance of the experimental subjects isdistinctly reduced after they received explicit pragmatic instructions.Based on the data got from research and aimed at enhancing language learners’interlanguage pragmatic competence, the writer put forward a series of concrete suggestionson how to guide learners’ interlanguage pragmatic development in class. Learners’interlanguage pragmatic awareness should also be enhanced in order to enhance theirinterlanguage pragmatic competence effectively.