Pragmatics and Language Learners: Is Culture really that Important?

 

When learning a new language some people focus on dominating the grammatical aspects of the target language. Some others might find that memorizing as much vocabulary is the most important part of the learning process. Some can even argue that sentence structure is the best way to approach the learning of a language and all of these are quite reasonable opinions and approaches. But as someone who has been learning English for almost 20 years, there is one aspect of that I have found extremely helpful in my learning journey and that is the cultural aspect of the language. Culture is rather influential when learning a language. Language is something that is alive; it morphs and evolves with the times and the people who speak it. That is why language learners must seek to grasp, not just linguistic knowledge and grammatical accuracy but also, the pragmatic knowledge in the target language.  This is known as Pragmatic Competence.

Learning only the linguistic knowledge cannot guarantee success in real life communications in the target language. Pragmatics is an essential part of the language which aims to use language appropriately based on the context. Many studies of communicative competence show that language learners cannot ignore the importance of pragmatics in the learning process, as well as the linguistic knowledge, both competences are necessary to be developed.

When communicating with non-native speakers, some communication breakdowns can easily occur. That is because they can understand the linguistic meaning only but not the pragmatic one, this is called: Pragmatic Failure. For native speakers a pronunciation error is more tolerable than a pragmatic one.  This can often lead to uncomfortable or even deadly situations, like the case of a Japanese student who was killed because he could not know the pragmatic meaning of the term “Freeze!”

Let’s look at three other examples where pragmatic failure took place.

Example #1 – An Indonesian student in an English class could seem rude or impolite when accepting praise from the native speaker teacher if they don’t know how to properly express modesty based on the pragmatic meaning.  The professor could say, “You have to be very proud of your English, your competence of English has increased significantly” and because the student does not want to show off his proud feelings (because of his Indonesian culture) he could answer, “No, I don’t think so”. Leaving the teacher confused and uncomfortable because he might think the student does not believe him or is accusing him of lying. Just because a sentence or phrase is grammatically correct does not mean is pragmatically correct.

Some teachers often focus on grammar and ignore pragmatic knowledge. It is important that students can be aware of using language in appropriate contexts. In addition, example #1 shows that language learners often tend to transfer their native language pragmatic tendencies to the target language.

Example #2 – An Indonesian student had an Australian friend who came to visit him with his family – his wife and daughter. The student tried to pay a compliment to the daughter by saying she looked healthy, but he phrased it as: “Your daughter is… she’s beautiful fat girl”. Of course, this did not sit well with his wife, who got angry about the comment, and the student was really confused by her reaction. He did not know that Western people get angry if someone comments on their bodies, because it is taboo or impolite.  

Some teachers assert that they do not need to teach the culture of target language. However, every language has a strong relationship with its culture. If teacher want their students to master a foreign language, they have to encourage them to understand the language culture and it should be equally part of the teaching and learning process, not just extracurricular.

Example #3 - Another Indonesian student had an Australian friend who called him on the phone. But because the student was busy in a class, he could not pick up the phone. Later on, when they met, the Indonesian student smiled and apologized to his friend. Unfortunately, his friend did not accept the apology and left angry because he thought the student was lying to him. What the Indonesian student did not know was that in the Australian culture, people do not believe an apology if the person is smiling – unlike the Indonesian culture, where this scenario is a habit.  

This example shows just how many students understand the target language influenced by their own beliefs and assumptions from their own culture. They have not had significant intercultural experiences in their lives, so they have difficulties conceptualizing the fact that many people socialize in different ways from their own culture.

So, how can students improve and work on the development of their pragmatic competence? For starters, surround themselves with target language media is a very good first step. Watching movies, TV shows, news broadcasts, podcasts, you name it can help students identify politeness strategies, indirectness, and social nuances. They can see different type of scenarios play out which allows them to observe how to adapt to different contexts and social dynamics. Watching interactions and pausing to interpret conversational, non-verbal cues, and why characters chose certain expressions.

During class, role-playing is another great technique to practice, adapting language to different contexts providing learners with a specific situation, for example: "Your boss is wrong", “your friend has bad news” or “your coworker invites you to hang out after work” - and asking them to construct the appropriate verbal response. Also, discussing cultural norms in a group setting, in order to understand why certain expressions are appropriate or inappropriate in different contexts, is another great technique to learn not just from the teacher but also from their peers.  

In conclusion, cultural influence is pivotal when learning a language. Knowing the context of certain phrasing or words based on their cultural background is crucial when trying to achieve pragmatic competence. Pragmatic competence can be achieve when the student can use grammatically incorrect sentences but in the correct context and be understood by the native speakers. This is because native speakers (English, for example) can accept these types of errors of language learners but they are often not tolerant of pragmatic errors. That is because if they do not understand pragmatic knowledge, they cannot communicate effectively which leads to a breakage in the communication process and hence, there is not really a connection.

 

A little Video about Pragmatic Competence