From Communicative Competence To Pragmatic Competence: What Impact On Fl Teaching And Learning'

This paper shows the importance pragmatic competence has gained through time with the development of the concept of communicative competence. Towards that aim a description of the circumstances in which the concept of communicative competence emerged is presented in addition to two different models of communicative competence: the model of Canale and Swain (1980, 1983) and the model of Bachman (1990). As a consequence of the role pragmatic competence plays to help learners be communicatively competent, the area of learners’ interlanguage pragmatics has gained increased attention. Observational and interventional studies have been conducted to understand the process of pragmatic acquisition. Factors that influence the learning of pragmatics have been identified, and issues related to the teachability of pragmatics and testing pragmatic ability have been tackled.