Teaching pragmatic competence: Compliments and compliment responses in the ESL classroom

It is widely acknowledged that teaching and learning languages involves far more than targeting surface grammatical or lexical systems. The other aspects of language have been referred to as invisible, as they are often the most difficult to teach and acquire, given their subtlety and complexity. This paper discusses how teaching compliments and compliment responses could be approached in the adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. A review of the literature suggests that explicit instruction has some positive effects on the acquisition of these speech acts. Naturally occurring oral examples of compliments and compliment responses by speakers of different ages and types of relationships were collected in different settings, including the workplace and the home. These examples formed the basis of a teaching resource, which was used in an intermediate/advanced immigrant English class in Australia. It is suggested that using naturally occurring data as examples to explain the workings of these speech acts could be used to teach at all levels in the adult ESL setting. Introduction Pragmatic competence is defined as the ability to communicate effectively and involves knowledge beyond the level of grammar (thomas 1983). crozet (2003) states that some of the rules that govern interactions but that are not immediately obvious have been referred to as invisible rules. teaching pragmatic competence is widely regarded as an integral part of learning and teaching a language, and has been widely investigated (Bardovi-Harlig 1996; rose and Kasper 2001; Bardovi-Harlig and Griffin 2005). Kasper (1989) includes the ability by learners to use speech acts in socially appropriate ways as part of what she calls a speaker’s declarative knowledge of the target language. studies of cross-cultural pragmatics report that the way speech acts are realised varies across languages. this variation can sometimes cause misunderstandings, or what thomas (1983) called pragmatic failure, which occurs when learners transfer first language (l1) pragmatic rules into second language (l2) domains. this transfer of rules can lead to stereotyping about particular speech communities, as speakers may be perceived as being rude or inconsiderate. teaching communication according to the sociocultural rules that govern speech acts in a given speech community is a valuable way to make students aware of what is valued within a culture and how this is communicated. raising pragmatic awareness can foster what Kramsch (1993: 236) calls ‘intercultural competence’, where speakers of other languages can become aware of what she terms ‘the third place’. Bardovi-Harlig (1996) argues that the classroom is a place where pragmatic instruction can occur. rose and Kasper (2002) review a series of studies that tested the effectiveness of explicit teaching (which schmidt, in rose and Kasper 2002: 255) called ‘the noticing hypothesis’ versus no instruction. they conclude that pragmatics has shown that explicit instruction of the target language pragmatic rules is effective in acquiring pragmatic competence. For example, Koike and Pearson (2005) found the rate of acquisition of pragmatic competence was faster when english-speaking learners of spanish received explicit instruction and feedback. Alcón soler (2005) compared two groups of spanish high-school students and found that the group that received explicit instruction showed a greater speed of acquisition in how to give suggestions in english. Bardovi-Harlig and Griffin (2005) conducted a study in which one of the tasks consisted of noticing and repairing the speech act of apologising. the authors reported that explicit classroom instruction can benefit esl learners from different backgrounds even if more advanced learners may develop awareness without instruction. Instructional methods in the above studies included focus-