A Critical Analysis Of Pragmatic Competence Of Students At The University Of Namibia: A Case Study Of The Second Year Bachelor Of Education Students

ABSTRACT

The current study was carried out to investigate the following: firstly, the pragmatic competence of UNAM’s second-year Bachelor of Education Students majoring in English in selected speech acts, namely, the speech act of refusal, compliment responses and apologies. Secondly, the relationship between the pragmatic and grammatical competencies of the students was investigated. Lastly, it studied the factors that influence students’ pragmatic competence. The researcher intended to have 30 participants, but only 26 participants took part. Purposive sampling was utilized to select the study sample. Three sets of instruments were used to collect data, namely, the Written Discourse Completion Task (WDCT), open-ended questionnaire and the English Language Proficiency (ELP). Data on the students’ pragmatic competence as well as grammatical competence was coded using themes and qualitatively and quantitatively analysed. The findings of the study showed that, in terms of the speech act of refusal, students pragmatic competence was somewhat at a low level. However, students demonstrated high level of pragmatic competence in terms of the speech act of compliment responses and that of apologies. Considering the three speech acts of refusal, compliment and apologies results, students’ level of pragmatic competence can be rated as moderate, since students’ first language at some point interfered in how they responded. In addition, the findings indicated that students with different grammatical ability have different refusal, compliment responses and apology approaches. Lastly, the findings showed that there are many factors that may influence pragmatic competence including grammatical competence, educational background, daily activities using English and awareness in using and learning the English language. Teaching of pragmatic knowledge is however recommended.