2.2 Interlanguage Pragmatics in EFL Context
Pragmatics is the study to understand the way language is expressed and used for different purposes. Bachman 1990 stated that;
“pragmatics competence is concerned with the relationship between utterances, the functions that speakers intend to perform through these
utterances illocutionary force, and the characteristics of the context of language use that determine the appropriateness of utterances”.
The concept of pragmatics competence facilitates the L2 learners to use the language for different purposes even if their L1 has a different concept from their
L2.The ability to use the language for certain purposes or speech acts is the most frequently researched pragmatic competence in second language acquisition.
Recently, there are many researchers that use illocutionary act as their subject of research. Their researches are about the differences of illocutionary act
for second language learners of English. Those terms belong to the field of Interlanguage study called Interlanguage pragmatics. Bardovi-Harlig 2005:7
states that; “Interlanguage pragmatics research investigates the acquisition of
pragmatic knowledge in second languages, deriving its research methods from comparative cross-cultural studies and second language acquisition
research”. Its purpose is to investigate the use of language and the acquisition of pragmatics
knowledge in second language L2. As cited in Rozina’s article 2009:5, Nguyen stated that “Interlanguage pragmatics is the study of the use and
acquisition of various speech acts in the target language by second language learners”.
Interlanguage pragmatics is a branch of second language acquisition research. It is one of several specializations in Interlanguage studies, contrasting
with Interlanguage phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics Kasper, 1993:3. Interlanguage pragmatics directs to the comprehension and the
production of linguistic action. It concerns on the illocutionary and politeness
dimension of speech act performance and is related to the ability to express a variety of communicative function.
In the English as Foreign Language EFL context, Interlanguage pragmatics is a study that investigates EFL learners’ knowledge, perception,
comprehension and acquisition of pragmatic of second languages Alcon, 2008 cited in Baron and Maria, 2010: 39. Moreover, interlanguage pragmatic is used to
investigate the ability of EFL learners in understanding and performing action in target language that in this research is English language. In this research, the
research employ interlanguage pragmatics in order to analyze how EFL learners from Javanese, Madurese and Using tribes, whose language background and
culture are different from the target language, use their ability in performing target language pragmatics, especially gratitude expression and the acquisition of
linguistic action pattern in the second language.
2.3 Expressing Gratitude
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