Cultivating best practices of L2 pragmatic competence a systematic review

Pragmatic competence has been defined as the ability to use language effectively in a contextually and appropriate fashion and is one of the main components of communicative competence in a second language (L2). The complex nature of L2 pragmatic development poses a challenge for L2 learners, resulting in pragmatic failure. To this end, studies over the last 30 years addressed the question of effective instruction by comparing different instructional approaches and their impact on developing L2 pragmatic competence. Correspondingly, L2 instructional techniques have been designed to include socially oriented communicative goals to help learners become pragmatically competent. By far, the debate between the explicit and implicit instructional approaches among others, continues until today. Research has shown that the explicit approach is more effective. Yet, some studies also claim that the implicit approach is equally effective. Currently, the literature still shows no consensus regarding the most effective instructional approaches or techniques. To address this issue, this dissertation conducted a systematic review of 31 studies to investigate the latest trends in L2 instructional pragmatics during the period 2011 – 2021. The results indicate that the explicit teaching approach is essential in developing L2 pragmatic competence although what constitutes explicit varies between studies (e.g., consciousness raising activities, explicit metapragmatic activities and feedback). Another compelling and popular finding is the use of technology enhanced L2 instructional pragmatics, suggesting that technology is helpful in developing pragmatic competence as an approach and as an instructional technique. The study also reveals that immediate feedback in a few of the technology enhanced environment (e.g., digital games, online discussion forums and social media sites) is lacking. Further research in this area is welcomed. The significance of this study is that it enhances a theoretical understanding of second language aquisitional pragmatics and instructional approaches to educators, teachers, instructors, curriculum developers and textbook authors, who can design materials that can package key elements of pragmatics.

Embargo status: Restricted until 09/2027. To request the author grant access, click on the PDF link to the left.