ASSESSING PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE OF L2 LEARNERS

ASSESSING PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE OF L2 LEARNERS

Kusevska, Marija
Ulanska, Tatjana
Ivanovska, Biljana
Daskalovska, Nina
Mitkovska, Ljiljana

The purpose of this paper is to explore the components of pragmatic competence for L2 learners. Developing pragmatic competence in a second/foreign language has been addressed in many articles and publications on cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; Barron, 2003; Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989; Cohen & Ishihara, 2005; Ishihara & Cohen, 2010; Kasper & Blum-Kulka, 1993; McConachy & Hata, 2013; Trosborg, 2010; Wigglesworth & Yates, 2007; etc.). The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) also addresses this issue. Their stance is that communicative language competences include linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competences. Pragmatic competence itself includes learner’s knowledge of the principles according to which messages are: a. organized, structured and arranged (discourse competence); b. used to perform communicative functions (functional competence); c. sequenced according to interactional and transactional schemata (design competence) (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 123). Roever (2005) chose three components for his web-based test of pragmatic competence: speech acts, implicatures and routines. Research on interlanguage pragmatics often focuses on speech acts, politeness, use of formulaic expressions, mitigation, etc. In determining L2 learner’s pragmatic competence we face two major problems: 1. what components of learner’s interlanguage to measure; and 2. how to measure them. In this paper, we first define interlanguage pragmatics. Then we refer to issues referring to pragmatic competence and components that are relevant for its development. Finally, we discuss instruments and methods of testing interlanguage pragmatic competence.

Article
PeerReviewed

International Burch University

2015-12

2959