I. INTRODUCTION
Pragmatics –the use of language in context- emerged out of merging several disciplines both from microlinguistics and the macrolinguistics in the late 1970s. Pragmatics has a place in macrolinguistic in the division of linguistics described by Lyons (1981), however it has a much larger theoretical and empirical basis. Pragmatics’ phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic bases in microlinguistics and psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropological and cognitive linguistics bases in macrolinguistics assign it an interdisciplinary role in language studies (Verschueren, 1999).
Pragmatics –the use of language in context- emerged out of merging several disciplines both from microlinguistics and the macrolinguistics in the late 1970s. Pragmatics has a place in macrolinguistic in the division of linguistics described by Lyons (1981), however it has a much larger theoretical and empirical basis. Pragmatics’ phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic bases in microlinguistics and psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropological and cognitive linguistics bases in macrolinguistics assign it an interdisciplinary role in language studies (Verschueren, 1999).
Pragmatics as a branch of (macro)linguistics studies language in use, language in communication, speaker intentions and the analysis of meaning other than the conventional use is quite important to foreign language learning and teaching. The contemporary inclinations towards helping learners gain communicative competence and viewing language as a whole have close links between teaching and learning the pragmatics of the target language.
Several definitions of pragmatics is given in the literature, all of which emphasize concepts like language use, communication, context, communicative act, etc. Roughly speaking, pragmatics is said to be the branch of linguistics studying language in context and language in communication. However, a precise definition would help us to go further in our analysis of the role of pragmatics in education. Crystal (1997) offers that pragmatics is “the study of language from the point of view of language users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication” (p. 301). As the definition suggests, pragmatics has much to do with interaction and the socialization issues, however our scope in this paper will more be related to the reflections of this interactive processes to the language classroom, which will be analyzed under applied pragmatics.
Therefore, in this paper, the birth and development of pragmatics and its relations to several approaches, theories and hypothesis will be dealt with. Later, the scope of pragmatics will be covered in the nature and composition of pragmatics part. Pragmatics’ relations to FLL and FLT and the contemporary concept of applied pragmatics will be analyzed in detail. Lastly, a criticism of pragmatics will be given and a conclusion will be done.
II. RELATED APPROACHES, THEORIES AND HYPOTHESES
Development of pragmatics has close links with the development of many linguistic phenomena, which paved way for the birth of pragmatics. Pragmatics’ interdisciplinary nature provides it links between various approaches, theories and hypotheses, many of which help us gain insight in how to teach and learn the foreign language. All of the approaches and theories cited here has a pragmatic concern from different point of views.
II.I. The Communicative Approach
Chomsky’s (1965) Transformational Grammar with its emphasis on the surface structure and the deep structure was much criticized by many scholars in terms of its excessive concern for syntax and its deficiency in accounting for meaning. Transformational Grammar showed no interest in the questions like interlocutors’ motivation, social status and culture that is to affect the language processing (Haslett, 1987), therefore its inability to extrapolate the extra-linguistic and meta-linguistic context (Dascal,2003) in language use paved the way of the emergence of communicative perspectives of language, hence the Communicative Approach came into being with the general goals of “making the communicative competence the basic goal of language teaching” and “developing procedures for teaching of four language skills” (Richards and Rodgers, 2001:155)
It was Dell Hymes (1972) who broadened Chomsky’s (1965) language “competence and performance” into communicative competence. In Hymes’ definition of the communicative competence there was an emphasis on feasibility and appropriacy (1972:281), which corresponds to the province of pragmatics. Therefore we can say that Hymes was one of the first who systematized the importance of pragmatics in the definition of language “competence”. However, communicative competence was expanded by Canale and Swain (1983) to grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic competence. While there was no separate description of pragmatic competence, the discourse and the sociolinguistic competences well accounted for the study of “language in context”. Their categorization of communicative competence had four divisions as follows.
-grammatical competence incorporates the knowledge linguistic features such as phonology, morphology, syntax and even semantics,
-sociolinguistic competence involves the knowledge of contextually appropriate language use,
-discourse competence involves the knowledge of correct binding and understanding of utterances in the written and spoken discourse, and
-strategic competence comprise the knowledge of how to repair the communicative breakdowns and how to make the communication more effective (summarized from Canale and Swain, 1983).
The descriptions of communicative competence were not limited in that any scholar found some part of it deficient to expound the phenomenon as a whole and inclusive issue. Hence, Bachman and Palmer (1996) were the ones in operationalizing the “term pragmatics” in the description of communicative competence. According to them, competence was divided into two as “organizational and pragmatic competence”. Organizational competence incorporates the grammatical competence (vocabulary, syntax, morphology and phonology) and the textual competence (cohesion and coherence) whereas pragmatic competence involves sociolinguistic competence (where to use) and illocutionary competence (how to use, the language forms, in a context). Pragmatic competence took part in Bachman and Palmer’s categorization for the first time as an explanatory term comprising both sociolinguistic and discourse competences.
II.II. Whole Language Approach
This approach came into being taking its roots from researches of reading in 1980s. It based its views on various methods and approaches such as, humanism, constructivism, learning by doing, collaborative learning, interactional approach and emphasis on authenticity. As a reaction to decoding approach and phonics, which impressed on grammar and vocabulary, whole language approach gave importance to language as a whole from its linguistic description to the use of authentic natural language.
Richards and Rodgers (2001) state that whole language approach focuses on “learning to read and write naturally with the focus on real communication…” (p. 108). Meaning and the meaning of meaning, which is the major concern of pragmatics was crucial in the philosophy of whole language approach. Language is always thought to be used in a social context both in the first and second languages. It sees language not only as a means of communication, but also a means of internal interaction/speech which uses language in cognition and thought. As speakers we use language just to think, speak, remember or dream and in other psychological silent processes in the “context of the mind” (Dascal, 2003).
Whole language approach, driving from its constructivist nature, proposes that the learners should take part in authentic, meaningful and natural language in written and spoken production and construct their own knowledge and data in communicative activities. Learners are advised to participate in the collaborative, productive work in which socialization is present. Therefore, the whole language approach's focus on authentic, natural and meaningful language use provide a suitable basis for teaching of pragmatics whether explicitly or implicitly in a socialization context. The teacher’s role as a member of the community rather than an authority and the learner’s role as a collaborator, interactor and discourse builder contribute to the exchange of meaning and consequently to the acquisition of pragmatics in the classroom, which is the place for sociocultural and sociocognitive contexts. Also the general claim of whole language “language is a whole” corresponds to the pragmatic concerns in that it emphasizes on a historically neglected part of language (in context) due to the behaviorist approach, and Chomsky’s influential description of language competence which overlooks meaning.
II.III. Sociocultural Approach
Sociocultural approach provides both a psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic basis for the development of pragmatics. The originator of the sociocultural approach,. Lev Vygotsky contributed to the area by two terms, one of which is the Zone of Proximal Development and the other Private Speech. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978) provides a language socialization environment in which pragmatics can be acquired. He defines ZPD as “the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable learners” (1978:86). Zone of proximal development describes the environment where the children encounter people older than them and learn from the interactions taking place between them. This learning process involves cultural adaptation, however, for cultural adaptation to take place children learn to use the language first to direct their own behaviors as their parents once did (Kristinsdóttir, 2001). In the learning processes language turns out to be the primary tool for intellectual development in the child. Language acts as a tool for intellectual development/ development of cognition first by private speech, which shows the child’s ability to use language to direct speech behaviour without parental help. As the time passes private speech turns into inner speech by which the child directs his own thoughts without voicing the ideas. However the child’s primary goal in using language is not only psychopragmatic, namely not only directing his speech behaviors or cognition, in contrast his main goal is to adapt to society in a socialization process, then the phenomenon of internalization takes place. Second language acquisition –also the pragmatics of the second language- takes place in such a social environment where second language is used as a socialization tool. Socialization environment is not only a tool for children, but it is also an environment where pragmatics is acquired by both second language learners and acquirers.
In the framework of ZPD two sets of theories of language “language socialization (Ochs, 1996; Kanagy, 1999) and sociocognitive theories” is incorporated (Kasper, 2001a; Hall, 1995). These are the contributions of neo-Vygotskyan approach to the area. “Language Socialization is the process whereby children and other novices are socialized through language, part of such socialization being a socialization to use language meaningfully, appropriately and effectively” (Ochs, 1996:408), sociocognitive theories, on the other hand, “emphasize the interrelation of social, cognitive, and linguistic development, the collaborative construction of these interrelated knowledge components in social interaction and their embeddedness in historical, sociocultural and institutional contexts” (Kasper, 2001a). Kanagy (1999) analyzed kindergarten children and how they are socialized into language through repletion and scaffolding, the latter of which serves a more sound basis for the acquisition of pragmatics in the classroom context. By linking the language socialization to the sociocognitive views, Hall (1995) suggests that intra-individual aspect of communicative competence is extended to inter-individual perception of interactional competence. Only by the help of the socialization can we acquire the cultural information in the teacher-learner and learner-learner interactions (Rose and Kasper 2001).
II.IV. Functionalist Approach
The functionalist approach drew attention to the relationship between form and meaning. Givón (1979) analyzed theme-rheme (topic-comment) structures and concluded that beginning learners relied more on these structures rather than syntactic subject-verb structures. It was argued that syntactic categories develop only as prototypes of which are based on semantic information. For example, a child would say “daddy chair” instead of “it is daddy’s chair”, therefore children rely on these theme-rheme structures, just as the second language learners do. Budwig (1995) found that there are four main orientations in the use of such expressions, which may also apply to the acquisition of a second language: cognitive, textual, social and multifunctional orientations. Cognitive orientation refers to the child’s limited cognitive development and basic child grammar by which the child constructs form-function relations. Textual orientation refers to the child’s construction of a discourse by using coherence and cohesion elements such as deictics or conjunctions. Social orientation refers to the use of speech acts or other pragmatic resources in relation to the social context and multifunctional orientation refers to the relations of grammatical development to the event or content schemata.
Functionalist second language acquisition researchers also made a distinction between pragmatic and syntactic modes of expressions. While syntactic modes of expressions incorporated a grammatical subject-predicate structure, pragmatic modes of expressions (theme-rheme structures) were discourse dependent and resembled to the acquisition of first language. They were the result of the limited linguistic capacity, but to desire to communicate meaning or fulfill the function. This meant that they use the pragmatic resources when the linguistic resources are deficient. Functionalist researches helped us understand the nature of interlanguage better (Mitchell and Myles, 1997).
II.V. Discourse Theory
Developed by Hatch (1978), Discourse Theory was derived out of pragmatics and it assumes that L2 learner gains motivation to “accomplish actions in the world and develop the rules of language structure and use” (Cherry,1979:122). Hatch depending on M.A.K. Halliday’s notion of first language acquisition which asserts that there is little difference between the acquisition of first and the second languages and that learners develop the use of rules through interpersonal uses, namely we acquire formal linguistic rules through communication. The basic assumptions of the theory is that “SLA follows a natural route in syntactical development and NSs adjust their speech to negotiate meaning with the NNSs” (Ellis, 1985:259) According to Hatch it is the social interaction that gives the best data to the L2 learner to process, so it is suggested that SLA occurs in interaction. By the negotiation of meaning, the L2 learner can make pragmatic interpretation (understanding the speaker’s meaning). Positive or negative feedback provides the learner the adjusted input that facilitates acquisition of the second language, thus pragmatics. Especially speech acts are the core elements, whose development Hatch analyzed through acquisition of second language.
II.VI. Interactonist Theory
As a reaction to the extreme ends that Behaviourist Theory and the Nativist Theory pose in terms of language acquisition, interactionist theory has bound the fallacies of both theories by claiming that both linguistic environment and the innate mechanisms contribute to the language acquisition. Lightbown and Spada (1999) assert that there is a dynamic relationship between the child’s human characteristics and his environment and they state that language development is the result of “the complex interplay between the uniquely human characteristics of the child and the environment in which the child develops” (1999:22), therefore the social interaction incorporates the meaning and interpretations. Pragmatic interpretation occurs also as a result of the interactions which are closely linked to environment and innate mechanisms. Interactionist theory calls for an interactive environment which models and presents a variety of social, linguistic, and cognitive tools for structuring and interpreting participation in talk. According to the theory communicative interaction encourages cooperative relationships among students and it gives learners an opportunity to work on negotiating meaning. Negotiation of meaning provides a sound basis for development of pragmatic ability.
II.VII. Noticing Hypothesis
The hypothesis claims that learners have to notice L2 features in the input to achieve development in L2 (Schmidt, 1994). The hypothesis postulates that in order for input to become intake and to be an object of further processing, it has to be taken under awareness. By noticing the gap between the input and output can the learner acquire knowledge consciously (Takahashi, 2005). There is a link between the noticing hypothesis and acquisition of pragmatics in that it asserts that only by noticing under explicit instruction can pragmatics be acquired (Kasper, 2001a). Schmidt (1994) claims that only unconscious induction with a consequence of implicit learning (unconscious establishment of abstract rules) can take place without awareness. Schmidt (2001) proposes that attended learning is far superior to unattended learning and he categorizes the term awareness into different subcategories of different mechanisms such as alertness, orientation, preconscious registration (detection without awareness), selection, facilitation and inhibition (p.3). He postulates that understanding and investigating the phenomenon of noticing will also help us to take insights in the nature of understanding “variation, fluency, individual differences and the role of instruction”, which are also closely related to the development of interlanguage pragmatics. Takahashi (2005) found that the group paying more attention to the pragmatically oriented question forms outdid the control group. Other researches investigating awareness also found similar results (Leow, 2000; Elena Rosa and Michael D. O’Neill, 1999,)
II. VIII. Output Hypothesis
Swain (1993) argued for the importance of comprehensible output in the SLA process. What she means by this is that learners, in their effort to be understood in the target language, are pushed in their production and may try out new forms or modify others. During this production Ls notice the gap between their interlanguage and output, therefore the output turns into a way of testing hypotheses in L2. This production is beyond formulaic speech and it requires analyzed knowledge (the noticed gap) that is not recalled in comprehension, namely it is implicit. The output hypothesis also claims that automatization of representations necessitates repeated productive use (Kasper, 2001a). By depending on the analysis of Ellis (1990), Basturkmen (2006) summarized three major principles discriminating Swain’s hypothesis from predecessors.
· “The need to produce output that is precise, coherent and appropriate during negotiation of meaning encourages the learners to develop the necessary grammatical resources.
· During output the learners can try out their hypotheses about language. Production as opposed to comprehension, may force the learner to move from semantic to syntactic processing. It is possible to comprehend a message without any syntactic analysis of the input it contains.
· Production is the trigger that forces learners to pay attention to the means of expression” (p. 124).
By depending on the summary given by Basturkmen, it may be asserted that not only SLA but also acquisition of pragmatics takes place via the same procedures. The acquisition of pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic procedures is facilitated through output-dominant classes.
II.IX. Interaction Hypothesis
The hypothesis integrates the noticing hypothesis and the output hypothesis. It postulates that “negotiation of meaning, and especially the negotiation work that triggers interactional adjustments by the NS or more competent interlocutor, facilitates acquisition because it connects input, internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention, and output in productive ways” (Long, 1996: 451). Long’s (1996) updated version of the interactionist hypothesis claims that implicit negative feedback, which can be obtained through negotiated interaction, facilitates SLA. By these interactional adjustments acquisition of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic forms occur.
III. THE BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF PRAGMATICS
By the late 1970s scholars began to understand the inadequacy of transformational grammars to elucidate the extra-linguistic and meta-linguistic context of language use. These deficiencies and the emerging need for a connected discourse in language analysis gave way to the development of “text grammars” Text grammars dealing with connected utterances rather than single ones was concerned with connections between the sentences in discourse and the difficulty of developing intersubjectively valid interpretations of texts (Reisser, 1977) However, Reisser added that these grammars were short in explaining the distinction between syntax, semantics and texts in real time. Van Dijk (1977) also said that text grammars dealt with the texts as if they were a single discourse.
Hence the oppositions against the text grammars caused the communicative aspects such as extra-linguistic and meta-linguistic contexts (Dascal, 2003) to be combined into the grammars. Thus, despite many criticisms and the controversies over its scope of analysis, pragmatics developed out of the studies of language in use in human communication. However, there were earlier bases for pragmatics coming from Carnap (1942) and Malinowski (1935). According to Carnap, there was a hierarchy in the formation of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Syntax provided input to semantics and semantics to pragmatics. However, this approach to classification of micro and macrolinguistic elements was a kind of separative and was not complementary. He took syntax and semantics independent of pragmatics; therefore, he left pragmatics ill-defined. (Carnap, 1942).
Malinowski was one of the first paying attention to the context and functionalism. Malinowski (1935) assumed meaning in context and he described three levels of situations , one of which is related to the “context of utterance” (Malinowski, 1923:301, cited in Nerlich and Clarke 1996:325). He found studying function more important than the syntax, for the function was the key to the comprehension of the words. He adopted a radical functionalism and pragmatism and stressed on the fact that we can only understand the words by active experience, however he was an extreme individualist discarding the social dimension of the language
Later came the works of Austin (1962) and Searle (1976) and the speech act theory came into being. According to them, while speaking we fulfilled certain functions, such as asking, informing or reporting. Speech acts are thought to be the basic units of communication, just like phonemes for phonology and morphemes for morphology. Speech act theory tries to elucidate how speakers use language to accomplish intended actions and how hearers infer intended meaning form what is said. J. Austin classified speech acts as locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary speech acts. Then, Grice (1989) came up with the cooperative principle and the conversational maxims, which seem to be a result of common sense, but are vital for human communication without ambiguity. He also categorized meaning as natural and non-natural meaning, which incorporates the analysis of meaning that is not in the scope of the semantics, but in pragmatics with figures of speech.
Today by making use of the data from pragmatics studies, many researchers investigate the development of interlanguage pragmatics in terms of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge. There have been various researches investigating speech act realizations, deictics, coherence and cohesion, polite forms, etc. The reflections of pragmatics are today accumulated under the title of applied pragmatics, which will be analyzed later.
IV. BASIC PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATICS
Because pragmatics has an interdisciplinary nature its basic principles come from interdisciplinarily from various branch of sciences, but mostly from first and second language acquisition studies. Pragmatics’ interactional and “in use” aspect provide it a complex basis depending on interaction, socialization and cognition. Here we will analyze the basic principles in detail.
1. Analyzing speaker’s meaning (meaning other than the conventional use and which is a matter of contrast in speech; Clark, 2004), language in context and language in communication are the matters of pragmatics.
2. Pragmatics is related to the microlinguistics with the sub-branch of pragmalinguistics and to the macrolinguistics with the sub-branch of sociopragmatics of applied pragmatics.
3. Pragmatics is not only a matter of verbal communication, but there is also a pragmatics of the mind, by which we use the language to think other than the communicative uses of language.
4. Pragmatics is an inherent part of our communicative competence in that it deals with the appropriacy issue.
5. By the negotiation of meaning, the L2 learner can make pragmatic interpretation by using each other’s output, so he can understand the speaker’s meaning.
6. Pragmatics is acquired in a socialization context in which interaction between the peers and adults (ZPD) takes place.
7. This pragmatic socialization is implicit and takes place with the child’s participation. It can only take place explicitly in a classroom context by teacher’s emphasis on the need to attend to the pragmalinguistic forms (Kasper, 2001a)
8. There is an interrelation of social, cognitive and linguistic development. The collaborative construction of these “knowledges” takes place in social interaction and they are embedded in historical, sociocultural and institutional contexts (Kasper, 2001a)
9. NSs of the language provide the L2 learners negative feedback in negotiated interaction and this facilitates pragmatic acquisition (Long, 1996).
10. Pragmatics deals with the authentic language use and its acquisition can be facilitated with the analysis of authentic language.
11. There are many ways to state a fact in the language whether explicit or implicit, so in relation to the Wittgenstein’s picture theory of meaning we can say that language is not only a system of representation, but it is also a system of devices to engage in various social activity” Therefore, the meaning of a word is not an entity itself, but its meaning comes into being with its use in the language.
As we have mentioned before, pragmatics is the study of language in context and in communication. The meanings of utterances are not dealt with on the word-only or sentence-only level; on the contrary all the contextual factors are taken into account. Beginning from concrete ones pragmatics has a province of analysis from simple context dependent utterances to the more complex and abstract figurative speech. Grice (1989) formulated this as a dichotomy of natural and non-natural meaning (meaning dependent on context to interpret) and postulated that it is non-natural meaning that pragmatics should study.
Pragmatics is not studied in language acquisition studies in an isolated way, but many aspects of cognition, socialization and interaction are taken into account to expound the acquisitional processes. Therefore, it is applied pragmatics which binds the theories of pragmatics to the “applied” teaching and learning area. The sublevels of applied pragmatics, pragmalinguistics and sociolinguistics, therefore, are closely related to the micro- and macrolinguistics. The other sublevel of applied pragmatics, psychopragmatics, is the one studying the meaning of utterances in the context of the mind under consciousness or subconsciousness.
Various concepts such as negotiation of meaning, output, input, interaction, socialization, sociocognitive and sociocultural aspects all contribute to the acquisition of pragmatic ability from different aspects. It is the negotiation of meaning that provides appropriate input and output to the learner in an interactional environment where socialization occurs and both sociocognitive and sociocultural developments take place. In a class where negotiation of meaning exists, learners give each other corrective feedback in an authentic environment and by using authentic materials, which will increase the level of interlanguage pragmatics in turn.
V. THE NATURE AND COMPOSITION OF PRAGMATICS
As mentioned before, there are many linguistic matters in the scope of pragmatics and it is the linguistics of communication (Çelik, 2007), language in use and linguistics of intentions. However it has close links with semantics, the linguistics of meaning. Scholars generally have contradictory comments on the composition of semantics and pragmatics. Many of them claim that (e.g.. Grice) pragmatics incorporates non-natural meaning which involves figurative speech; however, there are many more things that fall into the province of pragmatics such as daily routine expressions, greetings. Can we say there are explicit borders between the two? According to the speech act theoretical view semantics deals with the conventional meaning of expressions, which contribute to the meaning of sentences and speech acts (Recanati, 2004). This view puts a sound basis for the link between semantics and pragmatics, since they should be complementary in nature. Dascal states that “the object of pragmatics is a set of semiotic devices… related to the speaker’s meaning” (2003:9). These devices incorporate the use of an utterance meaning instead of a description of their formation, which is in the scope of semantics. However, pragmatics is not only complementary with semantics, but there are also concrete and well-defined linguistic features pragmatic deals with. Here, in this section they will be analyzed.
V.I. The composition of Pragmatics in General
Pragmatics deals with many linguistic features all of which are related to the use of language in context. Some of these are also matters of morphology, semantics and discourse analysis. Now, they will be analyzed in detail.
AMBIGUITY
Ambiguity occurs when a form has two or more meanings. It is difference from vagueness in that vagueness creates many meanings that are open to interpretation. However, ambiguity proposes two or more certain meanings. There are two types of ambiguity
1. Lexical Ambiguity: Ambiguity in the form of morpheme or word. Lexical ambiguity shows itself in two ways: homonymy and polysemy. We analyze homophones and homographs under homonymy.
Homophones: Single pronunciation with two or more meanings. For ex: Flower-flour
Homographs: Single spelling with two or more meanings. For ex: Read-read, tear-tear
Homonymy vs. Polysemy: Homonymy involves homophones and homographs and it is different from polysemy. Polysemy occurs when the form of a word suggest different meanings, but the meanings are all related to semantic extension and has a link to the historical use. Polysemy and homonymy are not always distinct. Cool-low in temperature and cool-calm in mind is and example of polysemy. (ear of corn-ear for listening)
2. Structural Ambiguity: Ambiguity occurring when a phrase or a sentence has more than one meaning.
Grouping Ambiguity: The sentence has two meanings and two structures accordingly. For ex:
The police searched for the car with broken headlights. (The italics-noun phrase)
The police searched for the car with broken headlights (the italics-prepositional phrase)
Functioning ambiguity: when a word or phrase fulfills more than one functions, but groupings seem to be the same.
Visiting professors can be boring (to visit professors or professors who visit?) (adapted from Hudson.1999)
DEICTICS
Deictics are morphemes with variable referential meaning whose reference varies with each context of their use. If it weren’t for pragmatics there would be a lot of vagueness in meaning.
1. Personal Deictics: I, me, he, she, your, they, ours.. What does “we” refer to? I and people who are spoken to or I and people who aren’t spoken to.
2. Spatial Deictics: this, that, these, those, here, there. What does “I’ll take this” mean? A rose, a glass or a pencil? The context determines what it is?
3. Temporal Deictics: then, now, today, yesterday… “Today” means yesterday the day after tomorrow. (adapted from Hudson.1999).
DEFINITENESS
These are communicated in various ways in different languages. In English, article the, demonstratives this and that, personal pronouns my, your, he, her, it, etc. For example,
“(I went to a wedding.) The wedding was yesterday” here the speaker depends on the addressee’s shared knowledge. “Have you heard that song?” Deictics requires context to understand (adapted from Hudson.1999).
FIGURES OF SPEECH
These involve non-literal language, which is novel, creative and suggesting non-conventional meanings. Figures of speech is used more in written language, but it is also common in speech.
1. Metaphor: substituting words for others sharing the characteristics of meaning. For ex:
The ship plows the sea (it moves through water like a plow)
The red car won by a nose (thinks that the situation resembles to a horse race)
2. Metonymy: substituting words for others sharing the associations of meaning. For ex:
Hollywood won’t buy this story. (Hollywood for movie industry)
Can you lend me some bread? (Bread for money)
3. Synecdoche: using a part to mean a whole. For ex:
Can I borrow your wheels? (Wheels for bicycle)
There is still great respect for the crown. (Crown for monarchy)
4. Personification: attributing human characteristics to a non-human thing.
My drawer refuses to open.
My dog is begging to be fed.
5. Hyperbole: a type of metaphor in which comparison is implied to a similar, but extravagant case. For ex:
Drop dead! (the speaker does not want him to die indeed)
I’ll rather kill myself than watch music videos.
6. Irony: a type of metaphor in which comparison is implied to an opposite or unreasonably extreme case. For ex:
That is cute! (not cute at all)
Let’s keep the noise down to an uproar, please. (adapted from Hudson.1999).
SPEECH ACTS
We share some kind of knowledge in order for our communication to be successful. Interlocutor must share certain knowledge, beliefs and assumptions with the addressee to fulfill the function of the utterance. Therefore, the consequences of our utterances are not always the same (Çelik, 2007). Searle (1976) called all these different functions and consequences as linguistic acts or speech acts. Speech acts are act of speaking while making an utterance. Austin (1962) classified speech acts as locutionary illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.
Locutionary act is simply to speak with a specific propositional meaning.
Illocutionary act involves the performing the intended meaning and they require the speaker to assert, suggest, promise or request.
1. Direct Illocution: Making the intent of speech in the overt form. There are two ways to make direct illocution.
a. By using special grammatical forms such as “Can I go now?”
b. By use of performative verbs such as warn, promise, request…
2. Indirect Illocution: Leaving the intent of speech unexpressed at the level of sentences. “Do you know what time it is?” is not a yes/no question but the speaker wants to learn the time.
Perlocutionary act produces an effect in the listener whether intended or not.
I love you!
Move or I’ll shoot you!
Declarative Speech Acts: A case in which saying something is not just to say it but also to bring about some new situation.
Abracadabra!
I sentence you ninety days in jail. (adapted from Hudson.1999)
FELICITY CONDITIONS
These are the conditions which validate an illocution to be true. For example
Requests for X
The speaker desires X
The speaker believes the hearer is able and willing to provide X.
Promises that X
The speaker believes the hearer desires X
The speaker is able and willing to bring about . (adapted from Hudson.1999).
PRINCIPLES OF CONVERSATION
The philosopher Paul Grice (1989) came up with the cooperative principle and conversational maxims. According to him essential feature of human communication was to express intentions. He advocated inferential model against code model which assumes that intended message in a signal is decoded by the hearer who uses the same code system. By emphasizing the hearer’s contribution he adopted the inferential model, which states that a communicator provides evidence of her intention to convey meaning that is inferred by the audience on the basis of the evidence (Wilson and Sperber, 2004).
Cooperative Principle: contribute meaningfully to the accepted purpose and direction of conversation!
Hearers are also speakers, ordinarily, so both speakers and hearers recognize the principle, and, accepting it can use it as a basis for inferring what is meant even when this is not overt in a message. They give a relevant reply to the previous utterance of the speaker
Conversational Maxims
These are sub-principles of the cooperative principle. The maxims seem like applications of ordinary common sense and not worth mentioning, the conversations would be chaotic without them. Grice analyzed them under four main maxims.
Maxim of Relevance: be relevant (understand that a person died when they say “kick the bucket” instead of thinking that he kicked the bucket)
Maxim Of Quality: be truthful; don’t lie (unless you have to)( If I hear this song “I’m going to kill myself” may mean turn off the radio)
Maxim Quantity: be informative, say neither too much nor too little. (On June 23 when asked the date, we may say “the twenty-third”, or maybe “June twenty-third”, but we normally don’t include the year.
Maxim of Manner: be clear and orderly. (instructions incorporate a chronological order which can orient the addressee to the correct direction) (adapted from Hudson.1999).
RELEVANCE THEORY
The goal of inferential pragmatics is to explain how the hearer infers the speaker’s meaning on the basis of the evidence provided. According to the relevance theory utterances automatically create expectations which guide the hearer toward the speaker’s meaning (Wilson and Sperber, 2004). They claim that “The central claim of the theory is that expectations of relevance raised by an utterance are precise and predictable enough to guide the hearer toward the speaker’s meaning” (2004:607)
According to the relevance theory, any external stimulus or internal representation which provides an input to cognitive processes may be relevant to an individual at some time. Utterances raise expectations of relevance not because speakers obey a Cooperative Principle and maxims, but because the search for relevance is a basic feature of human cognition. More relevance creates more cognitive effect which influences the meaning. This theory is the intersection point of pragmatics as purely linguistics with the cognitive psychology.
V.I Applied Pragmatics
Applied pragmatics is the pragmatics of language learning and teaching. It is divided into three sub-parts, which are all important in elucidation of development of pragmatic competence. However, here we need to make a definition of pragmatic competence in order to go further in the issue. “Pragmatic competence is the ability to use the appropriate linguistic expressions for the intended meaning and purpose according to the rules of conversation” (Çelik, 2007:220). In order to acquire pragmatic competence Ls have to have the knowledge of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics.
The terms are put forward by Leech (1983) who defined the term pragmalinguistics as the knowledge of strategies for realizing speech intentions and linguistic items used to express these intentions and sociopragmatics as the knowledge of social conditions governing the language use respectively. Pragmalinguistics seems to be “language-specific” while sociopragmatics seems to be “culture specific” (1983:11). Pragmalinguistic forms involve forms which strengthen or soften the effect of communicative/speech acts. The choice made between the utterances such as “I want to study in the library, so I can’t come.” and “I would like to study before the exam, so it will be quite impossible for me to participate” brings the importance of knowing the appropriate pragmalinguistic forms into light. Sociopragmatics, on the other hand, is related to the fact the different cultures prefer different levels of social distance and they assess social issues such as distance, social power and imposition that is involved in particular speech acts (Kasper, 2001a). “Can I borrow your wheels?” and “Would it be possible for me to borrow your car” are two utterances showing how crucial sociopragmatics is to our lives. It is quite possible that we can’t borrow the hearer’s car if we employ the first utterance. Also the modals “may I” and “ought to” have sociopragmatic connotations. We have to use “may” instead of “can” while speaking with a lecturer. Also the modal “ought to” has moral connotations and it incorporates a meaning of condemn. Thomas (1983) proposed that pragmalinguistics is more akin to grammar while sociopragmatics is more related to the appropriate social behaviour. However, it is much more difficult to teach sociopragmatics to a learner in that it also involves teaching of appropriate behaviour.
Nevertheless, language learners are so not unlucky at all. Some aspects of the language are universal, such as some social norms, speech acts and politeness. Although their realizations differ across languages and cultures, there is some pre-coded data about how to use the language effectively in context and in communication. Especially adult learners can positively transfer L1 socio-pragmatic data which would help the learner to acquire, however, pragmalinguistic forms remain as a question to solve in the second language with its heavy burden put on the learner’s shoulder. Because, while the strategies to express a speech act for example does not change across languages, their realizations in semantic formulas highly differ if the two languages does not belong to the same language families (Rose and Kasper, 2001; Huth, 2007). Also power relations, social and psychological distance between the speakers affect the socio-pragmatic choices. Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1990 analyzed refusal strategies in academic advising sessions and found that it was important how learners supported their refusals from the socio-pragmatic perspective.
Pragmalinguistic forms, therefore, are easier to learn for the learners if there is some correspondence in form-function mapping between the target and native languages. For instance, German “kannst du” and “English “can you” structures correspond to each other in terms of form-function mapping and it is easier for a German learner to acquire “can you” than a Turkish one pragmalinguistically.
What happens if we violate pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic norms? We call it pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic failure. Thomas (1983) called it a pragmalinguistic failure
when a learner fails to express the intended meaning. He especially avoided pragmalinguistic error in that pragmatic patterns are such that it is not possible to say that "the pragmatic force of an utterance is wrong” Salmani-Nodoushan (1995:21). Thomas indicated that these failures are pragmalinguistic than pragmatic since they are closely related to grammar and knowledge of the structure. Thomas (1983) also defined sociopragmatic failure as misevaluation of the power relations, social distance and size of imposition. In his evaluation of Thomas’s formulations Salmani-Nodoushan (1995:21) states that
“Thomas provides a useful way of looking at the type of diversity which exist across cultures and which often lead to cross-cultural problems. In doing so, she separates out what she sees as major areas in which there exist differences in cultural rules regarding speech behaviour” (1995:21)
general pragmatics
(grammar) pragmalinguistics socio-pragmatics (sociology)
related to related to
(Leech, 1983: 11)
There is another sub-branch of applied linguistics called psychopragmatics, which is quite philosophical in nature. . Marcelo Dascal (1983) was the originator of the term, which accounted for the cognitive processes of the pragmatics of the mind. He opposed to the scholars who excluded non-communicative actions such as judging, remembering, inferring and dreaming from the area of pragmatics, namely the mental acts of pragmatics. Just as there is pragmatics of conversation so is there a pragmatics of the mind. If there is “speaker’s meaning”, then there should also be a thinker’s meaning. If it is the social context that makes the utterances what they exactly mean, then it is the mental context doing the same. It is only not the speaker that conveys meaning, but also there are psychological processes that the hearer employs to understand an utterance. What kind of a meaning the hearer assigns to the given utterance in his context of his mind is a crucial issue. The cognitive processes of awareness, attention, consciousness and unconsciousness, and having a thought in the mind are closely related to the psychopragmatics (Reitan, 1995). Here, also the issue of transparency, the correspondence of form and meaning, comes to the scene. At the morphological level, the words whose form and meaning corresponds more seem to be easily acquired. Therefore, we can say that iconic and indexical signs are less arbitrary in nature and easier to learn. Imagineability of words and the fact that they are coded in the learner’s L1, hence, enhances the salience of them and makes it easier to recall and recognize.
Dascal also thought that “sociopragmatic interpretation has to do with psychological phenomena, such as communicative intentions, recognitions and beliefs, etc.”(1983:48). He thought that the representation of the socio-pragmatic phenomena occurred in the mind with the mental context and named this phenomenon as “psycho-sociopragmatics”. However Dascal especially avoided using the term psycho-pragmalinguistics, which may correspond to the representation of pragmalinguistic forms in the cognitive level.
VI. RELATIONS TO FLL AND FLT
Since pragmatics is an inherent part of language it should be thought in the classrroms without leaving it to learners to acquire it outside the classroom, which is impossible to achieve for EFL learners. Before Wilkins (1976) came up with the notion of notional syllabuses, structural syllabuses were employed only to teach the grammar and the pronunciation of language isolating it from the context and its functions. He proclaimed a communicative and functional approach towards a language teaching which would be basis for today’s communicative syllabuses. The notion of function entailed the analysis of language in functions and discourses incorporating a certain function such as apologizing, requesting or expressing regret, which paved the way for teaching of pragmatic elements in the classrooms. Later when Hymes set forth the principles of communicative competency pragmatics gained more importance with the issue of appropriacy. Teaching of pragmatic features, however, had impacts on FLL and FLT more than that described above.
VI.I. Teacher Roles
A teacher’s basic task so as to help learners develop pragmatic competence is to create as many opportunities as s/he can in the classroom context. While ESL learners compensate the need for interaction outside the classroom, EFL learners can’t. Generally Ts use unattractive classroom procedures such as IRF. IRF (initiation, response, feedback) structure (Sinclair and Coulhard’s extended version of TPT) is generally disfavored in the literature of interlanguage pragmatics studies (Hall, 1995) He says that “extended participation in such a practice could facilitate L2 interactional incompetence” (1995:55). It is thought IRF structure does not provide learners to participate in the interaction in which pragmatics is acquired and teachers are strictly advised to avoid such unproductive type of interaction. Teachers are advised to promote collaborative work in the classroom against teacher-fronted practices. However there are scholars which oppose the idea of completely discarding teacher fronted classroom practices (Kasper, 2001b). Kasper contemplates that the literature is unfair about IRF structure and it is not the IRF that hinders pragmatic development, but the number of chances to interact and exchange meaning given to each learner. Hence, one of the basic tasks of the teacher is to give learners as many opportunities as he can for interaction and exchanging of meaning.
VI.II Learner Roles
The learners are to participate as much as possible to the peer interactions taking place in the classroom. Interactional modifications lead to second language development and more active involvement in negotiated interaction leads to greater development (Mackey, 1999). These interactions also provide room for scaffolding which may contribute to the pragmatic development in the socialization context. Therefore, it can be said that learner’s basic task is to be a collaborator who would take part in interactional, productive activities taking place in the classroom.
V.III. The Roles of Materials
Especially authentic materials provide good opportunities to introduce pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge. Authentic materials are original texts, not simplified for learners and may involve papers, menus, story books, travel guides, ads, commercials, maps, catalogues, phone books, movies, songs, TV programs...etc. Authentic materials provide good contexts for authentic language and daily use. Learners obtain valuable opportunities to encounter authentic language, which is highly difficult to find in created materials (ex: the realization of speech acts, politeness and deictics, etc. in written and spoken text) According to Richards (2001) authentic materials
“-have a positive effect on learner motivation
-provide authentic cultural information about target culture
-provide exposure to real language
-relate more closely to learner needs (link between classroom and real world)
-support more creative approach to language teaching” (p.253)
The advantages given by Richards persuade us about the use of authentic materials in the classroom. However extensive use of authentic materials may lead to poor grammatical proficiency while extensively developing pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge. Here we can give an example for the fact that pragmatic ability may develop before grammatical ability and this may lead to fossilization since the learner can communicate easily only by employing semantic formulations instead of grammatical sentences. Schmidt’s famous research subject Wes is such an instance. Wes is a German whose pragmatic ability far outdid his interlanguage proficiency. Also authentic materials may be quite demanding for the teacher and the learner in that it does not involve comprehensible input.
VII. CONTRIBUTIONS TO FLL AND FLT
Classroom reflections of pragmatics is dealt with in detail above, here in this section the contributions of pragmatics to the teaching of four skills and the language areas like grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary will be analyzed. The results of the researches will be analyzed in relation to their contributions.
Pragmatics is closely related to discourse analysis and the issues of discourse analytic discussions are also a matter of pragmatics and its teaching. McCarthy (2001) assumes that there are different types of patterns in the discourse which should be understood and learnt by the learner in order to facilitate comprehension of the text, whether read, spoken, listened or written. As for reading we may teach these patterns to the learners to help them understand the text easier. In relation to the Krashen’s (1981) (comprehensible) input hypothesis the learner will be able to process i+1 and it will lead to the automatic use of the acquired language. These patterns include clause-relational approach (a kind of cause and effect) and problem solving (a problem is introduced and then solved at the end of the utterance). Learning these patterns may raise the expectations of potential meaning of discourse to increase that the learner tries to grasp and facilitates its acquisition.
There are also various kinds of activities that can be used in teaching of pragmalinguistics such as comparing several texts activities and comprehension questions. comparing several texts activities may also help in that they enable them to compare the texts in terms of appropriacy and involve in critical thinking. Comprehension questions focusing on the ellipsis and deictics may also help them to attend these features an d acquire in turn.
Also the procedural nature of interpretation (McCarthy, 2001:27) emphasize the importance of actively building the meaning of the text by top-down and bottom-up processes. Pragmatic issues in a written text can be understood by these processes and with the use of content and formal schemata, which corresponds to the use of shared knowledge, a matter of pragmatic analysis. Also the knowledge of or the lack of knowledge of conjunctions which connect the discourse within a text may either promote or hinder understanding of a reading text, therefore they should be taught.
As for listening, “linguistics of communication” gives the material to analyze and attend to. The elliptic sentences pose great difficulty to the listener to understand. When the ways of making ellipsis matches between the target and the native language it may pose a little problem, but it poses a great difficulty in the context of Turkey in terms of EFL. Indirect illocutions are also a matter of problem with their implicit intentional natures. The Ls generally tend to avoid the use of speech acts by using routine expressions like, “I think” or “in my opinion”. They should be aware of the speech acts and their realizations to understand the utterances.
Any listening activity with authentic language and incorporating the pragmalinguistics sociopragmatics issues may help the learners to develop pragmatic competence when accompanied with “attention and awareness” (Schmidt, 1994) Identifying stress and unstress and Identifying intonation activities are also good types of activities promoting pragmatic interpretation.
As for speaking, many types of activities that are productive can be made use of. It is especially advised to use production activities instead of recognition ones for developing pragmatic competence. In production based activities learners are able to produce output which will facilitate their pragmatic acquisition. Production activities also serve as a socialization environment that enhances the learners’ sociocognitive and sociocultural developments.
Opening a conversation, closing a conversation and turn-taking are studied by pragmatics and these are quite important in teaching speaking. The learner should know the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic features of conversation which would be appropriate for the context and the level of politeness. Paying close attention to teaching of these features would contribute to the acquisition of pragmatics.
The activities that reflect the applied pragmatics’ matters to speaking may be especially role plays. Also dialogues, information gap, opinion gap and jigsaw activities may be helpful by creating the opportunity for interaction within the classroom context.
As for writing the knowledge of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics is the most important. The knowledge of ambiguity, deictics, figures of speech, presuppositions, direct or indirect speech acts and cohesion and coherence and where and how to use these enables us to write effectively. The deficiency of one of these may lead us to write incoherent and incohesive texts, which in turn cause ambiguity and ineffective writing. Sentence sequencing activities, for lower proficiency levels to teach cohesion and letter writing for more proficient ones to teach politeness therefore may be helpful. Transactional patterns can also be made use of.
Teaching grammar is related to the issue of pragmalinguistics which deals with the culturally and contextually appropriate forms of language. They should be frequently dealt with in a cyclical format of syllabus. However, merely practice is not enough for them to be acquired in the implicit memory. Ellis (1994, 2008) state that Ls will acquire the explicit knowledge of grammar when they are developmentally ready. The enhanced input activities, namely consciousness raising activities seem to promote the learning of explicit knowledge. Izumi (2002) defines the enhanced input activities as
“The basic method of the enhancement is simply increasing the perceptual salience of the target form via combinations of various formatting techniques (e.g., bolding, capitalizing, or underlining), which may sometimes be accompanied by an explicit mention to the learners to attend to the highlighted form” (p.543).
As for vocabulary, the acquisition of discourse markers such as “aw, well, oh..” and the choice of appropriate lexis such as “would like” instead of “want” seems to be an important issue in terms of teaching pragmatics. Teaching vocabulary has also close links with psychopragmatics. As we have dealt with before, psychopragmatics deals with the context of the mind. Psychopragmatic matters such as the level of consciousness, attention and awareness, the question of imagineability and salience (concrete instead of abstract words), level of arbitrariness and form-function correspondence (whether iconic, indexical or symbolic), and the fact that the word’s being coded or uncoded in the learner’s L1 (it may be impossible to teach the word computer to a medieval person for example) are all relevant to the easier acquisition of vocabulary. Intrinsic difficulties of the words make them difficult for the learners to acquire, but also the level of psychopragmatic matters influence acquisition.
Also repetition and input enhancement activities for teaching vocabulary may help. Error correction with the help of corrective feedback is a suitable aid for teachers to eliminate fossilized errors. To sentisize the learners to the fossilized errors we may employ repetition and input enhancement activities.
VIII. CRITICISM OF PRAGMATICS
Pragmatics’ interdisciplinary nature lead many people to think that it is a hodge-podge of accumulation of several theories and approaches, however it has a scientific nature which merges several theories approaches and hypotheses. Its place is also critical in language teaching in that it depends both on semantics and discourse analysis and it is akin to many misunderstandings and misformulations. There are a couple of strong sides and weak sides of this critical macrolinguistics branch.
VIII.I. Strong Sides
1. It deals with the language in context without isolating the meaning of utterances.
2. It provides us insight in the nature of human communication with its reflections to the irregularities of natural languages, which pose difficulties to the L2 learners.
3. It deals with not only linguistic but also social aspects of interpretation and meaning. It views language as an interindividual, social act.
VIII.II. Weak Sides
1. Pragmatics explanations depend on the term “intention” which many critics find too abstract to deal with and inadequately scientific to operationalize in the researches.
2. Pragmatics deals with the linguistic and social element, but it does not elucidate how meaning is formed and interpreted in the cognitive processes.
3. It deals with implicatures, but it does not elucidate why people choose such indirectness in communication.
IX. CONCLUSION
Teaching pragmatics is an inherent part of communicative competence in that sociolinguistic and discourse competences incorporate the issues that pragmatics studies. As teachers, our basic task is to help the Ls gain communicative competence according to communicative approach, and pragmatics is essential here. As a conclusion we can say that there are various methods which provide room for the teaching of pragmatics. Especially, the communicative language teaching as a reflection of the pragmatics’ link with the communicative approach can be employed.
1. It deals with the language in context without isolating the meaning of utterances.
2. It provides us insight in the nature of human communication with its reflections to the irregularities of natural languages, which pose difficulties to the L2 learners.
3. It deals with not only linguistic but also social aspects of interpretation and meaning. It views language as an interindividual, social act.
VIII.II. Weak Sides
1. Pragmatics explanations depend on the term “intention” which many critics find too abstract to deal with and inadequately scientific to operationalize in the researches.
2. Pragmatics deals with the linguistic and social element, but it does not elucidate how meaning is formed and interpreted in the cognitive processes.
3. It deals with implicatures, but it does not elucidate why people choose such indirectness in communication.
IX. CONCLUSION
Teaching pragmatics is an inherent part of communicative competence in that sociolinguistic and discourse competences incorporate the issues that pragmatics studies. As teachers, our basic task is to help the Ls gain communicative competence according to communicative approach, and pragmatics is essential here. As a conclusion we can say that there are various methods which provide room for the teaching of pragmatics. Especially, the communicative language teaching as a reflection of the pragmatics’ link with the communicative approach can be employed.
Task-based instruction and content-based teaching are also appropriate for pragmatics instruction whether explicit or implicit. The tasks create good opportunities for the learners to interact within the classroom, which seems to be vital for the acquisition of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics (Brown, 2001). Learner participation in interaction in the collaborative activities offers opportunities for the negotiation of meaning to take place, which can only occur in tasks (Mackey, 1999). Desuggestopedia also provides a suitable context for pragmatics with its input-rich environment and activities it commonly uses, such as role-play, question and answer and imitation (Richards and Rodgers, 2001).
There are different modes of interaction employed accordingly by the different cultures. For example Australians seem to be more direct than Americans and different cultures employ different speech acts (Wierzbicka, 1991). Linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to be competent in that language . Language learners need to be aware, for example, of the culturally appropriate ways to address people, express gratitude, make requests, and agree or disagree with someone. Therefore social norms as an aspect of culture should also be taught.
Research has shown that (Kubota, 1995, Takimoto, 2008) metapragmatic discussions after the instruction well enable the Ls to develop their interlanguage pragmatics. Also explicit instruction proves to be better than the implicit one for teaching of pragmatics (Takahashi, 2001). Literature affirms that learners taking explicit instruction far outdo the learners taking implicit instruction.
Lastly, it is seen that pragmatics teaching can begin from the beginning levels (Tateyama, 2001), for there is no significant relationship between the level of interlanguage proficiency and the level of interlanguage pragmatics (Takahashi, 2005). Therefore, teaching of pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic procedures should start from the very beginning of foreign language teaching.
Pragmatics is also crucial in teacher education in that teacher education should also be seen as a whole. A teacher should be knowledgeable about both linguistics, its classroom applications and the matters of curriculum and program development. Knowledge of applied pragmatics will enable the teacher to apply the classroom practices that were found in researches to their own classrooms. Pragmatics beautifies language teaching and contributes a cultural aspect to it. Since language and its culture are inseparable, pragmatics is indispensable part of teacher education.
To sum up, pragmatics is an inherent part of FLL and FLT whose learning may facilitate the communication. Lack of pragmatic knowledge may lead to broken communication and existence of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge may enable the learners to be treated as equivalent interlocutors in status. Pragmatics, hence, is a life and death issue in foreign language
learning.
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