Sociolinguistic Competence of L2 Students

Abstract

Sociolinguistic competence is essential ability using the foreign language, which indicates the proper usage of the foreign language in the area of pragmatics and sociolinguistic knowledge. It is well known that when acquiring a new language, learners of a second language (L2) in addition to studying structural, functional and discursive rules they do not learn the internal sociolinguistic rules that can guide them when choosing appropriate language form. The report indicates that even advanced students’ inadequate communicative behavior, due to a lack of sociolinguistic competence, often deviate from L2 conventions, which can lead to many cross-cultural misunderstandings(Yu 2006). The paper analyzes different reasons of deficiency of sociolinguistic competence of L2 student. The research shows the reasons causing the competence absence related problems in classroom, teacher and material based challenges in improving sociolinguistic competence of L2 learners. The paper suggests several solutions to enhance the ability of using foreign language properly in both classroom and society by the L2 students.