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4DEVELOPING PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE OF NON-PHILOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. IN FL TEACHING PROCESS.
Sadirova Dinara Sadikovna
Researcher (PhD) of TSPU named after Nizami, dinarasadikovna096@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10815534
Abstract. The research work is discussed about pragmatics, it's given definitions and usages in linguistics and teaching process. In the work we obtain some alternative resolutions of issues, how to teach pragmatics and elucidation of pragmatic competences. The development of pragmatic competence when mastering the English language is very important, since the effectiveness of intercultural communication depends on it. The purpose of the work is to determine the set of components of pragmatic competence that will be taught to students of non-philological universities, strategies for how to teach pragmatic skills and, finally, how to assess pragmatic competence and pragmatic skills of students.
Keywords: English for specific purposes, pragmatic competence, task development, testing, communication.
Introduction
English is the lingua franca of the world's professional communities, and the concept of intercultural communicative sensitivity and pragmatic competence has increased in recent years. As a result, the need to develop awareness of cultural diversity and pragmatically correct use of the English language has received enormous attention. This requires the development of training programs aimed at acquiring pragmatic skills in addition to traditional speaking, writing, reading and listening skills using work-related vocabulary and grammar.
Based on the recognition of English as a world language and awareness of the geography of its distribution, one should seriously think about both the linguistic culture of native speakers and the cultures of specialists who are not native speakers of English. The sociocultural and sociolinguistic diversity of nationalities that use English professionally as a lingua franca influences how people interact; making it critical to understanding what is meant by discourse and pragmatics. Understanding different cultural traditions and national principles of verbalization of universal speech acts should be mandatory when learning English for specific purposes.
The purpose of the article is to present some ideas about the components of pragmatic competence that should be taught to university students in non-philological fields of study, about ways of teaching pragmatics and assessing student achievements.
Methods
This article studies research on language proficiency and its components; an attempt is made to outline what should be integrated into the educational process for students to achieve pragmatic competence, what pragmatic competence should be, and how to evaluate the effectiveness of a pragmatics teaching module.
Pragmatic competence can be defined as a set of skills used to create or impart specific linguistic meanings to a particular situation or context. It includes: a) strategic competence, that is, how foreign language users mobilize or adjust their linguistic resources to activate skills and abilities in order to meet the need to communicate in context and to successfully complete the communication task in the most complete or most economical way possible; b) discourse competence, which refers to the ability to combine sentences or statements to create coherent, complete texts; c) functional competence, which refers to the awareness of the ability to use the
rules governing the way in which linguistic structures are interpreted conventionally or in a given context - "language functions" - and the ways in which these functions are typically arranged to create conversational structures (interactive scripts or diagrams) ; d) assessing the effects of language use in the real world, such as safety or effectiveness. This raises the question of what exactly the English teacher will teach in the classroom, what categories can be taught and then assessed.
Pragmatics in English for specific purposes is based on the fusion of various concepts and theories, for example, the theory of speech acts, the concept of communicative competence, the principle of cooperation, and the theory of politeness.
Speech act theory by J.L. Austin (1962) and later J.R. Searle (1969, 1975) concerns the ways in which words can be used to represent information as well as to complete actions. Here we consider such types of verbalization that lead to the performance of any action as: locative (words are used in their literal meaning), illocutionary (the actual meaning of words appears in the context), perlocutionary (words are used to cause some effect). This part of pragmatics is especially important to pay attention to when studying how to express approval, disapproval, complain, disagree, say "yes" or "no," and persuade, paying special attention to direct and indirect speech acts. [1, 2, 3]
D. Hymes (1972) developed the concept of communicative competence, in which he argued that both grammatical accuracy (including grammatical structures and word use) and correct use of language (contextual accuracy) are necessary to understand an interlocutor. A foreign language learner must learn how to vary his or her speech by register, choose a speech act, change emotional content or avoid certain words, or how to "repair" a conversation in the event of breakdowns in communication. [4]
P. Grice's principles (1975) include the principle of cooperation, that is, how listeners and speakers must act together to mutually accept each other and to be understood in a certain way. The maxims are maximum quantity (be as informative as necessary), maximum quality (be precise and clear), determined attitude (be relevant), concentrated character (be insightful). Understanding of the principle of cooperation is determined by cultural characteristics, but, nevertheless, these maxims describe generally accepted features of successful communication and can determine the success of the conversation. [5]
J. Leach (1983) created colloquial maxims of politeness: tact (maximizing consideration of others' wishes), generosity (maximizing advantage for others), approbation (maximizing the approval of others), modesty (minimizing self-congratulation), agreement (maximizing agreement), and sympathy (maximizing sympathy for others). What may be considered polite in one culture may be downright rude in another, but by focusing on the process of interpreting the impact on the listener rather than the speaker, unproductive communication can be corrected by following these principles? [6] Results and outcomes 1. Pragmatic competence.
In a university course of English as a foreign language, the goal of teaching intercultural communication is presumably not familiarization with the norms of the target culture, but the study of some universal principles of intercultural and interlinguistic communication.
1) what are the functions of language, for example, greetings and small talk, agreement, disagreement, reactions to invitations, asking questions, expressing commands, demonstrating assumptions, expressing desires, beliefs, expressing opinions;
2) How the functions of language can be expressed directly and indirectly;
3) How the verbalization of language functions can be determined by register, the intervention of the native language, the typical paradigm of a speech act in the language of another culture;
4) How politeness and speech etiquette differ throughout the world;
5) How emotions and modalities are expressed throughout the world;
6) How to create comfortable communication with an interlocutor with a lower level of language proficiency;
7) What are the strategies for correcting communication errors?
The main goal of a foreign language teacher is to develop the level of foreign language proficiency and teach intercultural communication. Technically, this area of study is an area of study for intercultural communication courses and not English language courses, but as the world is changing rapidly and as new requirements for effective communication in foreign languages emerge, the structure of language learning in higher technical education institutions needs to be reconsidered, expanding it to include pragmatic components at all stages of the program and at all levels of students' English proficiency.
Teaching foreign languages at technical universities means that students learn grammar, vocabulary related to their future field of professional activity, practice reading technical literature, as well as listening skills, however learners have virtually no productive speaking or writing skills due to this that in most cases they are afraid of making mistakes. Update English language teachers are improving their professional competence and shifting teaching goals to teaching communication instead of achieving accuracy in grammar or vocabulary from students, although teaching pragmatics is largely terra incognita for both students and teachers. Therefore, it is very significant to start mastering and applying pragmatics in English lessons by learning this subject from native English-speaking teachers.
2. Strategies for developing pragmatic competence.
The English language program for students of non-philological universities usually consists of three modules: general English, English for specific purpose, basic business communication skills (business correspondence and presentations). None of the courses contribute to the development of pragmatic awareness, so the development of new teaching materials is required.
Without some form of training and practice, the components of pragmatic competence will not develop sufficiently. It is necessary to know how it is possible to teach pragmatic components and what instructional approaches may be most effective.
Various investigators [7, 8, 9, 10] are exploring how to bring pragmatics into the classroom, but universal strategies for teaching pragmatics or the most productive type of teaching (inductive, deductive, implicit or explicit) have not yet been determined.
Based on research on this issue, the following activities can be proposed to increase pragmatic awareness and train it:
1) Observation of real language contexts to identify speakers' intentions and determine the type of speech act;
2) Observation of the linguistic tools used to verbalize the speaker's sentences and intentions;
3) Language practice of language functions through role-playing games;
4) Linguistic practice of changing register, changing tone, distancing and softening;
5) Self-observation and expert assessment;
6) Reading an extracurricular program on pragmatics.
When thinking about learning materials for observation (awareness), one can suggest various resources, for example, monologues and dialogues extracted from non-fiction films, feature films or business English textbooks and accompanying resources (Market Leader [11], Business Result [12], The Business [13]).
An understanding of how to design tasks to practice pragmatic competence can be obtained from the Teaching Pragmatics website[1] of the US Department of State's Resource center of American English, and from specialist literature such as Teaching pragmatics" by Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Rebecca Mahan-Taylor (Teaching Pragmatics. Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Rebecca Mahan-Taylor) [14]; Pragmatics: Teaching Speech Acts (Tesol Classroom Practice Series) [15], Pragmatics: Teaching Natural Conversation (Classroom Practice Series) Series)) [16].
Currently, the goal of an English teacher at university is to develop curricula that include pragmatic competence, tasks and exercises for its practice, as well as materials for testing mastery of pragmatic competence.
3. Assessing the achievement of pragmatic competence
Although researchers and educators have focused on developing methods for teaching students to practice language in a communicatively appropriate manner, not many approaches for assessing students' ability to communicate effectively have been developed and extensively tested in empirical studies [17, 18, 19, 20].
The most controversial issues in assessment devices are: 1) what to assess (rubrics?), 2) what should be the criterion for the grading scale (advanced user of pragmatics or satisfactory?); 3) how the assessment process will be carried out (oral tests, written tests with reading, writing, listening modules, timing of testing?).
A modest suggestion of what pragmatics testing might be like is given in Table 1 below. The test is expected to be written and graded by a foreign language teacher. The speaking part would be a valuable complement to the written part and could be performed in a role play mode, although the wording of the tasks and assessment criteria or even self-assessment is a matter for further research. Table 1 lists the components of pragmatic competence that need to be tested and suggests possible test activities for each.
Table 1. Possible categories and tasks for testing pragmatic competence
Category Tasks
Language features 1. Students are introduced to examples of language functions and must identify them: greeting, small talk, agreement-disagreement, invitation, command, expression of opinion, compliment. 2. Students are asked to submit requests, refusals, apologies, compliments and suggestions based on situations that may occur in the workplace.
Emotions Students are presented with examples of subjective modality that they must identify: sarcasm, politeness, importance, anger, humor, criticism.
Accommodation Students must paraphrase dialogues by: a) changing case; b) simplifying the set of words and grammar; c) transforming a direct
statement into an indirect one through the use of diplomatic language in situations that may occur in the workplace.
Correction Students study instances of communication breakdowns, notice communication failures, and propose solutions to correct communication based on situations that may occur in the workplace.
As can be seen, such a test would test students' ability to understand speech acts and speech functions, as well as the ability to produce speech acts in a simulated real-world context.
Conclusion
To communicate effectively in the international community, students learning foreign language need to develop pragmatic competence, this can be achieved through hands-on classroom learning. With increased pragmatic awareness, students are expected to gain competence and their English language skills will improve. In addition, English language teachers should study the pragmatic aspect of the language more deeply, develop materials for teaching pragmatics, and develop curricula that include pragmatic course components.
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