The Impact of Socio-Pragmatic Instruction on the Performance of Iraqi EFL Learners in the Compliment Response Strategies

Abstract


 
 The purpose of the present study is to examine the impact of the instruction in the English sociopragmatic awareness among Iraqi EFL learners in the speech act of complimenting responses . It is well-known that sociopragmatic aspects of language use vary across different languages and cultures .Such aspects map out the socio-cultural norms and conventions as well as the strategies that underlie the pragmatic performance of different language speakers in a variety of target language situations . Being a teacher for more than ten years in an Iraqi university , the researcher has noticed that Iraqi EFL learners entertain a low ability to communicate effectively in responding to the speech act of complimenting , despite the fact that many of them have a perfect dominion of the target language grammar rules . However, it seems that L2 teachers often overlook pragmatics, which constitutes a crucial element of language ability of L2 learners ; this might be attributed to the difficulty of its teaching . The resulting lack of pragmatic competence of L2 learners can lead to pragmatic failure and , more importantly , to a complete communication breakdown . It is hypothesized that Iraqi EFL learners are not proficient in responding appropriately to compliments when put in real-life situations due to their inadequate pragmatic competence .Hence , it is very necessary to provide them with socio-cultural knowledge incorporated into the EFL classroom if we are aiming at fruitful communication .The second hypothesis states that socio-cultural knowledge plays a significant role in enhancing Iraqi EFL learners' performance in responding to compliments in English appropriately .The present study has shown that Iraqi EFL learners perform significantly different forms of compliment responses from those produced by native speakers of English in terms of quality . The results reached at validate the hypothesis put forward , and call for the importance of instructing Iraqi EFL learners concerning socio-cultural norms and conventions of L2 they are studying .