Can Pragmatic Competence Be Taught?

According to Kasper (1997), pragmatics in teaching English as a second language, is defined as the study of language from the point of view of the user, especially of the choices they make, theconstraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication (Crystal, 1985 in Kasper, 1997). As discussedin the article some elements of pragmatics can’t be taught because of the many elements related to it, such as the way the person communicates (pragmalinguistics), and the way communication isinterpret (sociopragmatics). Finally, because competence is not something that can be taught as well, and it’s part of the nonnative speakers communication process.
Kasper (1997), states that pragmaticcompetence doesn’t always needs to be taught, because the NNS has the knowledge of how communication works. The problem lies in that the NNS doesn’t always know how to use or transfer that knowledgeto the second language learning. So that in reality, they only have to be reminded of how the connections work, so that they can transfer that knowledge to the second language. This is very importantto understand, because pragmatic competence is there, so that the teaching process is more of a reminder of how to use it in the new language context.
From the discussion of studies done inrelation to this specific area of ESL, it has been showed that some instruction for pragmatics is needed. Because some aspects of pragmatic competence doesn’t develop sufficiently in some students. Thestudies also showed that instruction of pragmatic competence resulted in improvement to the NNS conversation skills and communication acts. Having a better outcome those that were taught in an explicitsetting, than those that had an implicit model of teaching. Even though the explicit group did better in applying pragmatic components to their communication acts, the implicit group also improved,...