Correlations between Taiwanese university EFL learners' frequency of use of language learning strategies and their pragmatic awareness and grammatical awareness.

摘要

The problem. Many previous studies have pointed out that EFL learners tend to face communication breakdowns with native speakers because their traditional classroom and textbooks are not able to provide learners with sufficient pragmatically appropriate input (Bardovi-Harlig, 1996; Rose, 1994, 1997). On the contrary, they are exposed to rich input of grammar instruction and tend to develop a higher awareness of grammatical competence (Niezgoda & Rover, 2001). Therefore, EFL learners may produce utterances that are perfectly grammatical, but they may violate social norms of the target language because they lack pragmatic competence (appropriateness of meaning) to support grammatical competence (appropriateness of form) (Thomas, 1983; Leech, 1983; Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei, 1998).;Method. A total of 294 Taiwanese university EFL students participated in this study including 106 males and 188 females from four different universities in Taiwan. Their mean age was 19.32 years. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between Taiwanese students' frequency of use of language learning strategies in the four areas of communicative competence (grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence) and their pragmatic and grammatical awareness. Two kinds of data eliciting instruments were employed: (1) the Pragmatic and Grammaticality Judgment Task modified from Bardovi-Harlig and Dornyei's (1998) study and (2) the Language Learning Strategies for Communicative Competence modified from Oxford's (1990) SILL and Canale and Swain's (1980) and Canale's (1983) four-component model of communicative competence. Data analysis included descriptive statistics for Research Question one and two, and a Pearson correlation for Research Questions three and four.;Results. The results reveal that Taiwanese EFL students' pragmatic error recognition is significantly correlated with grammatical, discourse, and strategic competence strategies; however, it is not correlated with sociolinguistic competence strategies. Additionally, Taiwanese students' pragmatic severity rating is significantly correlated with the four categories of strategies (grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence strategies). Furthermore, the results indicate that Taiwanese university EFL students' grammatical awareness (both error recognition and severity ratings), is not significantly correlated with any of the four categories of learning strategies.;Conclusion. The results reveal that Taiwanese university students' pragmatic awareness has a significant correlation with language learning strategies. Therefore, it is suggested that students should adopt multiple strategies to enhance their communicative competence.