Pragmatic Competence within the Perspective of the Communicative Competence Models and its Role in English Language Teaching

Abstract

This paper is aimed primarily at investigating the position of pragmatic competence in the five main models of communicative competence and its significant role in English language teaching. Pragmatic competence, as defined by LoCastro (2012: 307), is the "knowledge that influences and constrains speakers’ choices regarding the use of language in socially appropriate ways” and plays a vital role in cross-cultural communication. In the past few decades, the notion of pragmatic competence has attracted attention and gained in importance in terms of EFL teaching. All this has led to a shift from traditional language teaching approaches that focus on the linguistic forms rather than the pragmatic functions of sentences to communicative approaches that give priority to the functional aspects of language and thus aim to enable L2 learners to use that language effectively and appropriately as is required by the context where a given interaction is taking place. The usage of English, like that of any other language, is dictated by its own contextual norms, be it textual or socio-cultural ones. Thus, EFL learners need to be familiar with those norms should they want to avoid misunderstandings when communicating with native speakers. That is, effective and appropriate use of English necessitates the development of learners’ pragmatic competence to ensure a proficient use of it.