Criticism Strategy: Pragmatic Competence English Department Students Need to Acquire

摘要

Departing from Leech's definition of criticism as an expression of Speaker's psychological act toward Hearer's inappropriate conduct (Leech, 1983) in a communication as a risk to face (Scollon R and Suzanne Wong Scollon, 2001)... strategy of criticism as pragmatic competence could be realized (Nguyen, 2005), without damaging harmonious interpersonal relationship (Brown and Levinson, 1987). This paper investigates two problems: first, student's criticism strategy; and second, their second language appropriateness. The subjects were twenty English Department students who responded to nine situations written in Discourse Completion Task (DCT) in regards of different status levels of familiarity, social distance and age. Students' responses were analyzed based on Nguyen's criticism strategy of direct and indirect and combined strategy. In addition, their second language appropriateness is also analyzed. The results show that 1) criticism strategy realized by students are combined strategy of inter combination and intra combination and indirect strategies of request change, demand change, and advice. Their second language appropriateness as performed by students through their written criticism strategy was categorized as below average. Their inappropriate language was found in the aspects of grammar, lexis and language context such as factors of social distance and age. It is expected that the language instructor considers to enrich students with pragmatic competence or skill of non-native speakers in using second language in the teaching as this could widen students' view towards English as the language that the native speakers use in real life communication.