外语教学法 张佳

华 中 师 范 大 学

研 究 生 课 程 论 文

完成时间 2015年1月

课程名称 英语语用学

专 业 学科教学（英语）

年 级 2014级

论文题目 The Application of Pragmatics in English Teaching

【Abstract】Pragmatics has gotten more and more attention recently. As a branch of linguistics, the studying of Pragmatics focuses on how to understand and use language in certain contexts, and to achieve the purpose of using English to communicate with each other in the real context successfully. Thus the teaching of pragmatic knowledge is very important and necessary for efficient English teaching. It plays a vital role in our daily communication. In order to make some breakthrough in English teaching, it’s necessary for teachers to pay attention to the importance of pragmatics in their teaching process. By applying the theory of pragmatics to English teaching, teachers can get more scientific methods to improve their English teaching. Only in this way can our students improve their pragmatic ability and thus learn how to study and use English effectively and appropriately and improve their communicative competence.

【Keywords】pragmatics, English teaching, communicative competence

1. Introduction and importance of pragmatics

1.1 Introduction of pragmatics

The modern usage of the term “pragmatics”is attributable to the philosopher Charles Morris(1938), who was concerned to outline the general shape of a science of signs or semiotics. Richards et al.(2000) described the term as the study of the use of language in communication. Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. It deals with particular utterances in particular situations and is especially concerned with the various ways in which many social contexts of language performance can influence interpretation. In other words, pragmatics is concerned with the way language is internally structured. It regards speech performance as primarily a social act ruled by various social conversations.

According to previous definitions, we know that pragmatics generally concerns how to use language properly. Therefore, it is one of the most significant parts of the communicative competence. Pragmatic competence refers to the organization of the linguistic signals that used in communication, and how these signals are used to refer to persons, objectives, ideas and feelings. Pragmatic competence includes illocutionary competence, or the knowledge of the pragmatic conversations for performing acceptable language functions, and sociolinguistic conventions for performing language functions appropriately in a given context.

1.2 Importance of pragmatics in English teaching

Nowadays, English is the language of globalization, international communication, commerce and trade, tourism, the media, and pop culture, different motivations for learning it come into play. Every field of work needs persons with high level of proficiency. English is still a tool assisting with educational and economic advancement but is viewed as one that can be acquired without any of the cultural trappings that go with it.

However, it’s not easy to learn a foreign language, and it’s more difficult to teach a foreign language well. The teachers has not only to make their students understand the language, namely pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc., they must also develop the students’ communicative competence so that they can use the language they have learned correctly, appropriately and expressively in the real situations. Just as Brumfit(1980) points out that one of the sources, which causes changes in language teaching methodology, is the social demands made on language teachers to make every effort to train the learner’s communicative ability and pragmatic ability. Some key concepts such as reference, effect, and cooperative principle may appear commonsensical, yet pragmatics is just about one of the most promising fields of linguistic studies. Thus it’s necessary to apply the possible functions of pragmatics to English language teaching so as to provide some teaching suggestions and solutions for some problems existing for a long time in the process of practical ELT.

2. The Using of Pragmatics Theory in English Teaching

Linguistically, language is a means of communication with other people. Communication is a goal for language using. As for pragmatics, the key nature of it lies in the study of the use of language in communication. Pragmatics plays an important role in language teaching that we should not ignore its importance in the process of the cultivation of students’ communicative competence. In language teaching, communication is usually divided into four main skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the following part, the theory of pragmatics will be applied to the teaching of grammar, listening and reading.

2.1 The application of pragmatics in teaching English grammar

Pragmatics is a new branch of linguistics and it concentrates on the aspect of meaning that cannot be predicted by linguistic knowledge alone and need to take into account knowledge about the physical and social world. Pragmatics emphasizes the expressions of meanings instead of the language forms and emphasizes the speakers’ meaning instead of the meaning of the words and sentences. It is not enough for any language learner only to master language forms. Learners should distinguish intended meaning from literal meaning. In pragmatics, logical grammar and meaning are not the only standards to depend on. What is more important is the language’s appropriateness. As pragmatics has been promoted and has been accepted wider and wider, its influence on language teaching is becoming stronger and stronger.

Sometimes, how much the pragmatics can produce in the English teaching is due to the degree of using it inside and outside the classroom. We should not only teach the students English grammar, but also pay much attention to pragmatics so as to develop the students’ ability to use English as it should be.

In language teaching, the relationship between pragmatics and grammar should carefully be dealt well with. Take teaching vocabulary as an example, to teach a word well, a teacher should not only let students know what it refers to, but also what is the difference between it and words with similar meaning. In English, synonyms are words that share a general sense and so may be interchangeable in a limited number of contexts, but which on closer inspection reveal conceptual differences. For example, extend, increase, expand. In the following sentence, they can be replaced by one another.

e.g. The company has decided to extend/increase/expand its range of products. But in the following sentences, they are not interchangeable.

e.g. We are going to extend the kitchen by ten feet this year.

We want to increase our sales by ten percent next year.

The metal will expand if we heat it.

Another example on vocabulary teaching is words’ affective meaning. Attitudinal and emotional factors can be expressed in an item of vocabulary. These are often referred to as connotation. Compare the following two sentences:

Mary is a single woman.

Mary is a spinster.

The conceptual meaning of both is that Mary is an unmarried adult female. However, “spinster” has a series of evaluative and emotional associations, for example, old, isolated, odd etc. It is hardly complimentary or pleasing.

In the past years, the traditional way of teaching English is teaching a sentence by analyzing its grammar and its meaning as elaborately as possible. To some extent, this method of teaching English is equal to viewing any sentence as an isolated unit of language. However, according to Speech Act Theory, which is proposed by J.Austin and J.Searle, language is not only used to informed or to describe things, what is more, it is often used to do things, to perform acts. So in terms of Speech Act Theory, a sentence in communicative process not only presents proposition, but also indicate speakers’ illocutionary act. We can classify all the sentences into four forms: statements, questions, imperatives and exclamation. But sometimes, one sentence may have both literal meaning and pragmatic meaning. Examples are as following:

e.g. A:Did you hear the man is dead?

B: Your shoes need cleaning.

Sentence A is a question, but actually,its pragmatic function is not to ask but to tell someone the news that the man is dead. While sentence B is a statement, but its pragmatic function is to give an instruction that you should clean your shoes. Performative verbs can help English learners understand some sentences’ pragmatic functions. Only can the listener obtains the speaker’s pragmatic meaning correctly, can illocutionary act be well done.

So as far as sentences are concerned, the differences are mainly pragmatics but grammar. The following sentences may show the pragmatic diversity.

e.g. A: I believe that she is an honest girl.

B: It is believed that she is an honest girl.

C: We believe that she is an honest girl.

Sentence A expresses the speaker is rather concerted; sentence B is a neutral one; sentence C shows that the person is modest.

A: May I borrow your book?

B: Can you lend me your book?

The two sentences above have the same meaning in common, while sentence A conforms to the politeness principle of pragmatics. Sentence B directly asks others for something. It is impolite in English spoken countries.

In a word, the relationship between pragmatics and teaching grammar is quite close and it deserves to pay much attention to. How much pragmatics can produce is due to the degree of using it in the real context. As an English teacher, we should not only teach the grammar, but also pay attention to pragmatics so as to develop students’ ability to use English.

2.2 The application of pragmatics in teaching English listening

Listening is a very important and challenging part in the teaching of English, and an important standard to measure a personal language comprehensive ability. Grice noticed that in daily conversation people do not usually say things directly but tend to imply them. We seem to follow some principles like the followings: “Make your

conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged ”. And this principle is known as the cooperative principle. Below is the cooperative principle in the application of English listening.

e.g. A: what do you think of my new dress?

B: Oh, you are very beautiful today.

From this example above, B’s answer is a violation of the principle of cooperation relationships criterion. But through the analysis we can find B’s reaction is the right answer to A’s word, so on the form B violates the principle of relation, but in fact, it is just the answer to A’s problem, and B’s answer is much more real in the the conversation context. So when teaching listening, the teachers should pay much attention to the use of the theory of pragmatics, combined with pragmatics knowledge, guide students see the language rich content contained through the language materials. Another example is that the phone rings when the father is washing the dishes, so he wants his kids to answer the phone. But he got the answers as below:

A: But Dad, I’m washing my hair.

B: I’m studying. Linda is watching TV.

C:I’m watching the baseball game, Dad.

Father:Well, I’m washing the dishes. SO SOMEONE ANSWER THE PHONE! According to the dialogue, the three kids didn’t answer their father’ question correctly, but in fact, all of them didn’t want to answer the phone. And the father also couldn’t answer it at that moment. This is the application of principle of politeness in the real communication context.

In order to have a better understanding of the listening materials, the teachers should apply the theory of pragmatics like the cooperative principle to their teaching so as to help students grasp the real intention of the speakers.

2.3 The application of pragmatics in teaching English reading

Relevance theory has explained the psychological cognition process that the information receive how to understand and inferred the information of the senders’ real intention. And reading comprehension is a cognitive psychological process that made by a kind of language through surface infers the deep intention of the information produced. So reading is based on cognitive principles and to use the readers’ own language knowledge and background knowledge to make a positive thinking and reasoning process to the article. This is a subjective, active process. And the key to realizing this initiative is the good use of relevance theory.

But to some extent, the teaching of reading needs to cultivate students’ awareness of improving their pragmatic ability and understanding different cultures. And this is the necessary background information for students when they read some authentic materials. As an English teacher, we should guide our students to promote the degree of language through relevance. And it is necessary for the students to deepen their pragmatic knowledge, for it can help them to grasp some knowledge of western culture and gradually develop communicative competence at the same time. Thus it’s very important to expose our students to the authentic and functional

materials based on some social contexts. Authentic materials mean texts or material which can help learners grasp the usage of language in the real situation. Authentic material are culturally based. They are beneficial for developing learning learners’ culture awareness. However, sometimes in our teaching, this factor has always been ignored in material choosing or homework assigning.

2.4 The application of pragmatics in teaching English speaking

Sperber and Wilson proposed the relevance theory is a relevant language communication theory from cognitive perspective. This theory regards language communication as an express--reasoning process. At the same time, the communication involves the speakers and the hearers for information processing. And realizing the cultural differences can help students avoid some social pragmatic failures in real communication context. In most English spoken countries, one’s age, income, politics and religion are things which are improper to ask of a stranger or a person that one does not know very well. So when communicating with them, our Chinese students should avoid asking such personal questions, which, more or less, is a matter of privacy in western countries. And knowing this cultural differences, the students may have a better chatting when speaking English with native speakers in the real context.

For the students, who are non-native speakers, to use language appropriately in different situations is quite difficult, especially when language is related to culture. Thus, it is the teachers’ job to make students aware that some topics still can be talked about even between strangers. And some useful speaking strategies need to pay more attention to when it comes to the sensitive questions. It is very common that some non-native speakers have some difficulty in starting a topic with native speakers. Sometimes they are not confident about their pronunciation, while in most cases, they just don’t know how to begin a conversation with native speakers naturally.

So teachers can introduce some subjects that can be talked about but not offensive, such as the weather, the school life, the hobby and so on. Such topics are always stimulating and relaxing. When the conversation starts, students need to know how to develop the topic. And the teachers can introduce ways of responding and going on their conversation. As for how to change the conversation, it is usually the non-native speakers’ trouble. In the English class, the teachers can encourage students to challenge the other persons’ questions and take the floor of the conversation. Otherwise the conversation will go on like an interview all the time and may be lack of interest and fun. In conclusion, in the teaching of spoken English, the teachers should pay special attention to the importance of pragmatics and make students be aware of cross-cultural differences and help learners to understand the way pragmatic principles work in their culture. And the teachers should pay more attention to the significance of pragmatics in teaching English speaking so as to develop students’ communicative competence.

3. Implications of More Efficient English Teaching

First, pragmatics offers us a new way to use English in special context. And

according to the theory of pragmatics, there are four factors affecting the efficiency of our teaching in English. They are language knowledge, context, psychological linguistics, social linguistics. And since there are many aspects that will influence English language teaching, the teachers should choose proper and practical pragmatic theories for their teaching. In English teaching, the teachers should not only teach the English language itself, but also teach pragmatics more and let students learn some theory knowledge such as the cooperative principle and politeness principle and so on. By doing so, the students will improve their language communicative ability in the classroom English language teaching.

Second, application of pragmatics in English teaching makes students’ learning and teachers’ teaching English easier and more efficient. And it benefits both of them since it good for the students’ effective learning and teachers’ professional development. So the teachers can develop topics centering on the situation that two unfamiliar person converse together, and teach students some ways of communicating with unfamiliar people freely and confidently.

4. Conclusion

As we have talked so much about the pragmatics and English language teaching, we know that the theories of pragmatics do help a lot in language teaching. Of them, the cooperative principle, relevance theory and politeness principle have a close connection with the reading, speaking, listening and the teachers’ classroom performance. So in the process of English teaching, we should make a combination of pragmatics and teaching, thus making it easier for the students to learn English. However, the study of pragmatics is not enough, we need to apply the theory of pragmatics to the teaching of English closely and properly.

【References】

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