Pragmatic failure among EFL students in speech act performance : the case of 1st year master students at Ahmed Salhi university centre of Naama

Abstract EN

As a communication means, English plays a vital role in cross-cultural communication but linguistic knowledge is not sufficient for successful linguistic communication.

Therefore, pragmatic competence is an essential part of communicative competence due to the fact that lack of pragmatic knowledge sets up barriers to the success of interactions.

The present study aims to explore pragmatic failure among 1st year Master students of English while performing speech acts in their oral communication, and to provide useful suggestions to develop their pragmatic competence.

For more valid results, the data are gathered and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively by means of a multiple choice questionnaire and an interview.

The findings of this study revealed that the majority of participants committed pragmatic failure in the suggested situations.

As a result, subjects 'responses attested that Master students are pragmatically deficient and this may lead to breakdowns and misunderstanding in communication.

It was also noticed that a significant number of students confused between formal and informal speech.