الفهرس 
Pragmalinguistic FailureOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the types of pragmalinguistic errors made by Egyptian university EFL learners in writing, to explore the causes that attribute to such errors, and to examine the difference in frequencies of pragmalinguistic errors made by students of different levels of language proficiency. Data were collected from both intermediate-level and advanced-level university EFL students. A total of 92 essays were collected from both groups who were given prompts to which they responded in a written essay. Further, the essays were analyzed for the types of pragmalinguistic errors produced which revealed six types of errors: Erroneous Construction of Sentences, Arabic Construction of Sentences, Literal Translation Errors, Multiple-Meaning Word Errors, Near Synonym Errors and Lexical Collocation Errors. The results also revealed that the main causes of pragmalinguistic errors were L1 influence followed by insufficient linguistic proficiency. Moreover, pragmalinguistic errors were found to be fewer in intermediate-level students than in advanced-level students; yet, there was no significant difference between the two proficiency levels. Similarly, it was found that intermediate-level students‘ L1 transfer was as twice as high advanced-level students‘; however, this difference did not reach a statistical significance. Furthermore, L1 transfer sub-categories Literal Translation Errors were found to be more frequent in the writings of intermediate-level students than in the writings of advanced-level students; whereas Arabic Construction of Sentences were produced almost equally by both intermediate-level and advanced-level students.5.2. Practical Implications
Having investigated pragmalinguistic errors in the writings of EFL students and having shown how frequent pragmalinguistic errors are in both intermediate-level and advanced-level students, it can be concluded that being pragmalinguistically competent is essential for effective L2 use and there are several pedagogical and non-pedagogical implications in this regard.
5.2.1. Pedagogical Implications
Students should study new vocabulary within their contexts and practice as many examples as possible with the different meanings and functions of various words and in different contexts which may particularly help emphasize the distinction between near synonyms. Moreover, students need to avoid L1 transfer and proficiently learn and study their L2 equivalents. Students may expose themselves to different sources of learning an L2 such as reading L2 books, listening to L2 audio, or practicing speaking with proficient teachers and native speakers if possible.
Teachers need to pay attention to correcting such pragmalinguistic errors and guide EFL students to the appropriate construction of sentences as well as usages of lexical items. Teachers may also broaden the students‘ horizons by providing students with sources which could be helpful in teaching the appropriateness of using an L2.
Curricula developers must integrate pragmalinguistic knowledge into L2 curricula, particularly in early learning stages, in order to enable students to use L2 appropriately and reach native-like proficiency.Linguists should provide pragmalinguistic corpora with the most frequent pragmalinguistic mistakes which should be avoided as well as the most frequent L2 formulaic sequences and lexical items used.
Linguists, with the help of programmers, should provide a program which could help an L2 learner to search for L1 formulae equivalents in an L2; such a program could also provide the different equivalents to L1 lexical items in different contexts.
Teaching materials should incorporate teaching collocations and word connotations to L2 curricula since the beginning of their L2 learning stages to enable them to differentiate between the different uses of lexical items.
5.2.2. Non-pedagogical Implications
Translators should also be pragmalinguistically competent so as to provide high quality translation, produce a comprehensible target language text, and avoid any wrong messages to be delivered.
Novel writers and journalists should enhance their pragmalinguistic knowledge which shall enable them to effectively convey their intended meanings to the readers void of any confusion.
5.3. Limitations of the Study
This study has two limitations:
The two groups ILS and ALS had different prompts to write their essays on. It would have been preferred to unify the prompts to control for any discrepancies while comparing the frequencies of errors between the two groups lest one of the prompts poses more difficulty for students than the other which might affect the accuracy of the comparison‘s results. Unfortunately, unifying the topics was not possible due to the fact that data were collected from two succeeding semesters.
The second limitation was the inability to find a British Native speaker who specializes in the English Language. That is, in seeking the help of native speakers, it was taken into account, for reliability of the results, that native speakers would be majored in the English language; all the native speakers met the said criteria except for the British native speaker who was a physician.
5.4. Suggestions for Further Research
The following are suggestions for further research:
It is suggested that researchers develop a pragmalinguistic-teaching programs/courses and apply it in pre-post and longitudinal experimental studies to investigate their effect on enhancing the students‘ pragmalinguistic knowledge and, specifically, on enhancing their writing style.
Pragmalinguistic contrastive analysis studies should be conducted for the Arabic and English languages as well as for other languages to explore the similarities and differences between such languages with regards to pragmalinguistics; hence, such contrastive studies shall provide guidelines for L2 learners and shall help enhance their pragmalinguistic knowledge.It is recommended that researchers investigate, in detail, pragmalinguistic errors and L1-influence on producing pragmalinguistic errors as well as investigate the different reasons behind L1 transfer. Subsequently, studies regarding ways to avoid L1 transfer could be conducted according to the different reasons found.
This study could be replicated on other EFL learners in other universities and to school students, particularly, in earlier learning stages to assess their pragmalinguistic knowledge and to enable researchers track pragmalinguistic development and provide implications in this regard. Also, beginner-level students could be compared to intermediate-level and advanced-level students in regards to the frequency of pragmalinguistic errors and L1 transfer to confirm the relation between language proficiency and pragmalinguistic errors, on the one hand, and language proficiency and L1 transfer, on the other hand.
Correlation studies should be conducted to investigate and confirm the correlation between language proficiency and pragmalinguistic errors.