As a teacher, I realize that there are some students who behaved less politely with me while talking. One of them is their way of complaining or protesting against me. In fact, complaining to a teacher is not forbidden, and this is common. However, how to complain to someone is important to note. Therefore, in this article I want to discuss how to teach the pragmatic skill of camplaining to second language learners.
Pragmatics competence is someone’s ability to use the language appropriately in a variety of contexts. This is an important skill to be mastered by students for communication in a second language (L2). Thus, in teaching English where the focus of language is to communicate between the people around the world must also include pragmatics competence to be taught to students (Hilliard, 2017)
Second Language Learners and Pragmatics Competence
Some research has clearly showed that cultural differences lead to pragmatic differences among learners from difference language background. A comparative research of native and non-native speakers studied by Hebraw, Olshtain and Weinbach (1993) identified that non-native learners usually gave the complaint to others with longer sentences than English native speakers did. Also, the complaint made by non- native was consider less direct to the point. However, they added that such the phenomenon happened due to the non-native learners tried to transfer their cultural behaviors when they are complaining to someone using English.
In many cases, cultural and pragmatics differences between the two language can cause negative results. Like Olshtan and Weinbach gave an example of this ;
When Russians and Moroccans were asked to react to the idea of someone stealing their parking space in the parking area, the Russians respond with warning and threats, while Moroccans prefer not to make it as a big problem. These different acts happen because the Russians felt that everyone must play fair in parking slot, while Moroccans felt it was not a big problem, and they could find other slots for parking (Olshtain & Weinbach, 1993).
In other the hand, the negative result of complaining not only caused by the two mentioned above, but also it is caused by the grammatical errors when speaking. A study conducted by Rover (2005) clarified that EFL students tends to make more mistake in complaining due to gramtical errors compared to ESL students. This is because EFL students have less interaction intensity with native speakers.
Therefore, to enrich the pragmatic ability of students in sosial communication, especially in complaining, the Speech Act should be one part of target language learning that is put in the curriculum.
The Speech Act of Complaining
Speech acts are the most basic unit of communication, with each speech act accomplishing a different communicative function. To express different dissatisfaction, someone can use speech act of complaining. The part of speech act can be divided into smaller units of components and strategies to be used by speaker to accomplish the communication function (Hilliard, 2017).
The table below shows how speech act is used to complain. The table is suggested by Murphy and Neu (1996). They identified four strategies can be used in the speech act of complaining.
However, not every these four steps is used in complaining. It depends on the relationship of speakers, the situation, and the context. But, understanding the available strategies is the good way to start complaining.
While this following table highlights how a student uses innapropriate ways to complain a teacher.
As teachers, however, we believe that the pragmatic skill of complaint is needed to develop in every students. We can put this concern to make student aware of how social communication with other people works in real life. Teaching a language to students does not mean bring them what it is put on the text book, but it is how we communicate in daily life, in which the way to complain the others is one of them.
References
Hilliard, A. (2017). Twelve Activities for Teaching the Pragmatics of Complaining to L2 Learners.
Rover, C. (2005). Validation of a web-based test of ESL pragmalinguistics.
Murphy, B. & Neu, J. (1996). My Grade's Too Low: The Speech Act Set of Complaining.
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