Discourse and Pragmatics in Language Teaching

Abstract

Discourse and pragmatics which are two important and useful factors in ELT should be paid special attention to. This essay aims to illustrate that both discourse and pragmatics are crucial to effective language teaching. Furthermore, it explored in what aspects discourse and pragmatics impact on language teaching form many detailed examples and illustrations from the practical use. Index Terms - Discourse, Pragmatics, Language Teaching I. Introduction According to Brown and Yule (1983, p.1), ―The analysis of discourse is, necessarily, the analysis of language in use. As such, it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistics forms independent of the purposes of functions which those forms are designed to serve in human affairs.‖ While Ellis (1998, p.719) claims that ―Pragmatics is the study of how language is used in communication.‖ As Brown & Yule and Ellis explain, the fields of discourse analysis and pragmatics focus on how language is used in real- life situations. Therefore, this essay will make a brief research on the effectiveness of discourse and pragmatics in language teaching from the aspect of practical use. It will be divided into two main parts. The first part will be focused on discourse and pragmatics, attempting to describe the principal aspects of discourse and pragmatics which influence language teaching. It will firstly introduce the general idea of what discourse and pragmatics are. Then, it will pick some points of discourse and pragmatics which are relevant to language teaching such as cohesion and coherence of text and cooperative principles, as well as some examples. In the second part, two pieces of published ELT materials which both focus on ―reading‖ will be evaluated, analysed and compared, through which, something in language teaching associated with the discourse and pragmatics skills might be gained.