The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research ...

140 Pages·2015·1.86 MB·English

The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
University of Mohammed Kheider Biskra
Faculty of Letters and Languages
Department of Foreign Languages
English Field

Overcoming Students’ Miscommunication Problems through
English Division
Emphasizing Classroom Socio-Pragmatics

A Case Study of Master One Students of English at Mohammed Kheider University

of Biskra

A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Foreign Languages in Partial
Fulfilment for the Requirements of the Master’s Degree in Sciences of the Language

Candidate: Aboubakr HAMOUDI Supervisor: Mr. Laamri
SEGUENI
Board of Examiners:

Mr. Lamdjed EL HAMEL University of Biskra
Mr. Laamri SEGUENI University of Biskra
Mr. Maamar BECHAR University of Biskra

June 2015
Dedication

To my adorable parents
To my delightful sisters and brothers
To my whole family
To my dear teachers

To my special friends and mates

II
Acknowledgments

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who have supported me
during my university journey. First and above all, I would like to thank Allah the first
source of inspiration and blessings to me. I owe a special debt to my supervisor
Mr.Segueni for all his time, endowment, and fruitful orientation during my dissertation
writing process. I also would like to heartily express my deepest appreciation and
gratitude to my great parents for instilling in me the spirit of persistence that has enabled
me to pursue and achieve my goals
At the same time, I am sincerely glad and thankful to Mr. Bechar who has always
been collaborative, comprehensive, and patient with me all along the time of conducting
the research. Special appreciation also, goes to my teacher Mr. El hamel who has never
hesitated to help me when I needed his skillful touch.
I vow exceptional gratitude to my adorable and dear teacher Mr. Turqui. He was
always right by my side and He always had faith in my potentials. I thank him for many
reasons and especially for his extraordinary sympathy, support, and generosity.
I am so very thankful and glad for the rest of my family in France. I pass my honest
regards to Dif and Messaoud, they have always been by my side once I needed them. I am
profoundly proud of them and truthfully grateful for their continuous supports especially
the financial ones.
I am very grateful to all my friends for their unwavering trust, support and
encouragement in my endeavors. I would like to thank my dears, Abedessalem, Hakim, ,
Soufiane, Redha, Kamel, Amine, Daha, Yahia, , Nabil, karim, and all my friends. Sincere
thanks as well, go to Meriem, Yasmine, Kenza, Asma, Hassina, and Ilhem for their
constant support and care.
.

III
Abstract

Learning any second or foreign language does entail the purpose of communication.
Nonetheless, many students are no longer satisfied with their learning since they find out
that, in spite of having a prominent control of the L2 grammatical aspects, they still face
communication problems when they happen to come into a direct contact with native
speakers. Thus, appropriate discourse underlies, in addition to the pure linguistic
knowledge, the vital social and pragmatic facets of the language. The current study
attempts to prominently demonstrate the construct of socio-pragmatics as a basic culture-
specific competence EFL students should possess and refer to in order to establish
pertinent interaction in different contexts of natural language use. Therefore, this research
aims at investigating the students‟ overall level of appropriateness while attempting to
perform certain contextualized pragmatic functions of the English language. To introduce a
remedial action for the occurrence of cross-cultural miscommunication, a principal
hypothesis is put forward which stipulates that if EFL learners receive instruction in socio-
pragmatics, they will be able to overcome most of their miscommunication problems. In
order to carry out the study and accomplish the assigned aims, this research requires a
descriptive design and adopts a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) as a research tool to
generate and analyze data about the participants. In this investigation, Master one LMD
Students of English at the Department of Foreign Languages at Biskra University are
purposely selected as a sample which fits this research scope since they have acquired the
sufficient knowledge of the language. The results show that the students are more likely to
experience aspects of miscommunication since their socio-pragmatic competence proves to
be poor and insufficient. To conclude, this research hypothesis is confirmed and therefore,
some pedagogical implications are provided to encourage teachers to emphasize the
necessary socio-pragmatic features of the target language in order to help students
overcome their language use problems.

IV
List of Abbreviations

L2: Second Language
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
N: Number
DCT: Discourse Completion Task
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
TL: Target Language
CC: Communicative Competence
NS: Native Speaker
NNS: Non Native Speaker
VS: Versus
ESP: English for Specific Purposes

V
List of Figures

Figure 1.01: Communication‟s Model………………………………………………. 7
Figure 1.02: Schematic Representation of Context Constituents……………………. 11
Figure 1.03: Representation of the Possible Causes of Miscommunication………… 21
Figure 1.04: Components of Communicative Competence ………………………… 32
Figure 2.01: The NAPKIN Model for Teaching Pragmatics ……………………….. 42
Figure 2.02: Model of Pragma-linguistics and Socio-Pragmatics…………………… 46

VI
List of Graphs

Graph 3.01: Students‟ Performance in Case One…………………………………… 59
Graph 3.02: Students‟ Performance in Case Two…………………………………… 61
Graph 3.03: Students‟ Performance in Case Three………………………………….. 64
Graph 3.04: Students‟ Performance in Case Four…………………………………... 66
Graph 3.05: Students‟ Performance in Case Five…………………………………… 68
Graph 3.06: Students‟ Performance in Case Six…………………………………….. 71
Graph 3.07: Students‟ Performance in Case Seven…………………………………. 73
Graph 3.08: Students‟ Performance in Case Eight………………………………….. 75
Graph 3.09: Students‟ Performance in Case Nine…………………………………... 78
Graph 3.10: Students‟ Performance in Case Ten……………………………………. 80
Graph 3.11: Students‟ Performance in Case Eleven………………………………… 82
Graph 3.12: Students‟ Performance in Case Twelve………………………………... 85
Graph 3.13: Students‟ Performance in Case Thirteen………………………………. 87
Graph 3.14: Students‟ Performance in Case Fourteen……………………………… 89
Graph 3.15: Students‟ Performance in Case Fifteen………………………………… 91
Graph 3.16: Students‟ Performance in Case Sixteen………………………………... 94
Graph 3.17: Informants‟ Overall Performance in the Discourse Completion Task… 97

List of Tables

Table 3.01: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case One…………………... 58
Table 3.02: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Two………………… 60
Table 3.03: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Three…………………. 63
Table 3.04: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Four…………………... 65
Table 3.05: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Five………………… 67
Table 3.06: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Six……………………. 70
Table 3.07: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Seven………………… 72
Table 3.08: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Eight…………………. 74
VII
Table 3.09: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Nine………………….. 77
Table 3.10: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Tine…………………... 79
Table 3.11: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Eleven………………... 81
Table 3.12: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Twelve……………….. 84
Table 3.13: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Thirteen………………. 86
Table 3.14: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Fourteen……………… 89
Table 3.15: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Fifteen………………... 91
Table 3.16: Distribution of Informants‟ Responses in Case Sixteen……………….. 93

Table of Contents

Dedication..................................................................................................................... II
Acknowledgment.......................................................................................................... III
Abstract......................................................................................................................... IV
VIII
List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………. V
List of Figures………………………………………………………………………... VI
List of Graphs………………………………………………………………………… VII
List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………. VIII
Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………… IX

General Introduction

Introduction........................................................................................................................ 1
1. Statement of the Problem.............................................................................................. 1
2. Significance of the Study.............................................................................................. 2
3. Aims of the Study......................................................................................................... 2
4. Research Questions....................................................................................................... 3
5. Research Hypothesis.............................................................................................. 3
6. Research Methodology.......................................................................................... 3
7. Research Tool……………………………………………………………………
3

Chapter one
Foreign Language Communication as a Complex Activity

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………. 5
1. What is Communication?............................................................................................ 5
2. Communication as a process……………………………………………………….. 6
3. Non-verbal and verbal communication……………………………………………... 7
4. Language usage Vs language use…………………………………………………... 8
5. Context in communication………………………………………………………….. 10
6. The Ethnography of communication……………………………………………….. 11
6.1 Hymes‟ contribution: the SPEAKING grid………………………………………. 12
7. Cross-cultural communication……………………………………………………… 14
8. The obstacle of miscommunication………………………………………………… 15
IX
8.1 Misunderstandings………………………………………………………………… 16
8.1.1 Types of misunderstanding……………………………………………………… 17
8.1.2 Examples of misunderstanding…………………………………………………... 18
8.2 Pragmatic failures………………………………………………………………… 19
8.2.1 Categories of pragmatic failure…………………………………………………. 20
9. Communicative competence………………………………………………………... 22
10. Teaching language as communication…………………………………………….. 24
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………… 26

Chapter two
Socio-Pragmatics as a Recombination of Sociolinguistics with Pragmatics

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………. 28
1. Sociolinguistics……………………………………………………………………... 28
2. Branches of sociolinguistics………………………………………………………... 29
2.1 Micro-sociolinguistics…………………………………………………………….. 29
2.2 Macro-sociolinguistics……………………………………………………………. 29
3. Interactional sociolinguistics……………………………………………………….. 30
4. Sociolinguistic competence………………………………………………………… 31
5. Sociolinguistics and language teaching…………………………………………….. 32
6. Pragmatics…………………………………………………………………………... 34
6.1 What is pragmatics?................................................................................................. 34
6.2 Theories in pragmatics……………………………………………………………. 36
6.2.1 Speech act theory………………………………………………………………... 36
6.2.1.1 Components of a speech act………………………………………………… 37
6.2.1.2 Felicity conditions…………………………………………………………….. 37
6.2.1.3 Speech act taxonomy………………………………………………………….. 38
6.2.2 The cooperative principle………………………………………………………... 39
7. Pragmatic competence……………………………………………………………… 40
8. Pragmatics and language teaching…………………………………………………. 41
9. The line between sociolinguistics and pragmatics………………………………….. 43
X