Non-words and Pragmatic Skills

Abstract

The present study analyzed students' perspectives on expressions called non-words in pragmatic skills. A total of 74 university students (24 males and 50 females) participated in a descriptive, non-experimental research. Data were collected through a survey with 19 items on a Likert scale and 3 open-ended questions. It was validated using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient (0.807) and validated by three professional scholars using a validation form. Additionally, the research was based on three research questions aligned with the objectives. The results revealed that the most commonly used non-words by students are collocations, due to patterns in their structure and the words that commonly occur together, which allow students to distinguish these expressions much better than others. There was a similarity in the use of speech acts and topic maintenance. Most students used these two types of verbal communication skills almost equally, with topic maintenance being slightly more used. Additionally, these results reflected that students had appropriate verbal skills when communicating in different social contexts. On the other hand, this study also revealed that students did not face difficulties in the majority of non-verbal communication skills, specifically in body language. This could prove that students do not feel nervous and pressured when engaging in and responding to a conversation in a foreign language that they have not mastered yet. However, the use of proxemics proved to be relatively difficult for them, as students were not able to distinguish the correct use of space and distance between people when maintaining a conversation.