Socio-Pragmatic Errors and Their Pedagogical Implication in ELT

Abstract

The socio-pragmatic error is concerned with the deviation of form and meaning in the target language. Regardless of other types, such as grammatical and lexical errors focusing on sound, lexeme and sentence order or any syntactical pattern (microlinguitics), socio-pragmatic error is an error in which context of the language user is definitely involved (macrolinguitics). It deals with what is common and acceptable in a certain community and what is not. The acceptability is closely related to an understanding of the context where language is being used. Referring to the statements in question, the main objective of this article was to describe the observed Indonesian daily speakers' conversations socio-pragmatic errors. Conversation analysis supporting by pragmatic perspective was used to analyze the data. The results of analysis indicated that the L1 interference and insufficient knowledge of context and culture of the target language (L2) caused the socio-pragmatic errors. As such, the results might of benefit in English Language Teaching (ELT) as highlighted at the end of this article.