A Study Of Influence Of Individual Differences On English Learners’ Pragmatic And Grammatical Competence In China

Research on interlanguage pragmatics encompasses a wide range of issue for discussion. Many researches about language learners’pragmatic competence have been conducted, such as pragmatic failure, correlation between pragmatic and linguistic competence, classroom instruction and development of pragmatic competence, etc. However, whether grammatical competence has influence on pragmatic competence, different scholars hold different points and researches present different results. As one of the broadly recognized factors in interlanguage acquisition and research, individual differences play a crucial role in the acquisition since teaching methods changed from teacher-centered into student-centered. Up to now, studies on pragmatic competence from the aspect of language learners’individual differences have the following limitations:(1) Studies are only about the relationship between pragmatic competence and one of the individual differences, and few studies answer the subject:to what extent individual differences play their roles in the language learners’pragmatic competence.(2) Few researches concern the relationship between individual differences and pragmatic/grammatical competence of non-English major students in China.The present study intends to explore the following research questions:(1) Are there any relationships between the Chinese non-English majors’ grammatical competence and pragmatic competence? If there are, what are they?(2) If there is the influence of individual differences on Chinese non-English majors’ pragmatic/grammatical competence? To what extent will these individual factors affect the pragmatic/grammatical competence?The participants in the study are120sophomores who major in Economics in Lanzhou University of Finance and Economics. Data are collected from three questionnaires, which are Pragmatic Competence Questionnaire, Grammatical Competence Questionnaire, and Individual Differences Questionnaire. In the end,97(56from female students,41from male students) valid research questionnaires were taken back. SPSS Version11.5is used to analyze the data. Pearson Correlation analysis is utilized to identify the relationship between grammatical competence and pragmatic competence. One-way ANOVA is applied to test the influence of individual differences on grammatical/pragmatic competence.Findings reveal the existence of relationship between grammatical and pragmatic competence as well as the influence of individual differences on grammatical competence and pragmatic competence. The major findings are:(1) There is the correlation between grammatical and pragmatic competence, but this positive relationship is not very strong.(2) Gender and learning motivation influence the development of grammatical and pragmatic competence significantly. However, there is little evidence to support that there is significant influence of different types of personality on the learners’ grammatical/pragmatic competence. So does the relationship between learning styles and the learners’grammatical/pragmatic competence.Based on these research findings, this study provides some suggestions for the development of grammatical/pragmatic competence in Non-English Majors. Finally, the thesis points out the pedagogical implications and the limitations of the research.