Integrating pragmatic competence in teaching English to the students of medicine at Taiz University Diana Al-Aghbari To cite this version: Diana Al-Aghbari. Integrating pragmatic competence in teaching English to the students of medicine at Taiz University. Linguistics. Université de Strasbourg, 2016. English. NNT : 2016STRAC016. tel-01494800 HAL Id: tel-01494800 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01494800 Submitted on 24 Mar 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. UNIVERSITÉ DE STRASBOURG ÉCOLE DOCTORALE DES HUMANITÉS Linguistique, Langues, Parole (LiLPa) - EA 1339 THÈSE présentée par: Diana AL-AGHBARI soutenue le : 29 septembre 2016 pour obtenir le grade de : Docteur de l’université de Strasbourg Discipline/ Spécialité: Langues et Littératures Étrangères/ Anglais Integrating Pragmatic Competence in Teaching English to the Students of Medicine at Taiz University THÈSE dirigée par : Madame PAULIN Catherine Professeur des universités, université de Strasbourg JURY : Monsieur ALBRESPIT Jean Professeur des universités, université de Bordeaux Montaigne Monsieur BENAYOUN Jean-Michel Professeur des universités, université de Paris Diderot Monsieur HAMM Albert Professeur des universités, université de Strasbourg This Page is intentionally left blank 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................... 3 LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................... 7 LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................. 8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................... 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... 11 RÉSUMÉ ............................................................................................................... 13 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER 1: Preliminary Considerations. ........................................................ 48 1. 1 A Study in Interlanguage Pragmatics ......................................................... 50 1. 2 Teaching Pragmatics in the Foreign Language Context ............................. 54 1. 3 The Concept of Appropriateness: Which Norms to follow........................... 59 1. 4 Pragmatic Competence and Linguistic Competence .................................. 65 1. 5 Summary .................................................................................................... 72 CHAPTER 2: Literature Review .......................................................................... 73 PART ONE: Pragmatics: Exploring the Territory ................................................ 74 2. 1 Context in Pragmatics................................................................................. 74 2. 2 Defining Pragmatics.................................................................................... 77 2. 3 Origin of Pragmatics ................................................................................... 79 2. 4 Borders of Pragmatics ................................................................................ 83 3 2. 5 Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory ........................................................... 88 2. 5. 1 Requests ............................................................................................. 93 2. 5. 2 Refusals .............................................................................................. 94 2. 5. 3 Apologies ............................................................................................ 95 2. 6 Pragmatics and Politeness ......................................................................... 97 2. 6. 1 Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory ........................................... 99 2. 6. 2 Politeness and Culture ...................................................................... 102 PART TWO: Pragmatics in the ESP Context ................................................... 105 2. 7 ESP and Pragmatics................................................................................. 105 2. 7. 1 Exploring the Liaison ......................................................................... 106 2. 7. 2 Previous Studies on the relationship between ESP and Pragmatics. 108 2. 8 The Case within ESP: Medical Students .................................................. 111 2. 9 Getting into the Core: Pragmatic Competence ......................................... 114 2. 9. 1 Pragmatic Competence and Communicative Competence ............... 115 2. 9. 2 Pragmatic Awareness and Pragmatic Failure ................................... 120 2. 10 Summary ................................................................................................ 124 CHAPTER 3: Methodology ............................................................................... 125 3. 1 Contextual Background ............................................................................ 126 3. 1. 1 Brief History of Yemen ...................................................................... 126 3. 1. 2 The Educational System: An Overview ............................................. 129 3. 1. 3 The Status of English in Yemen ........................................................ 135 3. 2 Research Design ...................................................................................... 141 3. 3 Participants ............................................................................................... 144 3. 3. 1 Participants in the questionnaire ....................................................... 144 4 3. 3. 2 Participants in the interview .............................................................. 146 3. 4 Research Instruments............................................................................... 148 3. 4. 1 The Questionnaire ............................................................................. 149 3. 4. 2 The Interview .................................................................................... 156 3. 5 Pilot Study ................................................................................................ 162 3. 6 Data Collection ......................................................................................... 165 3. 6. 1 The First Stage: distributing questionnaires ...................................... 165 3. 6. 2 The Second Stage: conducting interviews ........................................ 167 3. 7 Summary .................................................................................................. 169 CHAPTER 4: Data Analysis and Results ......................................................... 170 4. 1 Questionnaire Data ................................................................................... 172 4. 1. 1 Awareness Test Data ........................................................................ 172 4. 1. 2 DCT Data .......................................................................................... 185 4. 2 Interview Data ........................................................................................... 211 4. 2. 1 The graduates’ own experience with English .................................... 214 4. 2. 2 The graduates’ viewpoints of English for medical students ............... 218 4. 3 Summary .................................................................................................. 225 CHAPTER 5: Discussion................................................................................... 226 5. 1 Addressing the Research Questions ........................................................ 227 5. 1. 1 The First Research Question ............................................................ 227 5. 1. 2 The Second Research Question ....................................................... 251 5. 2 Study Implications .................................................................................... 256 5. 2. 1 The Proposed Model: Theoretical Considerations ............................ 260 5. 2. 2 The Proposed Model: Application ..................................................... 269 5 5. 3 Limitations of the Study ............................................................................ 280 5. 5 Summary .................................................................................................. 282 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................... 283 REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 288 APPENDICES ..................................................................................................... 314 6 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Students' Profile ..................................................................................... 146 Table 2 Interviewees' Profile ..............................................................................