Exploring pragmatics and the speech acts of requesting and offering in senior high school students and native speakers of english

Abstract

Based on the Speech Acts theory, which aims people to be aware that words do not only say something but also carry actions, this research study has the purpose of exploring pragmatics and the speech acts of requesting and offering in senior high school EFL students and native speakers of English. To accomplish this objective, the authors have done the following: first, a literature review which shows that around the world the theory of speech acts has been widely researched, but in Ecuador, this topic is not so well investigated. Second, they conducted interviews with high school teachers which demonstrates that teachers have different perspectives about this theory. Third, they applied Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) to EFL students of public high schools and native speakers of English. The DCTs compare EFL students’ answers with native speakers’ answers in terms of appropriateness, politeness and vocabulary use. Additionally, the English textbook which is currently being used to teach English to high school level has been analyzed and shows that fifty percent of it offers opportunities to develop pragmatic skills. In this context, it is important for teachers to remember that the development of speech acts in class can help students understand the socio-cultural background of the target language to enhance their communicative competence.