The Impact of Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Competence on Second Language Acquisition: A Study on Pedagogical Strategies from An Applied Linguistics Perspective

This study investigates whether the presence of explicit cross-cultural pragmatics instruction in L2 learners improves communicative skills. Focusing on practical pedagogy and cultural sensitivity, the study evaluates whether formalised instruction in politeness, face-saving and indirectness improves students intercultural sensitivity. By way of an experiment, subjects were randomly assigned to an experimental group that received focused pragmatic teaching and a control group that received regular language tuition. It turns out that, in our experiments, explicit teaching did dramatically enhance the performance of the experimental group in role-play tests suggesting an enhanced capacity to change language use to suit different cultures. From this research, it appears that explicit pragmatics training makes it possible for learners to make linguistic decisions with precision, in a way that is both linguistic and culturally correct. Giving students these tools, clear pragmatic training makes for more assured and versatile L2 speakers and hence a richer language acquisition that responds to the demands of global communication.