The Effect of Pragmalinguistic Knowledge on EFL Iraqi Learners' Performance in the Speech Act of Complaint

Abstract

     In Iraq , teachers generally pay a great deal of attention to grammar to help their students internalize linguistic rules . Consequently , learners find themselves unable to encode their intent in the target language they are learning due to the lack of social ,cultural , and discourse conventions,i.e., being pragmatically inappropriate .Hence , speakers who are not well-trained pragmatically are liable to run the risk of appearing uncooperative , or more seriously ,rude or insulting .Linguistic proficiency may not necessarily go hand in hand with pragmatic proficiency . The present paper is an attempt at showing the impact of pragmalinguistic teaching on the performance of Iraqi EFL learners in the speech act of complaint . It  hypothesizes that Iraqi EFL learners are not proficient in producing appropriate complaints when put in real-life situations due to their inadequate  pragmatic competence . Therefore , it is important to provide Iraqi EFL learners with both pagma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic knowledge incorporated  into the EFL classroom if we want a good , fruitful communication to take place  .                                                                                                            

      The present study has shown that Iraqi EFL learners produce significantly different forms of complaints from those produced by native speakers of English as far as quality is concerned . The results reached at validate the hypothesis put forward , and call for the necessity of enhancing Iraqi EFL learners' competence both linguistically and culturally.