Pragmatics of English Speech Acts: Compliments Used by Macedonian Learners

Marjana Vaneva,Marija Ivanovska

doi:10.5539/ijel.v8n5p272

Abstract

This study investigated the pragmatic knowledge and competence of the Macedonian learners of English, i.e. Macedonian high school English students’ views on and perceptions of pragmatics, their pragmatic competence in the speech act of complimenting, and the language learning strategies employed in the process of acquiring pragmatic knowledge.Although “student-oriented” and “evaluation-oriented”, the teaching methods currently used do not sufficiently develop students’ communicative competence in the process of English teaching and learning. Many students lack pragmatic knowledge of how to use the foreign language in specific settings and how to interpret certain utterances used by native speakers of the other language.Despite all the efforts made to improve the English language education in Macedonia, yet greater emphasis should be put on students’ linguistic and pragmatic competence in the English teaching and learning process. This area is the focus of the current study that analyses the English speech act of complimenting and its use by the Macedonian learners of English.

Highlights

1.1 English Learning and Teaching in the Secondary Education in MacedoniaDue to the rapid economic development, the role of English, especially the communicative competence in English, which refers to both the knowledge of a language and the ability to use that knowledge in social interactions (Barron, 2003; Hymes, 1972; Widdowson, 1992), has become more and more important in the daily life of the Macedonian population
RQ2: To what extent do high school English language students in Macedonia focus on their pragmatic knowledge in their English learning? What are their levels of pragmatic competence?
2) To what extent do high school English language students in Macedonia focus on their pragmatic knowledge in their English learning? What are their levels of pragmatic competence?

Summary

Introduction

1.1 English Learning and Teaching in the Secondary Education in MacedoniaDue to the rapid economic development, the role of English, especially the communicative competence in English, which refers to both the knowledge of a language and the ability to use that knowledge in social interactions (Barron, 2003; Hymes, 1972; Widdowson, 1992), has become more and more important in the daily life of the Macedonian population. It is important to examine how Macedonian learners of English acquire knowledge of the appropriate use of English and how they practice their knowledge in both their learning contexts and daily life in order to help them better develop their language competence. This is done hereby by reconsidering the speech act of complimenting and its use by the Macedonian learners of English. English has been the dominant foreign language in the curricula of the educational institutions and the foreign language learning in Macedonia for more than two decades (Ministry of Education and Science, 2015). The process of learning English as a foreign language starts in the 1st grade, i.e. at the age of 6, when it is introduced as the first foreign language in the Macedonian education system

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