English for Science and Technology (EST)‎ learners' pragmatic failure : its causes and solutions

Abstract EN

Failing to perform different speech acts appropriately according to the discourse community norms is a serious difficulty that faces EST learners' in writing research articles.

More clearly, pragmatic failure is a serious problem in the EST learners' discourse community.

The present paper aims at shedding light on the EST learners' pragmatic failure, searching for causes behind this failure and proposing solutions.

Different consulted studies reveal that there different causes that lead to such situation.

Some are related to pragmatic studies, or to teaching curricula, or to pre-service and in-service programs and so on.

One can argue that all these causes stem from a lack of explicit teaching.

As a solution, EST learners have to build a degree of pragmatic sensitivity.

The latter can only be constructed through a consciousness raising approach to teaching.

That is, EST learners have to be explicitly taught pragmatic aspects.