Students’ pragmatic awareness and implications for English classroom teaching at Thuong mai university *

STUDENTS’ PRAGMATIC AWARENESS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR 
ENGLISH CLASSROOM TEACHING 
AT THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY 
Pham Thuy Giang
*
Thuong Mai University 
Received: 18/09/2017; Revised: 25/10/2017; Accepted: 30/08/2018 
Abstract: This study was carried out to examine Thuong Mai non-English major students’ 
awareness of two speech acts of requesting and greeting, their pragmalinguistic and 
sociopragmatic understanding based on these speech acts. The participants were 5 Americans 
and 50 non-English major freshmen at Thuong Mai University (TMU). Two survey 
questionnaires were employed as research instruments. The results show that the students’ 
awareness of speech acts was low. The speech act of requesting comes to the fore with the 
larger number of participants having the correct answers, whereas the speech act of greeting 
enjoyed the lower correct response rate. The students’ understanding of pragmalinguistic and 
sociopragmatic aspects was still limited. The aspect of politeness was paid the most attention 
to while that of cultural norms was least focused on. A number of suggestions for promoting 
students’ pragmatic awareness were given to TMU teachers and students of English. 
Key words: Intercultural communication, pragmatic awareness, speech acts 
1. Introduction 
As a teacher of English at TMU, from her own observations and experience, the researcher has 
noticed that TMU students often experience difficulties in communicating in English when involved in 
different communication situations in the classrooms as well as in real-life encounters. Many of them do 
not employ appropriate strategies and do not use relevant linguistic forms to perform a speech act. They 
engage in communication activities without paying attention to factors that influence the communication 
such as the relationship with the other interlocutor. The situation is worse when they interact with native 
speakers. As they have not been exposed much to real-life situations, they often feel stuck. They may not 
understand what native speakers mean or are unable to make appropriate utterances in different situations. 
Especially, they often violate politeness or cultural norms, thus leading to their difficulty or even failure 
in intercultural communication. This may be due to the fact that they are not really aware of pragmatic 
aspects or do not put enough emphasis on them. 
Such a situation has inspired the author to conduct research into “Students’ pragmatic awareness 
and implications for English classroom teaching at Thuong Mai University” with a focus on TMU 
first-year non-English major students’ pragmatic awareness. Some pedagogical implications are also 
discussed to help raise the students’ pragmatic awareness and increase English teaching effectiveness. 
The study aimed at answering two research questions: 
1. How much are TMU first-year non-English major students aware of English pragmatic aspects? 
2. What should be done to improve the students’ pragmatic awareness? 
* Email: giangmrchip@yahoo.com 
2. Theoretical framework 
2.1. Pragmatics 
Since its introduction by Morris (1938, p. 6-7) up to the present time, pragmatics has been defined 
in various ways by many scholars (Leech, 1983; Levinson, 1983; Mey, 1993; Rose & Kasper, 2001; 
Stalnaker, 1972; and Yule, 2006). Though these scholars define pragmatics differently, they all address 
their attention to what the speakers or writers mean. For this reason, pragmatics can be defined as “the 
study of the use of context to make inferences about meaning” (Fasold, 1990, p. 119). 
Out of numerous definitions of pragmatics, one of interest in second language pedagogy has been 
proposed by Crystal (in Kasper, 2001, p. 2) as “the study of language from the point of view of users, 
especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction 
and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication.” In other 
words, pragmatics is defined as the study of communicative action in its sociocultural context. Kasper 
(2001, p. 2) indicates that communicative actions includes not only using speech acts (such as 
apologizing, complaining, complimenting, and requesting) but also engaging in different types of 
discourse and participating in speech events of varying length and complexity. 
In this study, the researcher follows the division of pragmatics by Leech and Thomas (in Kasper, 
2001), who classified pragmatics into two components, namely pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics. 
These two aspects of pragmatics will be discussed along with the employment of speech acts. 
2.2. Speech acts 
2.2.1. Definitions 
The speech act theory is attributed to Austin (1962), who claimed “many utterances, termed 
performatives, do not only communicate information, but are equivalent to actions” (p. 22). In other 
words, by these utterances, people do things or have others do things for them; they apologize, promise, 
request, refuse and complain. Utterances that may be used to realize the above functions are known as 
speech acts. 
2.2.2. Categories of speech acts 
Searle (1979, p. 12) provided a classification of speech acts according to their functions, dividing 
them into five categories, including 
(i) representatives, which commit the speaker to the truth of expressed proposition (paradigm cases: 
asserting, concluding, etc.) 
(ii) directives, which are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something (paradigm 
cases: requesting, questioning, etc.) 
(iii) commissives, which commit the speaker to some future course of action (paradigm cases: 
promising, threatening, offering) 
(iv) expressives, which express a psychological state (paradigm cases: thanking, apologizing, 
welcoming, congratulating) 
(v) declaratives, which affect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs and which tend 
to rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions (paradigm cases: excommunicating, declaring war, 
christening, firing from employment) 
2.3. Pragmalinguistics 
Pragmalinguistics refers to the resources for conveying communicative acts and relational or 
interpersonal meanings. Such resources include pragmatic strategies such as directness and indirectness, 
routines, and other range of linguistic forms which can soften or intensify communicative acts. The term 
pragmalinguistic can be applied to “the study of the more linguistic end of pragmatics - where we 
consider the particular resources which a given language provides for conveying particular illocution 
(Leech, 1983, p. 11). In short, pragmalinguistics refers to knowledge of the linguistic means to perform 
speech acts (Schmitt, 2002, p. 80). 
Pragmalinguistics includes two aspects, namely, conventions of means (strategies for realizing 
speech intentions) and conventions of forms (the linguistic items used to express speech intentions) 
(Kasper & Roever, 2005). The former refers to the semantic devices (or semantic formulas) by which a 
speech act is performed. The latter involves the exact wordings used. For example, a request can be 
realized by means of different semantic formulas, from a direct statement expressing obligation to an 
indirect statement expressing wishes. A request can be realized by means of different wordings such as 
“You must lend me your car.”, “I would like to borrow your car.”, “Could you lend me your car?”, or 
“My car has broken down.” and so on. 
2.4. Sociopragmatics 
2.4.1. Definitions 
Sociopragmatics has been described by Leech (1983, p. 10) as the sociological interface of 
pragmatics, referring to the social perceptions underlying participant’s interpretation and performance of 
communicative action. Speech communities differ in their assessment of speaker’s and hearer’s social 
distance and social power, their rights and obligations, and the degree of imposition involved in particular 
communicative acts (Holmes, 2001). Sociopragmatics is about proper social behavior. Learners must be 
made aware of the consequences of making pragmatic choices. 
Schmitt (2002, p. 80) states that sociopragmatic perspective focuses on the socially based 
assessment, beliefs and interactional principles that underlie people’s choice of strategies. For example, a 
speaker who is a dinner guest wanting to reach the salt which is at the other side of the table could say: 
“Pass the salt, will you?” or “Can you pass the salt?”, depending on the relationship between that speaker 
and the hearer (close or distant, equal or unequal) or the social acceptability of reaching for food in such a 
context. Such social judgments are the focus of sociopragmatics. 
2.4.2. Aspects of sociopragmatics 
Based on Brown and Levinson’s division (1987), in which sociopragmatics can be used to refer to 
knowledge of relative power, social distance, and imposition and knowledge of mutual rights and 
obligations, taboos, and conventional courses of action, the present researcher determines two aspects of 
sociopragmatics, namely, politeness and cultural norms. 
 Politeness: according to Brown and Levinson (1987), there are three independent variables that 
have a systematic effect on the choice of politeness strategy in the social context. They include the social 
distance between two interlocutors, the relative power one interlocutor has over the other, and the 
absolute ranking of impositions in the culture in which the two are in. Social distance reflects the degree 
of familiarity and solidarity that both the hearer and speaker share. Relative power indicates the degree of 
imposition that the speaker may inflict on the hearer due to the power differential between the two parties. 
Finally, absolute ranking refers to the weightiness of impositions relative to a given culture’s expectations 
and modes. This includes “the right of the speaker to perform the act, and the degree to which the hearer 
welcomes the imposition” (Brown & Levinson, 1978, p. 74). With these variables in mind, the speaker 
must choose specific linguistic forms that reflect particular politeness strategies relative to the variables 
that are involved in a specific context. 
 Cultural norms: in Malinowski’s opinion (1994), language forms depend on cultural background; 
language is the carrier of culture, as well as a part of culture. Malinowski argues, “one language must be 
deep-rooted in a given culture. Conversely, the social culture is unavoidably reflected by context.” 
In a given setting of culture, when people use language to communicate with each other, they must 
follow certain conventional rules for social communication. If learners have no knowledge about the 
cultural components a given language carries, they would not be able to adjust the language forms 
according to the context of situation, even less likely to master the language, let alone to apply the 
language in an appropriate way. 
2.5. Pragmatic awareness 
Pragmatic awareness is defined as conscious notice of or attention to particular pragmatic functions 
and utterances in the language input based on the noticing hypothesis (Schmidt, 1990, 1994) and research 
of awareness as well as consciousness of input in second and foreign language learning (Bardovi-Harlig 
& Griffin, 2005; Garcia, 2004). Pragmatic awareness (Garcia, 2004) has been used to refer to a hearer’s 
ability to correctly infer an interlocutor’s intended meaning. Bardovi-Harlig and Griffin (2005), and 
Schauer (2006) defined pragmatic awareness as learners’ recognition of pragmatic infelicities. In Cook 
and Liddicoat’s (2002) study, pragmatic awareness was operationalized as the learner’s ability to interpret 
different request expressions. More specifically, in his own research, Hinkel (1997) defined it as learners’ 
ability in identifying the most appropriate advice options (direct, hedged, or indirect) from the 
multiple-choice questionnaire. 
Pragmatic awareness plays an important role in developing pragmatic competence. ‘Pragmatic 
competence’ can be specifically defined as “knowledge of communicative action and how to carry it out, 
and the ability to use language appropriately according to context” (Kasper, 1997, p.?). Kasper (1996) 
listed three conditions for the acquisition of pragmatic knowledge: “There must be pertinent input, the 
input has to be noticed, and learners need ample opportunities to develop a high level of control” (p. 148). 
In other words, to develop pragmatic competence, the learner has to notice the pragmatic information in 
the input and understand its function in the surrounding context (i.e., pragmatic awareness). 
 Based on the aforementioned theories, it can be summarized that pragmatic awareness refers to 
conscious notice of or attention to particular pragmatic aspects and can be divided into two types: 
pragmalinguistic awareness and sociopragmatic awareness. 
3. Methods and materials 
In consideration of the research’s purposes, this study was done in the light of both qualitative and 
quantitative methods. 
3.1. Participants 
The participants in the study were five Americans and 50 first-year non-English major students at 
TMU. Two male and three female Americans in the survey were living in Vietnam. They were from 24 to 
35 years old. The group of the students to answer the questionnaire was constituted by 35 female and 15 
male freshmen from five faculties at TMU. The number of participants was equally distributed among these 
faculties. The participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 22 years old. Most of them had been learning English for 
at least four years. Especially, one student had 13 years experience in learning English. Therefore, the 
students had their mastery of necessary grammatical knowledge to accomplish the survey. Notably, none of 
the participants had lived in an English speaking country prior to taking part in the research. To increase the 
reliability and validity of the research study, a random sampling procedure was applied. 
3.2. Instruments 
A descriptive research design incorporating both qualitative and quantitative instruments was used 
to accomplish the objectives of the study. Two questionnaires, which had the similar contents, were 
adopted in this research. Among them, one was distributed to five native speakers to elicit their answers, 
which were considered as a basis to evaluate the appropriateness of TMU students’ answers. The other 
was translated into Vietnamese and used to assess TMU students’ pragmatic awareness. 
3.3. Data collection 
 After the revision, the English version of the questionnaire was administered to the sample of five 
native speakers of English who were American to find the native speakers’ norms in selecting the 
appropriate expressions. As there is no concrete standard for what is considered appropriate language, the 
most valid and practical way to judge the appropriateness of an utterance in a particular context may rely 
on the native speakers’ norms in language use. 
Altogether 50 copies of the questionnaire in Vietnamese were distributed to 50 students at TMU. 
Before the questionnaires were distributed to the students, it was made clear to them that the purpose was 
to test their pragmatic awareness and all the data collected would be used for research only. Thus the 
students could concentrate themselves on the pragmatic aspects of the utterance when making their 
choices. All was explained to the students in Vietnamese, their native language, in order to increase the 
students’ comfort and understanding. The students were allowed to consult dictionaries as well as the 
researcher for new words they had in understanding the answer options, which could ensure that there 
was no linguistic barrier for the subjects. However, they were required to do the questionnaire 
individually. None were allowed to leave before the scheduled time so as to avoid them trying to rush to 
fill out the questionnaire in order to leave the class early. They finished the questionnaire within forty-five 
minutes. The response rate was 100% and all of the questionnaires were valid. 
3.4. Data analysis 
The quantitative data were expressed in percentages and presented in the form of tables. The 
quantitative data were used to measure the student participants’ awareness of each speech act. Then, only 
qualitative data given by the participants who had the correct answer to each question were analyzed 
using a content analysis technique to find general patterns or aspects of pragmatic awareness raised by the 
participants (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Patton, 2002). Then, these aspects were recorded together with 
the number of participants mentioning each aspect. Student answers (in Vietnamese) were translated by 
the researcher. Relevant quotations were then grouped together. To avoid inconsistency or potential bias, 
data were analyzed and categorized by the researcher alone. 
4. Findings and discussions 
Research findings from the questionnaire for native speakers show that all of them had the same 
answer to each question. They all chose the most appropriate utterance from those given in each situation. 
The result of the research on students’ pragmatic awareness will be analyzed and discussed, from 
the following seven speech acts, namely greeting, addressing, introducing, requesting and responding, 
inviting, parting, and thanking and responding and one pragmatic aspect - choosing conversation topics. 
Aspects of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic awareness concerning these speech acts were also 
reported by the students who had the correct response to each question. 
The average percentage of appropriate responses by speech acts is shown in Table 1 below. 
Table 1. Average percentage of appropriate responses by speech acts 
Speech acts Correct answer rate 
Greeting 15.3% 
Addressing 42% 
Introducing 24% 
Requesting and responding 56.5% 
Inviting 23% 
Parting 47.5% 
Thanking and responding 29% 
Conversation topics 38.7% 
Mean 34.5% 
It can be seen clearly from Table 1 that the average percentage of appropriate responses to all 
speech acts addressed in the questionnaire was relatively low (34.5%). This indicates that the students’ 
awareness of speech acts was below average. It is also reflected from table 1 that the speech act of 
requesting and responding experienced the highest correct answer rate (56.5%) in the questionnaire. This 
result was rather surprising because this kind of speech act is often a big challenge to learners and it is a 
directive speech act which intrinsically threatens the hearer’s face and, therefore, it calls for considerable 
cultural and linguistic expertise on the part of the learners (Brown and Levinson, 1987). The lowest 
correct answer rate (15%) fell on the speech act of greeting which is a very common one. 
4.1. Awareness of greeting 
Table 2. Students’ awareness of greeting 
Speech 
act 
Item Correct 
answer 
rate 
Pragmalinguistic Sociopragmatic 
Convention 
of forms 
Convention 
of means 
Politeness Cultural 
norms 
Greeting 2 44% - 4% 40% - 
5 2% - 2% - - 
6 0% - - - - 
Mean 15.3% 
As can be seen from Table 2, a small proportion of students (15.3%) had the correct answer. For 
example, in question 2, only 44% of the students chose the correct answer, B. When asked to give a brief 
explanation for their choice, only two students who had the correct answer addressed their 
pragmalinguistic awareness of conventions of means. Examples of their explantions were translated into 
English as follows: “I chose B because it is a conventional greeting.”, “This is the way of greeting that I 
have learnt and I often use.” The rest of the students who had the correct answer to this question showed 
their sociopra