«While pragmatics has been consistently defined as the study of language in its sociocultural context, it is unclear what an individual needs to know in order to be pragmatically competent and communicate appropriately and effectively in a given situation»

Veronika Timpe-Laughlin, Jennifer Wain and Jonathan Schmidgall
«Defining and Operationalizing the Construct of Pragmatic Competence: Review and Recommendations»
ETS Research Report Series, vol. 2015, n.º 1

ETS Research Report Series (@ETSresearch) | Educational Testing Service | Princeton | New Jersey | United States of America

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«Abstract

»This review paper constitutes the first step within a larger research effort to develop an interactive pragmatics learning tool for second and foreign language (L2) learners and users of English. The tool will primarily endeavor to support pragmatics learning within the language use domain “workplace.” Given this superordinate objective, this paper is subdivided into 2 parts.

»In the first section, we provide a detailed overview of previous (empirical) research, theories, and frameworks of communicative competence to review the role of pragmatics as an essential component of L2 communicative language ability. A principled, systematic, and exhaustive literature search was conducted via key word searches, and the selected literature was categorized and coded using NVivo 10 software.

»Next, 12 distinct models of communicative language ability that contain components of pragmatic knowledge were identified and analyzed.

»The commonly identified constitutive components were then reconceptualized into a proposed construct of pragmatic competence. The challenges of operationalizing pragmatic competence in both instruction and assessment are discussed.

»The second part of the paper constitutes a domain analysis of pragmatics in the language use domain “workplace.” First, the literature is reviewed for communicative tasks and activities that feature prominently in different workplace settings across various English-speaking countries. Then, we suggest and exemplify different model task types that can be employed in the context of learning and assessment materials that aim to foster pragmatic-functional awareness in both English as a foreign language (EFL)/English as a second language (ESL) learners and first language (L1) speakers alike.

»Pragmatic Competence Revisited

»While pragmatics has been consistently defined as the study of language in its sociocultural context (Crystal, 1985, 1997; Kasper, 1997), it is unclear what an individual needs to know in order to be pragmatically competent and communicate appropriately and effectively in a given situation. In short, what exactly constitutes pragmatic competence?

»To arrive at a construct of pragmatic competence, it is useful to review how pragmatic competence has been conceptualized in various (empirical) studies as well as models and frameworks of CLA. Based on close review of the body of literature identified in the systematic review and the results of different vote counts, we will first present the widespread distinction between pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics. Second, we will discuss three primary classifications of communicative competence models in which pragmatic competence is situated before finally proposing a construct of pragmatic competence.

»Definition of Key Terms: Knowledge, Competence, Performance

»In this paper, we have adopted the distinction between knowledge, competence/ability, and performance as delineated by Purpura (2004). Knowledge, as Purpura argued, describes “a set of informational structures that are built up through experience and stored in long-term memory” (p. 85) in the form of mental representations. Thus, pragmatic knowledge would comprise mental representations of informational structures related to pragmatics. Pragmatic competence or ability—which we use synonymously—goes beyond mere information structures and also includes “the capacity to use these informational structures in some way” (Purpura, 2004, p. 86; italics in the original) in order to convey meaning. Ultimately, pragmatic performance refers to the use of pragmatic phenomena in actual communicative events.

»Hence, performance is competence that can be observed. However, it is not necessarily a direct reflection of the competence as various factors such as situational constraints, task demands, or memory can interfere with performance.

»A Fundamental Distinction: Pragmalinguistics Versus Sociopragmatics

»As cited and reviewed in almost all of the examined publications, there seems to be a general consensus that pragmatic competence consists of two distinct, yet interrelated subcomponents: pragmalinguistic competence and sociopragmatic competence.

»As defined by Leech (1983), pragmalinguistics constitutes “the more linguistic end of pragmatics” (p. 11), or the linguistic strategies and resources needed to encode and decode a given illocution. For example, a linguistic strategy for making a request is conventional indirectness (e.g., Could you clean the dishes?), while the linguistic resources to realize this conventionally indirect request can include questions, modals, or hedges (Roever, 2006).

»Thus, pragmalinguistics is rather language specific and more closely interrelated with grammatical knowledge. Sociopragmatics, as the “sociological interface of pragmatics” (Leech, 1983, p. 10), is concerned with the rules and conventions of situationally, culturally, and socially appropriate and acceptable language use. This includes knowledge about “the taboos, mutual rights, obligations, and conventional courses of action that apply in a given speech community” (Roever, 2006, p. 230). Thus, a sociopragmatically competent language user—aware of sociocultural variables such as social distance, relative power, and degree of imposition (Brown & Levinson, 1987)—knows when, for example, conventional indirectness may be more appropriate than directness.

»For language users to be pragmatically successful, they must be able to consider, select, and “combine elements from these two areas in accordance with [their] illocutionary, propositional and modal goals” (Kasper, 1989, p. 39). As Roever (2011) contended, “Competent speakers of a target language can recognize a situationally appropriate speech style and produce it, indicating through their use of linguistic features that they recognize the social rules and norms of the speech event” (p. 471).

»Hence, this binary, psycholinguistic structure of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics positions pragmatic competence on a continuum with grammar at the one end and sociology at the other, which makes pragmatic competence an adaptive process mediated by the linguistic resources of an individual as well as the modalities, constraints, and sociocultural conventions of a given language use situation.

»Given this interconnectedness with other areas of language ability, pragmatic competence needs to be considered within the wider context of CLA. Already in 1989, Stalker pointed out that “[t]he theoretical fit of communicative competence with pragmatics is quite unsettled, but needs to be considered” (p. 183)—a call that has surfaced repeatedly in pragmatics literature (e.g., Eslami-Rasekh, 2005; Roever, 2011). In response to that call, a closer look was taken at different models and frameworks of communicative competence to review the role of pragmatics as an indispensable component of (L2) CLA.

»Frameworks of Pragmatic Competence Revisited

»A count of all of the frameworks and models in the examined body of literature identified 12 distinct models of CLA that contained, in one way or another, components of pragmatic knowledge. These reviewed frameworks can roughly be grouped into (a) functional, discourse-oriented models, (b) component models, and (c) componential, meaning-oriented models. However, it needs to be noted that this tripartite classification should not mask the fact that considerable overlaps and similarities exist between frameworks as they draw and build upon one another.

»Functional-Discourse Models

»In three of the frameworks reviewed, pragmatic competence is primarily described and viewed from a functional, discourse-oriented perspective (Bialystok, 1993; Halliday, 1973; van Dijk, 1977). Halliday’s (1973) and Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) conceptualization of the linguistic system, for example, places heavy emphasis on the sociocultural context that mediates meaning in language use situations. They put forth what Canale and Swain (1980) have called a “meaning potential approach to language” (p. 18).

»That is, the social context or system mediates a language user’s behavioral options, which are then realized in a set of semantic options (i.e., what they can mean or the meaning potential), which are then ultimately realized as a set of grammatical options (i.e., the actual utterance). Hence, in Halliday’s view, sociocultural context provides the frame and constraints within which language is organized on multiple levels (strata). The components of the semantic system—ideational, interpersonal, and textual—may be broadly viewed in terms of pragmatic functions and are given principal emphasis.

»The ideational component pertains to the expression of content, including experience (experiential) and abstract relationships (logical). The interpersonal component is concerned with social, affective, and conative functions. The textual component is focused on the language resources needed to create a text, including structural (theme, voice, information structure) and nonstructural (e.g., cohesion). In Halliday’s conceptualization, the three functional components of the semantic system provide organizational structure that is intersected by lexicogrammatical groups.

»This approach emphasizes that grammatical and pragmatic components are inherently intertwined: functional components of the semantic system provide context (i.e., inform sociopragmatic meaning) and thus help determine the relative importance of lexicogrammatical groups across these components.

»A similar discourse focus is maintained by van Dijk (1977), who described language use as a function-oriented, conventional system that has developed over time in a given speech community. Within this view of language, van Dijk framed pragmatic competence as a theory of action. Reminiscent of speech act theory, he argued that “by speaking we DO something” (p. 167) and carry out particular speech acts that carry distinct language use functions. These speech acts in turn are phrased and uttered according to the conventions that govern a given language use context. Thus, pragmatics is understood as dealing with the relationships between utterances and (a) the acts performed through these utterances and (b) the features of the context that promote appropriate language use.

»The former conceptualization concerns the illocutionary force of an utterance, whereas the latter involves the sociolinguistic conventions and norms that are related to language use in a given speech community. Van Dijk argued that the meaning of linguistic acts in the context of specific language use events only becomes accessible in interpretation—a point that is elaborated on by Bialystok (1993) and eventually Purpura (2004).

»Bialystok (1993) described a framework of communicative competence that is largely coherent with Halliday’s (1973) and van Dijk’s (1977) functional, meaning-driven orientations but emphasizes the role of cognitive processing components. Communicative competence (learner competence) is described as a processing ability consisting of two components: analysis of knowledge and control of processing. From a pragmatic perspective, the first component consists of the process of analyzing knowledge in order to decode and encode speech intentions across three levels: conceptual (meaning), formal (structural), and symbolic.

»The second component requires directing attention to relevant and appropriate information to apply pragmatic knowledge in real-time communication. Within this framework, pragmatic competence is described as the use of these processing components across three pragmatic phenomena (turn-taking, cooperation, and cohesion). Bialystok highlights several aspects of the framework that may be particularly relevant for adult L2 learners to develop pragmatic competence, including the need to build or enhance symbolic representations that link forms to social contexts.

»In sum, these three discourse-oriented models view language as a multidimensional (sociosemiotic) system. Therein, pragmatics constitutes a meaning-providing element that is largely synonymous with functional-discourse features. The meaning that is created and mediated through the context becomes overt primarily in the coherent flow of discourse and the interlocutor’s interpretation thereof. Hence, all three models feature a meaning-driven view of language use.

»Limitations and Recommendations for Further Research

»Throughout this paper, we pointed out a number of aspects that require further, empirical investigation if this construct is to be used on a large scale in teaching and assessment. Before we outline future directions for pragmatics research, we need to acknowledge two main limitations of this paper. First, each of the components of pragmatic competence included in the proposed construct would require a book-length treatment to fully outline their nature, intricacies with other language use components, and their role in form-function mapping processes. That is to say, each of the concepts referred to and reviewed in this paper can be discussed in much more detail.

»For example, speech acts as a component of illocutionary knowledge can be discussed further in reference to speech act theory. Moreover, meaning making could further be related to Schmidt’s (1993) noticing hypothesis, Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness, or Sperber andWilson’s (1995) relevance theory. However, given this paper’s focus on pragmatic components in frameworks of CLA, these further connections to branches of philosophy of pragmatics may be added and elaborated on in future scholarly work on pragmatic theory.

»Second, while the construct proposed in this paper strives to account for a variety of languages across a broad range of language use contexts, it is based on research that focused on ELLs. Schneider (2010), for instance, has criticized that “[s]cholars working in the Anglo-American tradition of pragmatics [...] are primarily interested in pragmatic universals, i.e., the fundamental workings of human communication” (p. 249). Given the focus on ELLs in systematically selecting the underlying body of literature, this approach may be equally criticized for an ethnocentric view of seeking pragmatic universals. However, this focus was chosen due to the ultimate goal of the larger project: the development of a theory-based learning and (formative) assessment tool that promotes pragmatic awareness in ELLs.

»In addition to these two main limitations, a number of crucial directions for further research—primarily in relation to the pragmatic construct proposed here—shall be acknowledged. Among the many aspects to be investigated are the following:

»1. A number of implications with regard to pragmatic learning and assessment were outlined; however, an in-depth discussion and examination of the development and acquisition of pragmatic competence is beyond the scope of this paper (for more detailed studies on pragmatic learning, see Kasper & Rose, 2001; Kinginger, 2008; Taguchi, 2012; Timpe, 2013). From a developmental angle, detailed (empirical) investigations of the various sociopsychological factors and their influence on pragmatic learning, form-function processing and use, and L1 influence needs to be conducted.

»2. Although this proposed construct is based on some empirical findings and results from validation studies (Bachman & Palmer, 1982; Grabowski, 2009; Taguchi, 2012), the empirical evidence is scarce and a large number of components still require validation. For example, research on cognitive processing of form-function mapping processes may shed light on the interconnectedness of pragmatic-functional knowledge and other language components. Moreover, rhetorical and interpersonal meanings as put forth by Purpura (2004) were included in the proposed construct. However, these types of meaning have not been empirically validated yet.

»3. The construct of pragmatics proposed here focuses exclusively on verbal communication skills. However, as Savignon (1983, 2002) argued, the nonverbal dimension of communication needs to be considered as well in order to account for the multimodality of language and, thus, provide for a holistic form of interactive language use. Hence, the construct may eventually require some elaboration to also include other modalities.

»4. Pragmatic phenomena in language use situations, for example, when English is used as a lingua franca (ELF) or as an international language (EIL) require further research as they may provide additional insights that have not been accounted for in enough detail in this model (e.g., the impact of an L2 speaker’s native language). Some first steps into that direction were explored by Kuchuk (2012) and Knapp (2011).

»5. To implement pragmatic learning and (formative) assessment, a more thorough understanding of different TLU domains is required. For instance, foundational research regarding the probability of occurrence of pragmatic phenomena and relevance to L2 learners’ communicative needs is essential. For the TLU domain, workplace, an investigation and thorough analysis of sociolinguistic phenomena, both within as well as across different tasks, could provide further insights that can be used to design learning material and tasks to foster EFL/ESL pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic awareness.

»6. The need to develop learning materials and test formats that are (a) grounded in a framework for learning such as the Universal Design for Learning (for more information see http://www.cast.org/udl/), (b) administratively feasible, and (c) aid (instructed) learning and assessment. For example, many textbooks have been accused of not providing the rich and adequately contextualized input needed to facilitate pragmatic learning (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig, Hartford, Mahan-Taylor, Morgan, & Reynolds, 1991; Boxer & Pickering, 1995; Gilmore, 2004; Usó-Juan & Ruiz-Madrid, 2007). In addition to the lack of adequate materials,Thomas (1983) has argued that pragmatic phenomena provide a particular challenge with regard to language teaching. For instance, correcting pragmatic infelicities that stem from sociopragmatic miscalculation is much more delicate than correcting a grammar mistake because sociopragmatic decisions are social before they are linguistic. Although language learners are susceptive to being corrected with what they view as linguistic, they are much less amenable to being corrected in terms of their social judgment (see also O’Keeffe et al., 2011). Thus, learning material with a rich contextualization that learners may use independently while obtaining feedback may be a means to providing pragmatic instruction.

»Hence, a large amount of foundational research needs to be conducted in order to inform the instruction and assessment of pragmatic competence and further develop the construct of pragmatics proposed in this paper.»