Abstract:
Second language learners often develop grammatical competence in the
absence of concomitant pragmatic competence (Kasper & Roever, 2005) and
the exact nature of the relationship between the two competences is still
indistinct and in need of inquiries ( Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; Khatib &
Ahmadisafa, 2011). This study is a partial attempt to address the lacuna and
aims to see if any relationship can be found between English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) learners’ lexico-grammatical and interlanguage pragmatic
competences and if such a relationship is found, whether the gender variable
affects it or not. A group of 110 male/female senior university EFL students
took a standardized lexico-grammatical proficiency test and a researcher
made and validated multiple choice pragmatic discourse completion task test
including four speech acts of disagreement, scolding, request and complaint
at four levels of formality and familiarity. The results indicate that there is a
positive correlation between the learners' lexico-grammatical and pragmatic
competences. Furthermore, the correlation is stronger for female EFL
learners than the male participants though the pragmatic competence level of
the male and female participants was not significantly different. The results
imply that grammatical competence is not in itself sufficient for the EFL
learners' pragmatic competence but it can definitely constrain the
development of interlanguage pragmatic competence.
Machine summary:
"In order to approximate native speaker (NS) level of pragmatic competence, in addition to what Kasper (1996) and Schmidt (1993) mentioned, learners need to acquire the rules of politeness in the target culture and to develop interaction skills: knowing not only what to say but how and when to say it, in relation to whom they are speaking, what nonverbal behaviors are appropriate for them to use in various contexts, what routines they should use for turn taking in conversation and how to perform and comprehend speech acts such as requesting or apologizing (Saville-Troike, 1996).
96 109 The analysis revealed that the means differences of the male and female learners' test results of the four speech acts of disagreement, scolding, request and complaint were not significant (table 10) and hence it can be stated that the pragmatic competence is not proved to be gender sensitive in its development.
On the other hand, as the highly proficient non-native speakers who make pragmatic mistakes are more seen as rude than non-proficient ( Bardovi-Harlig, 2001) and their personality might be misconceived, and considering the point that female non-native language learners are more attentive to politeness issues (Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz, 1990; Walters, 1979), it can be claimed that the stronger correlation found in this study between the Lexico-grammatical and pragmatic competences of the female advanced EFL learners is because of the fact that female language learners are more attentive to pragmatic norms than the male EFL learners."