Pragmatic Competence Theoretical Review

From the definitions provided above, it can be concluded that pragmatic competence is the ability to interpret meaning of utterances contextually based on the knowledge possessed by the participants. It can also be concluded that the knowledge of implicature the ability to comprehend the speaker’s real intention is also part of pragmatic competence.

4. Pragmatic Failure

Due to the research question of the present study, it is also important to know what is meant by what so called pragmatic failure. It is so because the study is about the development of the students’ pragmatic competence. The expected result is that there is a significant development, but there is also possibility that the result is not as expected which means there is no significant development. In this case, the pragmatic failure will be the crucial thing to be discussed about. Thomas 1983 suggests that the term ‘pragmatic failure’ refers to the inability to understand what is meant by what is said page: 91. She says so based on her understanding that pragmatic competence is the ability to use language effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context Thomas, 1983: 92. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, and Olshtain 1986: 166 also add that: “pragmatic failure occurs when two speakers fail to understand each other’s intention”. Thomas divides this pragmatic failure into two areas or types, namely: pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure. Pragmalinguistic failure takes place when the pragmatic force of a linguistic structure is different from that normally assigned to it by a native speaker Amaya, 2008: 13. In other words, pragmalinguistic failure has something to do with the linguistic form which might be inappropriately transferred from L1 to L2. According to Thomas, this pragmalinguistic failure is fairly easy to overcome because it is simply a question of highly conventionalized usage which can be taught quite straight forwardly as part of the grammar. Meanwhile, the sociopragmatic failure is much more complicated to overcome, “Sociopragmatic failure involves the student’s belief as much as hisher knowledge of the language” Thomas, 1983: 91. She then elaborates deeper: “pragmatic failure is an area of cross-cultural communication breakdown which has received very little attention from language teachers” 1983: 91. Meaning to say, Thomas believes that language teachers focus more on the linguistic forms and exposure less on the importance of understanding any cultural differences between L1 and the target language which in turns causes the cross-cultural communication breakdown. Thomas emphasizes on cross-cultural matters because as aforementioned that sociopragmatic failure involves the student’s belief which, of course, this case is closely related with the cultural background. Amaya 2008 explains further as follows: “this sociopragmatic failure is more difficult to correct and overcome by the students since this involves making changes in their own beliefs and value system. In other words, when we learn any target language we do not merely learn and acquire its linguistic form but also the cultural background of the target language in order to be able to communicate properly using the target language, “in order to interpret the force of an utterance in the way in which the speaker intended, the hearer must take into account both contextual and linguistic cues. Often, context alone will determine what force is assigned to an utterance,” Thomas, 1983: 99. The cross-cultural understanding holds an important part in avoiding the sociopragmatic failure. Amaya 2008: 14 mentions that this failureerror has its origin in ‘pragmatic transfer’. Amaya has this statement based on Kasper’s statement, “…..pragmatic transfer in interlanguage pragmatics shall refer to the influence exerted by learners’ pragmatic knowledge of languages and cultures other than L2 on their comprehension, production and learning of L2 pragmatic information” 1992: 207.

5. Language Transfer

In second language acquisition field, the term of language transfer is often used. The working definition of “transfer” proposed by Odlin 1989: 27 is as follows: “Transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously and perhaps imperfectly acquired”. L 1 transfer, according to Ellis 2008: 969, occurs when the ‘influence’ results from the learner’s mother tongue and there are two types of transfer, namely: borrowing transfer and substratum transfer. What is meant by borrowing transfer is when the L2 influences the L1, while when the L1 influences the L2 it is called substratum transfer. According to the behaviorist theories of language learning Ellis, 2008: 349, the main impediment to learning is interference from prior knowledge. That is why there are what so called positive transfer and negative transfer. The similarities between the L1 and the target language can facilitate the L2