RETRACTED ARTICLE: Pragmatic competence: an imperative competency for a safe and healthy communication

Abstract

Having pragmatic competence, one can communicate appropriately in social contexts. Pragmatic competence is defined as “the ability to use the language to express a wide range of functions as well as interpret their illocutionary force in discourse according to the socio-cultural context in which they are used”. The present study aimed at investigating the pragmatic competence of Iraqi Kurdish EFL learners through their comprehension of speech acts, implicatures, and situational routines as three aspects of pragmatic competence. The study further focused on the effects of communicative language teaching methods in enhancing pragmatic competence, which is the originality of the study. Moreover, the study attempted to see any variance between males and females regarding this issue. For this reason, the study comprised 90 participants. A multiple-choice discourse completion test including 32 items was used for the collection of data. The results unveiled Iraqi Kurdish EFL learners recorded a low level of pragmatic competence. Moreover, the findings revealed that communicative teaching methods interestingly enhance this competency.