Investigating students' awareness of the felicity conditions: problems of misfire in EFL students statements The case of Master One English Students at Abbes Laghrour University of Khenchela
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
UNIVERSITY OF ABBES LAGHROUR-KHENCHELA
Abstract
Abstract
Speech acts allow speakers to perform actions through utterances; this utterance can be
felicitous or infelicitous. In this research we will investigate a very important matter in the
field of pragmatics which is the students’ unawareness about the speech act and the felicity
conditions in order to utter a felicitous speech act. This ignorance will affect the learners’
production of an appropriate speech act.
The aim of this study is to examine the students’ knowledge about the felicity conditions, and
to raise their awareness about using them to perform a correct speech act, also to see to what
extent this consciousness contributes to the improvement of students’ production of felicitous
speech acts. For this reason, we have directed a questionnaire and a test for Master One
English students’ at Abbes Laghrour University in Khenchela, and a teachers’ survey to
investigate this matter. The results obtained from the questionnaires confirmed the students’
unawareness about the felicity conditions and speech act. The great majority of students are
familiar with the terms (speech act, felicity conditions, felicitous, infelicitous, abuse,
misfire...) and they have knowledge about them, but unfortunately during the test they fail to
answer correctly. Also, some pedagogical implications are drawn from the overall findings
and some suggestions are provided in order to improve the students’ abilities to produce a
felicitous speech act.