华 中 师 范 大 学
研 究 生 课 程 论 文
完成时间 2015年1月
课程名称 英语语用学
专 业 学科教学（英语）
年 级 2014级
论文题目 The Application of Pragmatics in English Teaching
【Abstract】Pragmatics has gotten more and more attention recently. As a branch of linguistics, the studying of Pragmatics focuses on how to understand and use language in certain contexts, and to achieve the purpose of using English to communicate with each other in the real context successfully. Thus the teaching of pragmatic knowledge is very important and necessary for efficient English teaching. It plays a vital role in our daily communication. In order to make some breakthrough in English teaching, it’s necessary for teachers to pay attention to the importance of pragmatics in their teaching process. By applying the theory of pragmatics to English teaching, teachers can get more scientific methods to improve their English teaching. Only in this way can our students improve their pragmatic ability and thus learn how to study and use English effectively and appropriately and improve their communicative competence.
【Keywords】pragmatics, English teaching, communicative competence
1. Introduction and importance of pragmatics
1.1 Introduction of pragmatics
The modern usage of the term “pragmatics”is attributable to the philosopher Charles Morris(1938), who was concerned to outline the general shape of a science of signs or semiotics. Richards et al.(2000) described the term as the study of the use of language in communication. Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. It deals with particular utterances in particular situations and is especially concerned with the various ways in which many social contexts of language performance can influence interpretation. In other words, pragmatics is concerned with the way language is internally structured. It regards speech performance as primarily a social act ruled by various social conversations.
According to previous definitions, we know that pragmatics generally concerns how to use language properly. Therefore, it is one of the most significant parts of the communicative competence. Pragmatic competence refers to the organization of the linguistic signals that used in communication, and how these signals are used to refer to persons, objectives, ideas and feelings. Pragmatic competence includes illocutionary competence, or the knowledge of the pragmatic conversations for performing acceptable language functions, and sociolinguistic conventions for performing language functions appropriately in a given context.
1.2 Importance of pragmatics in English teaching
Nowadays, English is the language of globalization, international communication, commerce and trade, tourism, the media, and pop culture, different motivations for learning it come into play. Every field of work needs persons with high level of proficiency. English is still a tool assisting with educational and economic advancement but is viewed as one that can be acquired without any of the cultural trappings that go with it.
However, it’s not easy to learn a foreign language, and it’s more difficult to teach a foreign language well. The teachers has not only to make their students understand the language, namely pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc., they must also develop the students’ communicative competence so that they can use the language they have learned correctly, appropriately and expressively in the real situations. Just as Brumfit(1980) points out that one of the sources, which causes changes in language teaching methodology, is the social demands made on language teachers to make every effort to train the learner’s communicative ability and pragmatic ability. Some key concepts such as reference, effect, and cooperative principle may appear commonsensical, yet pragmatics is just about one of the most promising fields of linguistic studies. Thus it’s necessary to apply the possible functions of pragmatics to English language teaching so as to provide some teaching suggestions and solutions for some problems existing for a long time in the process of practical ELT.
2. The Using of Pragmatics Theory in English Teaching
Linguistically, language is a means of communication with other people. Communication is a goal for language using. As for pragmatics, the key nature of it lies in the study of the use of language in communication. Pragmatics plays an important role in language teaching that we should not ignore its importance in the process of the cultivation of students’ communicative competence. In language teaching, communication is usually divided into four main skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the following part, the theory of pragmatics will be applied to the teaching of grammar, listening and reading.
2.1 The application of pragmatics in teaching English grammar