Chapter1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Present Study
As widely used around the whole world currently, English is a crucial componentand acts as the carrier of British and American culture (Wang, 2016). Pragmaticcompetence is also regarded as an essential element of foreign language communicativecompetence (Canale & Swain, 1980; Bachman & Palmer, 2010), whose improvementwill surely contribute to intercultural communication. As one branch of Englishpragmatic competence, pragmatic competence of routines is also playing a vital role inpromoting intercultural communication competence.Ran (2012) once stated briefly that the purpose of foreign language (includingsecond language) learning (including acquisition) and foreign language teaching is tocultivate and enhance English learners’ actual communicative proficiency of the targetlanguage. In particular, pragmatic competence is regarded as the major issues ofcommon concern in the area of foreign language teaching, foreign language learning,SLA and pragmatics. The latest revised version of College English Teaching Guide alsostated clearly that the objective of college English teaching is to develop students’applied ability of English (Wang, 2016). During the process of researching foreignlanguages, there have been many scholars raising an opinion that the development of asecond language depended on learners’ grasping situations of routines, and at the sametime, the use of routines can also reflect the development level of foreign languages(Pawley & Syder, 1983). In the area of pragmatics, SLA and language testing, theoperation of pragmatic competence can consist of different forms, such as speech act,routines, conversational implicature and so on (Kasper, 2001; Roever, 2005, 2006,2011). Rover (2011) also raised that the conceptual framework of pragmatic mainly included four aspects, such as recognition and expression of monologue,communicative dialogue, routines and conversational implicature, among whichexpression competence and recognition competence of routines, as vital components ofinterlanguage pragmatic competence, belong to pragmalinguistic competence. Whileinterlanguage pragmatic competence also refers to knowledge of a pragmatic systemand knowledge of its appropriate use (Rose, 1997). Thus it can be seen thatenhancement of pragmatic competence of routine will surely have a positive effect onpragmatic competence. In consequence, as English learners in China, how to improvetheir pragmatic competence of routines and intercultural communication competenceappears much more important in particular.
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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Present Study
For the sake of observing and investigating current Chinese EFL learners’situationsof utilization of English routines much more explicitly, further researches regardingpragmatic competence test of routines and its relationship with correlative influence factors would be conducted in this thesis. Apart from this, the main purpose of thispresent research is also undertaken aiming to obtain more data results and support forfuture research to English routines in China and find crucially effective solutions toimproving Chinese EFL learners’pragmatic competence in the recent years.On the one hand, theoretical significance of this thesis is to analyze the dynamicchanging regularity between pragmatic competence of routines and its affectingvariables for the purpose of supplementing domestic literature quantities. On the otherhand, this thesis still possesses practical significance to some extent. The correlationbetween current pragmatic competence of Chinese EFL learners’ routines and itsinfluence factors can be employed to explore effective approaches to improving theirpragmatic competence. Simultaneously, this thesis is also intended to raise theawareness of enhancing their English proficiency and pragmatic competence of Englishroutines for better communication. In the end, research findings of the thesis areexpected to attract English teachers’ more attention in the universities from theperspective of improving students’ pragmatic competence. Particularly in the Englishdaily teaching activities that follow, they will adjust their teaching contents andcorresponding instructional strategies, and concentrate more on the examination ofEnglish pragmatic competence. More communication platforms should be establishedfor the sake of offering added communication opportunities to improve students’pragmatic competence in and after class. The research even has an earnest expectationto drive forward the further reform with respect to the content and form of Englishtesting in China. It will also enlarge the degree of cultivating and testing pragmaticcompetence, intercultural communication competence and the awareness gradually withthe aim of promoting their intensive development.
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Chapter2 Literature Review
2.1 Theoretical Concerns about Interlanguage PragmaticsInter
language pragmatics was a new-rising branch of pragmatics in the 1980s. He(2000: 260-261) once pointed out that quantities of literature and researches have comeout in the recent 20 years and principally concluded the research contents as follows:non-native speakers’ judgement and comprehension of target languages’ illocutionaryforce and politeness, choices of language strategies, pragmatic failure, pragmatictransfer and formation and development of pragmatic competence of target languagesand so on. In addition to this, researches of interlanguage pragmatics were derived fromthose researching speech acts of native speakers, thus including researches of discoursesequencing and conversational management and so on. These researches drew muchmore attention to applied linguists and foreign language teachers and thereforedeveloped rapidly.
2.1.1 Pragmatics
Pragmatics is an essential part of linguistic researching and many linguistic scholarstend to define it in different dimensions. Levinson (1983) once said that it is by nomeans to give a comprehensive and precise definition to pragmatics. He (2000) alsoagreed to Levinson’s thought and commented that it doesn’t make any sense to try tocompare advantages and disadvantages of different definitions with each other. Somedefinitions of pragmatics from different scholars can be listed as follows: Pragmatics isthe study of linguistic acts and the contexts in which they are performed (Stalnaker,1972: 383). Pragmatics is a theory which seeks to characterize how speakers use thesentences of a language to effect successful communication (Kempson, 1975: 84) .Pragmatics is the study of language use and linguistic communication (Akmajian, 1979:267). Pragmatics is the study of deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, andaspects of discourse structure (Levison, 1983). Pragmatics can be defined as the studyof how utterances have meanings in situations (Leech, 1983). Pragmatics is the study ofmeaning in interaction (Thomas 1995: 22). Pragmatic is the science of language seen inrelation to its users (Mey 1993: 5). Pragmatics is also concerned with the study ofmeaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a listener (orreader) (Yule 1996: 3).Their difference was a matter of their emphases and expressions. The commonpoint of their different definitions was that they all embraced the same center ofmeanings in verbal communication. Different opinions to their definitions existingcontributed to deepening our comprehension of pragmatics (He, 2000: 9-10). While inthe researching field of pragmatics, SLA and language testing, the operation onpragmatics can be pided into speech act, conversational implicature and routines andso on (Kasper, 2001; Garcia, 2004; Roever, 2005, 2006, 2011).
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2.2 Brief Introduction to Routines
Routines are playing an essential role in the researching field of SLA owing to thefact that many linguistic forms are formulaic in nature, and L2 learners’ appropriate andfluent use of them is an important part of their L2 competence (Taguchi, 2013: 109).Routines, a type of formulaic language, are defined as fixed or semi-fixed multi-word sequences that commonly occur under specific social or discourse contextsand perform communicative functions (Wray, 2000; Taguchi, 2013). They are allconventionalized in the aspect of form, meaning and function. Particularly, routinesshould be paid much more attention during the process of foreign language teaching andlearning.As is mentioned above, there are many different sorts of names used to refer toroutines in different researching fields. In researching field of language (L2)development, Lyons (1968: 177) stated that formulaic sequences consist of expressionswhich are learnt as unanalyzable wholes and employed on particular occasions.Formulaic speech differs from creative speech, which is speech that has beenconstructed by stringing together inpidual lexical items, often by drawing onunderlying abstract patterns or rules. Native speakers’ speeches are composed offormulaic sequences and creative elements. Hakuta (1976) and Krashen and Scarcella(1978) distinguished two types of formulaic sequences-routines and patterns- torespectively to whole utterances learnt as memorized chunks (e.g. I don’t know.) and toutterances that are only partially unanalyzed and have one or more open slots (e.g. Can Ihave a ___?). Ellis (1984) also manifested that formulaic speech can be composed ofentire scripts, such as greeting sequences, which the learner can memorise because theyare fixed and predictable. While in accordance with Wray’s (2000: 465) opinion,formulaic sequence should be used as a cover term, referring to it as a sequence,continuous or discontinuous, of words or other meaning elements, which is, or appearsto be, prefabricated; that is stored and retrieved whole form memory at the time of use,rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar. Here inthis thesis, we agree to Wray’s definition and only use the agreed term “routine” torepresent these two aspects of formulaic sequences in pragmatic research.
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Chapter3 Research Methodology........22
3.1 Research Questions.............22
3.2 Subjects...........22
3.3 Instruments......23
3.3.1 Research Questionnaire..... 23
3.3.2 Interview Schedule............ 24
3.4 Procedure........25
3.5 Data Collection.........25
3.6 DataAnalysis............25
Chapter4 Results and Discussions.......26
4.1 Results of the study.............26
4.2 Discussions..... 35
4.3 Summary.........57
Chapter5 Conclusion........60
5.1 Major Findings..........60
5.2 Implications.....60
5.2.1 Implications for English Teaching.........61
5.2.2 Implications for English Learning.........61
5.3 Limitations of the Research..........62
5.4 Suggestions for Further Researches........62
Chapter4 Results and Discussions
In this chapter, the results we calculated will be intensively manifested anddiscuss and the subjects’ specific performance shall be discussed intensively fromdifferent perspective of PCR sections.
4.1 Results of the study
The testing sessions proceeded as planned before, with collecting and screening227 valid questionnaires in total. All the scores participants got in the whole test andcalculated would firstly be transferred and input into Excel and then calculated in SPSS19.0 by means of different statistical methods. The results can be shown detailedly asfollows.As can be illustrated in Table 2, the overall PCR is found to be at a relatively lowlevel (M=26.96, R=51.85%, reaching just a little higher than the average), among whichthe highest is G3 (M=29.13, R=56.02%), the lowest is G4 (M=24.64, R=47.38% <50%), G2 and G1 rank the second and third respectively. Another issue worthy of greatattention is all correct answer rate of RCR apparently exceeds ECR on the whole(R>65% in all RCR groups; R<49% in all ECR groups).
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Conclusion
Based on the results and vital information mentioned above in this part, theunderlying causes of low PCR might be drawn as follows:① From the perspective of English learning: the learners may (1) lack relatedpragmatic knowledge regarding routines; (2) be short of abilities in judging relatedcommunication contexts of routines; (3) be influenced by negative transfer of L1; (4)own inpidual differences of English learning styles; (5) be lacking in Chinese andwestern cultural knowledge; (6) face greater employment pressure particularly in seniorgrade; (7) female students are willing to utilize English routines more frequently thanthe male students do;② From the perspective of intercultural communication: there surely exists a greatdifference between Chinese and western culture and students may not be aware of thedifferences between these two cultures.③ From the perspective of English teaching: we may (1) lack of college Englishcontinuing education currently; (2) ignore the input of related pragmatic knowledgeroutines in class; (3) ignore the importance of practicing, testing, and correcting Englishroutines in class but only put more emphasis on examinations oriented.
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References (abbreviated)