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Pragmatic competence is the ability to understand and responding appropriately to the context of utterances (Farashaiyan & Muthusamy, 2016). Without it, disruptions in communication will occur and this will result in pragmatic failure. In correlation, studies have found out that English as a Second Language (ESL) students, albeit being in the targeted language environment (ESL), they still experience pragmatic incompetence (Wyner, 2014). Thus, this paper aims to identify the level of pragmatic competence among non-English majors at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) using the theoretical framework of request and apology by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984) and refusal by Beebe et al. (1990). Next, the analytical framework is adopted from Al-Aghbari (2016). Qualitatively, a discourse completion task (DCT) with nine different scenarios using three different speech acts was distributed to 41 UiTM students who have at least completed an English course in UiTM. The findings suggest that the students are identified to possess an intermediate level of pragmatic competence. However, some parts of their responses are still considered as inappropriate in the social standards while using the English language. It is hoped that this study contributes more insights into pragmatics, especially on pragmatic competence in ESL context among university students and is also useful and helpful for other similar studies in the future.
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In-Text Citation: (Razali & Abdullah, 2021)
To Cite this Article: Razali, I. R., & Abdullah, N. E. (2021). Pragmatic Competence in Requests, Apologies and Refusals: A Study on Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Students. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(10), 847–859.
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