Pragmatic Competence

Presents By:
Bunga Nuur Primayu Utami
(S200170037)
 What is Pragmatic Competence?

PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE is the ability to

communicate your intended message with all its
relates in any socio-cultural context and to interpret
the message of your interlocutor as it was
intended.
Chomsky Firstly, accepts that language is used
purposefully; indeed, in later writings he
introduced the term pragmatic competence—
knowledge of how language is related to the
situation in which it is used.
Pragmatic competence 'places language in the
institutional setting of its use, relating intentions
and purposes to the linguistic means at hand'
(Chomsky, 1980a, p. 225).
 As well as knowing the structure of a language, we
have to know how to use it

For example:
“Do you like vanilla's ice cream?”
if you can't decide whether the speaker wants
(1st) is you can answer I like or don’t like (a question)
(2nd ) or the speaker wants give you the ice cream
(giving).
Repetition
Ns : This is your assignment for tomorrow
NNs : What?
Ns : This is your assignment for tomorrow

Paraphrase
Ns : This is your assignment for tomorrow
NNs : What?
Ns : This is homework
 Canale divide sub competencies
into 4 types:
a. Grammatical Competence refers to the
knowledge of linguistic code features such as
phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics
b. Sociolinguistic competence refers to the
knowledge of contextually appropriate language
use.
c. Discourse Competence is the knowledge of
achieving coherence and cohesion spoken or
written communication
 In order to shape a good pragmatic
competence for the language learner, the
following should be taken into
consideration:
1. The goals and the objectives of a language course should be designed
to meet the needs of the language learner to help them develop and
improve their communicative competence.
Stern (1983:346) summarizes ‘competence’ in language teaching as:
a) The intuitive mastery of the forms of language.
b) The intuitive mastery of the linguistic, cognitive, affective and
sociocultural meanings,
expressed by the language forms.
c) The capacity to use the language with maximum attention to
communication and minimum attention to form.
d) The creativity of language use.
2. Coherent and functional uses of language for communicative
purposes. The pragmatic competence of the learner must be
well developed; consequently he or she will be able to conduct
communication with accuracy. The learned should be able to put
his or her knowledge of language into practice.
the development of pragmatic competence.
Moreover, they should raise the learners’
awareness of the importance of such
competence in the process of
acquiring the target language. As Mey
(1993:185-6) states, “Linguistic behavior is
social behavior. People talk because they
want to socialize, in the widest possible
sense of the world: either for fun, or to
express themselves to other humans, or
for some ‘serious’ purposes, such as
building a house, closing a deal, solving a
 The role of Pragmatic Competence in the process
of teaching and learning a second language

“We don’t learn from experience. We learn

from reflecting on experience.” (Dewey, 1938,
p. 13) Dewey makes
a simple but powerful point: experience is not
the source of learning, but rather it is
reflection on this experience.