The Effects of Planned Instruction on Iranian L2 Learners' Interlanguage Pragmatic Development

Abstract

The most compelling evidence that instruction in L2pragmatics is necessary comes from learners whoselanguage proficiency is advanced but their communicative actsfrequently contain pragmatic errors. The current studyevaluated the impact of explicit instruction on EFL learner'sawareness and production of three speech acts of request,apology, and complaint. It also probed whether learners’language proficiency plays any role in incorporatingpragmatic instruction into the L2 classroom. The instructionlasted for about 12 weeks. Achievement in L2 pragmaticswas assessed based on a pretest-posttest plan usingMultiple-Choice Discourse Comprehension Test (MDCT)and Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT). Thesignificant gains made by the experimental groups receivinginstruction support the claim recently made by instructionalpragmatics that explicit instruction does facilitate thedevelopment of pragmatically appropriate use of language.Yet, learners’ level of language proficiency had no significantrole in the incorporation of the instruction. Furthertheoretical issues are also discussed.

Keywords

• Pragmatic competence
• Explicit metapragmatic instruction
• Language proficiency
• Speech act
• Interlanguage pragmatic