Intercultural Communicative Competence and Pragmatic Comprehension of High School EFL Learners ; Međukulturna komunikacijska kompetencija i pragmatičko razumijevanje kod učenika engleskog kao stranog jezika u srednjoj školi

With the changing objectives of foreign language teaching towards the successful communication and appropriate language use in multicultural environment in mind, this research explores the relationship between intercultural communicative competence and pragmatic comprehension – two concepts that assure successful communication in different intercultural contexts. The paper consists of theoretical and analytical part. The theoretical part of the paper presents the notion of communicative competence through different models with reference to the pragmatic competence and sociocultural aspect, explores the concept of pragmatic comprehension with regard to the conversational implicatures and speech acts, and introduces the intercultural dimension of communicative competence through different models of intercultural communicative competence. The notions of pragmatic comprehension and intercultural communicative competence are, finally, discussed in the Croatian context of foreign language teaching. In the analytical part, the research topic and research questions, together with the demographic data of the participants, instruments and results are presented. Results are then interpreted in the Croatian context, followed by the conclusions about relationship between intercultural communicative competence and pragmatic comprehension in foreign language teaching. The results of this research provide a valuable insight into the intercultural communicative competence and pragmatic comprehension of Croatian EFL learners, which are proven to be at the basic level of competence. Therefore, more systematic development and assessment of pragmatic comprehension and intercultural communicative competence in Croatian foreign language classrooms and their integration in the curriculum are fields worth exploring in future studies. ; Uzimajući u obzor promjene ciljeva učenja stranog jezika u smjeru odgovarajuće uporabe jezika u različitim sociokulturnim kontekstima, ovaj rad istražuje odnos međukulturne komunikacijske kompetencije i ...