Pragmatic Evaluation Of Directive Speech Acts In Fun With English

Language competence encompasses grammatical competence and pragmatic competence. However, it is usually seen in the pertinent literature that a learner’s being fully knowledgeable about the grammar of the target language does not guarantee that s/he is pragmatically competent, too. They can produce grammatically correct but pragmatically inappropriate utterances, which may lead to breakdowns in communication, which is called "pragmatic failure" and may result from some factors. In EFL settings, one of the most dominant reasons is the problems with input. Learners have to be exposed to a great amount of input in the classroom settings. Nevertheless, as the most common source of input, textbooks seem to have problems with the presentation of pragmatic input, i.e. speech acts.A handful of researches have been conducted on the investigation of speech acts presented in coursebooks and found the recorded materials learners are exposed to are poor materials to foster their pragmatic abilities. Till now, little research has been carried out in terms of the EFL textbooks issued in China. The present study, therefore, takes Fun With English as target objects, with relevant pragmatic theories as theoretical framework, investigating how the directive speech acts, especially the acts of suggestions and requests which may easily threaten the hearers’face if not used appropriately, are realized in the teaching materials. Furthermore, EFL teachers using this series of textbooks in classroom are investigated via questionnaire, examining how they appraise, use the textbooks and how they teach directive speech acts so as to add to our insights into EFL learners’ development of pragmatic competence and the effectiveness of the instruction of pragmatic knowledge in classrooms.The final results indicate that the six most frequently-used directive speech acts except threatening are incorporated in the textbooks but their weight are not average, with suggestions presented in large quantities(with a frequency of326). Moreover, except that the act of suggestions are partially explicitly explained in the books, the other four directive acts are all introduced via implicit approach. Although the speech act of suggestions are realized by various syntactic forms, the frequencies of which are not so congruent with those which occur in real life. Among the eight strategies in realizing the act of requests classified by Trosborg, only four categories are provided in the books. Besides, a majority of the requests presented in the books are realized in the form of conventionally indirect (hearer-oriented), which is in conformity with language learners’ production showing preference for Conventional Indirect over Direct and Non-conventional Indirect in making requests as well as the previous EFL or ESL textbooks examinations which show the majority of request strategies included in the textbooks falling into the category of conventionally indirect (hearer-based) requests. Nevertheless, both for the speech act of suggestions and requests, the transcripts of the textbooks surveyed ignore a majority of the modification devices and focus on only a small number. Although many EFL teachers have noticed the inadequacy of the pragmatic information provided by the textbooks, few have supplemented for this insufficiency in classrooms. This study also finds that EFL teachers from cities and enjoying higher diploma attach more importance to the development of students’pragmatic competence. Finally, this study gives some implications both for the textbooks compilers and EFL teachers, which may be beneficial for textbook and pedagogical development.