Interlanguage pragmatic development: the relation between pragmalinguistic competence and sociopragmatic competence

The past few years saw significant advances in the field of interlanguage pragmatics development since several researchers’ call for more studies focusing on the development of pragmatic competence of second or foreign language learners. The existing literature, however, still leaves us an incomplete picture of the nature of the relation between pragmalinguistic competence and sociopragmatic competence in the development of L2 learners’ pragmatic competence, as the research findings suggest two conflicting patterns: pragmalinguistic competence precedes sociopragmatic competence and vice versa (Rose, 2000). A review of the preceding research demonstrates contradictory views on the relation between sociopragmatic competence and pragmalinguistic competence in the development of L2 pragmatic competence and suggests the need to expand the scope of data analysis in future studies. The present study attempts to shed light on how these two aspects of pragmatic competence are related by collecting both perception and production data and extending the scope of data analysis to analyze the difference in the use of strategy, content and form across situations involving a teacher and a classmate.