Assessing the impact of extramural media contact on the second- language pragmatic competence and awareness of English philology students in Spain

Abstract

Pragmatic competence is a fundamental aspect of communicative competence and is understood as a capacity to deal with the relationship between utterances and the acts that may be performed through them, as well as the contextual features that promote appropriate language use (Bachman, 1990). Pragmatic awareness consists of conscious, reflective, and explicit knowledge regarding the rules and conventions of appropriate language use in specific communicative situations and according to the social norms of specific speech communities (Alcón/Safont, 2008: 193). Generally, there is a consensus on both the importance of culturally appropriate language use and the difficulty of teaching and learning it across second or foreign language contexts (Washburn, 2001; Alcón, 2005; Alcón/Martínez-Flor, 2008; Alcón/Safont, 2008). Furthermore, a number of researchers have questioned the suitability of textbooks for teaching pragmatics in these contexts (Bardovi- Harlig/Hartford, 1996; Crandell/Basturkmen, 2004; LoCastro, 2003; Vellenga, 2004; Fernández- Guerra, 2008). In many cases, language learners must rely on resources from outside the classroom as a kind of ‘second best’ substitute to real language contact. This is where audio-visual material may play an important role. Although audio-visual media has already featured in several interlanguage pragmatics studies, the focus tends to be on its adequacy as a didactic tool or its use in differing instruction programmes. There is scarce work that focuses on the potential of out-of-school (extramural) contact with audio-visual materials as an incidental learning resource for developing second language pragmatic competence and awareness.