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The power difference between the speaker and the hearer
2. The degree of imposition on the hearer
Language learners often make two types of mistakes when attempting to perform a
speech act in the target language. The first type of mistake is called sociopragmatic;
this type of mistake occurs when the speaker doesn’t know which speech act to use,
or when to use a speech act appropriately. The following is an example of a
sociopragmatic mistake between a female English language learner and a female
native speaker (NS) of English from the USA. The nonnative speaker (NNS)
receives a compliment, but does not know how to respond in a socially appropriate
way.
NS: I love your accent!
NNS: Thank you very much.
Although in this example the response ‘thanks’ is linguistically correct, the NNS
actually dampened the conversation, which can impede the building of cross-cultural
relationships. The sociopragmatic norm for North American middle-class females is
to downgrade a compliment. In US culture, compliments among females are used to
build and maintain solidarity in relationships. The native speaker in the previous
example might have expected to hear something like this:
NS: I love your accent!
NNS: Oh, my English is terrible. I’ve only been here for 8 months.
Another type of pragmatic mistake that language learners make has to do with the
learner’s lack of knowledge about the language itself (forms, structures, and
vocabulary). This type of mistake is called pragmalingistic, and it occurs when the
language learner knows which speech act to use and when to use it, but does not
know the appropriate language to form a linguistically acceptable speech act. In the
following example, a NNS Middle Eastern female makes a pragmalinguistic error in
her attempt to thank her North American native-speaking classmate for loaning her
some money.
NS: I’ll loan you the $20 until tomorrow.
NNS: May God increase your bounty.
In the previous example, the NNS knew that she had to thank her friend, but
because she didn’t know the appropriate linguistic forms for thanking in North
American culture, she directly translated his pragmatic knowledge of ‘thanking’ from
her native language and culture, which doesn’t work in the North American setting.
Why isn’t pragmatics taught in my foreign language textbook?
Most people assume that language learners must spend a long time intensively
immersed in the foreign language and culture before developing pragmatic
competence; however, recent research in the field of Second Language Acquisition
suggests that pragmatic knowledge can be explicitly taught to students
(Bardovi-
Harlig, 2001; Kasper & Rose, 2002). In the past, pragmatics have typically been
ignored by textbook companies and teacher training programs. Multimedia materials
that are available over the Internet such as video-based lessons and virtual worlds
may be a good fit for learning pragmatics without traveling to the target language
Convention