ARRIVING AT THE INTERFACE OF PRAGMATIC AND GRAMMATICAL

COMPETENCE – A SITUATION ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

LEARNERS’ NEEDS

Manvender Kaur A/P Sarjit Singh

Fakulti Pendidikan, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
&
Dr.Sarimah Shamsudin
Fakulti Pengurusan & Pembangunan Sumber Manusia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Skudai, Johor.
[email protected] , [email protected], sarimah.shamsudin@ yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

English Language has become the basic requirement for employment or job
enhancement, whether in the private sector or in the public sector. Mastering this globally
important language requires the mastering of spoken and written use of the language.
Among others, the written linguistic competence requires grammatical competence and
pragmatics competence working in-line to produce a cognitively understandable textual
product.

In Malaysia, the basic grammar rules of English Language are integrated into textbooks
from the level of primary one to secondary five. Although learners’ attention is brought
to perform various communicative activities, they are also supposedly to be aware of the
underlying grammatical rules of the language being learnt. However, as the products of
the Malaysian education system, it is noticed that these learners are not capable of
applying the learnt language rules into their written output.

This paper presents the findings of preliminary needs analysis conducted to gain insights
into the present and target situation of fresh graduates in terms of using English Language
in their workplace. For this study, the focus was on business and management wings of
the market. The data were extracted from semi-structured interviews conducted with
individuals working as human resource managers in various different fields.

Keywords: linguistic competence, grammatical competence, pragmatic competence,

needs analysis, present situation analysis, target situation analysis
1. INTRODUCTION

The aim of this preliminary study is to explore the English language needs in
Malaysian workplaces. The target situation analysis involves specific areas of business
and management sector, where fresh graduates are considering applying jobs
immediately after completing their first degrees. In order to be competitive in the job
market these graduates are to reveal various job-related knowledge and expertise
including communicative competence.
Communicative competence, to which Canale & Swain (1980) and Canale (1983)
attributed the dimensions of grammatical competence, sociolinguistics competence,
pragmatic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence, is
comprehensive of being able to effectively utilize learnt knowledge to show
accountability of performance.
However, these intellectuals are facing the problem of employing English
Language as a tool for communication, leading to ineffectiveness in communication,
whether it is the verbal communication or the written linguistics requirements. This
inability further leads to social and economic drawbacks, in term of mobilizing social
engagements and job attainments. Among others, the written linguistic competence
requires grammatical competence and pragmatic competence working in-line to produce
a cognitively understandable textual product.
The Comprehensible Output Hypothesis, proposed by Swain (1985) to
complement Long’s Interaction Hypothesis, concurs that learners require the opportunity
for pushed output, meaning that output which is accurate, coherent, and situationally
appropriate. A suitable situation for the generation of forced output would be one that is
job associated. This requires the accomplishment of some pre-established objectives and
goals of the stakeholders in the situation for example the employers in the multi-national
and national companies. A target situation analysis would therefore provide insights
corresponding to these objectives. On the other hand, through a present situation analysis
we are able to infer individuals’ strengths and weaknesses in the application of the learnt
knowledge. This would call for an analysis into the target and present need of linguistic
and communication skills, focusing on the organizational needs and the lacks of the
potential employees.
A number of researchers have discussed language needs from different
perspectives. Brindley (1989), described needs as target situation or goal oriented and
learning, as well as needs being process-oriented and product-oriented. Hutchinson and
Waters (1987) further enlightened the concept of needs as being the necessities, the wants
and also the lacks of individuals.
The findings of this study informed the initial research with useful insights
especially in the area of the requisites of the market in terms of language use and the
crucial requirement of being grammatically competent while engaging in various written
tasks assigned by the employers in the job market. The situation needs analysis also
identified crucial information relating to the success of job applications by fresh
graduates.

* stakeholders – public and private companies including multinational and national.

 The working framework of the study is shown in Diagram1 below;

PRESENT SITUATION ANALYSIS

Canale & Swain (1983) Swain (1985)

Grammatical Comprehensible Output
Competence Hypothesis

Potential Human Capital In Malaysia

TARGET SITUATION ANALYSIS

Business &
Manage ment

Observations, Semi-structured interviews, Questionnaires, Text analysis

Diagram 1: The framework of the study

2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The primary approach of this study is exploratory. Many local public and private
institutions are given the responsibility of preparing marketable human capital. As the
result of it, potential human capital is pouring into the job market and it is crucial to
identify the language needs of the prospective workplace.
Another reason that also prompted this study is the predicted increase in the
unemployment rate in Malaysia. The Malaysia Institute of Economic Research (MIER)
indicated that the jobless rate in this nation may reach 4.5%. According to economist
Datuk Dr Zainal Aznan Yusof, Malaysia’s unemployment rate will continue to climb at
an alarming rate and at one point will hit the 6.0% mark. (Source: IndexMundi.com). A
survey conducted by the founder and CEO of Jobstreet.com in 2004 revealed that
proficiency in English Language is the key requirement for graduates to be marketable in
the local job market.
While substantial attention has been paid to investigating language proficiency of
learners at the secondary and tertiary level (Suzihana Shaharom, 2003; Wan Irham Ishak,
2002), little consideration has been attributed to areas where written English is employed
in real life situations. Leong, Yaw Kuen (2001) investigated the communication needs of
sales personnel of a Malaysian owner-managed group of companies.
 Therefore, this study was intended to provide insights to the following research
questions:
• How important is English language in the potential workplace of business and
management graduates?
• How and when is the written component of English language important in the
workplace?
• What types of written texts are expected to be produced by potential
employees?
• How is the written competence of business and management graduates being
evaluated by the potential employers?

3. METHODOLOGY

3.1. The scope

This study sought to investigate the specific needs of the written component of
English language by graduates seeking employment in the Malaysian job markets.
Focusing in the area of business and management, I randomly select six organizations
(N=6) in Malaysia, associated with business and management activities. The
classifications of these organizations are displayed in Table 1.

ID TYPE OF ORGANIZATION

MN1 Multi-national (oil & gas)

MN2 Multi-national (fabrication)
MN3 Multi-national (manufacturing)

N1 National (aviation services)

N2 National (property developer)
N3 National (human resource supplier)

Table 1: Organizational classification

The common corporate languages in these organizations are Malay and English.
My focus was on the use of English language only. And to get a clearer picture of the job
functions and requirements of the employees I aimed my investigation at the human
resources departments of the organizations.
3.2. The respondents

The organizational structures of these corporations are shown in Table 2.

LEVEL POSITION DESIGNATION

Executive
Junior Management Senior Executive

Manager
Executive Middle Management Senior Manager

Managing Director
Senior Management Senior General Manager
General Manager

Non-Executive

Table 2: Organizational Structures

For the purpose of gaining reflective input regarding the employability of those
with a first degree qualification, I selected my respondents from those who were directly
involved with interviewing potential employees (shaded). Here, the senior managers and
the managers from the Human Resources Department were sought after, as these are the
front liners who eventually evaluate fresh graduates of their abilities and knowledge. For
the questionnaire, 12 newly-appointed executives were selected. It was crucial to acquire
permissions from the gatekeepers as it involved reputation of the organization. A written
consent was solicited.

3.3. Measuring Instruments

In order to compile a comprehensive picture of the specific needs of the written

component of English language, I employed a number of techniques;

3.3.1. Observations – where notes were taken,

3.3.2. Semi-structured interviews – with the human resources managers and

senior executives,

3.3.3. Questionnaires – given to 12 newly-appointed executives,

3.3.4. Text analysis – of the most recurring evidence of the written output.
3.4. Procedures of data collection

3.4.1. Observation

Language use and language needs in a situational setting are determined by the
language users. Therefore in order to understand the technical use of the language
embedded in the daily operations of the business, first of all I conducted attentive
observations in the organizations. These observations were conducted till data saturated,
and to accomplish it I visited three organizations. During the observations, I focused on
the occurrence of written tasks allocated to the employees. As a non-participant observer,
I produced written notes immediately after the observation, but avoided taking notes on
the spot as this might have disturbed those working in the area.

3.4.2. Semi-structured interviews

In order to avoid any faulty inferences occurring from my time constrained

observations or due to my personal postulation on the issue, I felt it was necessary to
consult with personnel from the human resources departments. My aim was to discover
reliable and consistent responds to my research questions, especially regarding the
importance of the written component of English language in the workplace. For this
purpose, I interviewed six personnel from the human resources departments of the
selected organizations. The time and the place of the semi-structured interviews were set
by the respondents. The interviews were conducted in English language and strict
confidentiality was assured. Two of the interviews were recorded while the responds to
the other four were taken down as notes. Then all the interviews were transcribed using
rich text format in order to be analyzed using the AnSWR (Analysis Software for Word
Based Records). The analysis was aimed to identify similar themes occurring in the
transcriptions.

3.4.3. Questionnaires

Guided by the feedbacks gained during the interviews, I prepared a set of

questionnaires comprising 6 items which explores the employees’ point of views
regarding the importance of being competent in written English language. A total of 12
respondents among the newly employed graduates were selected, 2 representing each
type of company. These employees have been appointed within a year from the time of
the study. The questionnaires were collected and manually analyzed.

3.4.4. Text analysis

The exploration was also enhanced with an analysis of a written text; the standard
operating procedures prepared by the respondents, through which a comprehensive
understanding of the importance of the written component of English language is
emphasized.
4. THE FINDINGS

4.1. Observations

The observations provided some indication on what are the major written outputs
being produced by the employees in their every day job-related tasks. The findings of the
observations are categorized in the table below.

No. Type of Written The Written Output

Communication

1 Internal e-mails, memos, employee manuals,

standard operating procedures, meeting
minutes, standing instructions, data
analysis, survey reports, training modules,
counseling reports

2 External e-mails, business letters, complaints letters,

sales letters, advertisements, press release,
tender documents, procurement reports,
project reports, risk assessment reports,
business plans, market surveys

Table 3: Job-related written outputs

The justification of the observation was to identify types of documents written by

executives and managers as these are the potential positions for fresh graduates with a
suitable degree qualification. The findings further supported the notion of learners’
language needs especially in the area of being grammatically and pragmatically
competence. At present, there are limited investigations leading into the highlighting of
these precise requirements of fresh graduates. This empirical investigation may provide
useful insights for the development of suitable ESP courses and also contribute to
graduates’ success at job attainments.
4.2. Semi-structured interviews

The analysis of themes identified through the interviews provided evidence of the
written communicative events occurring in the settings. Data prevailing from the semi-
structured interviews revealed that the newly appointed employees are required to master
the written component of English language in order to accomplish their daily written
tasks. The types and sub-types of the written communicative events prevailing from the
settings are shown in Table 4 below.

Type of Written Communication Sub-types of Written Communicative Events

Events
- Progress Reports
- Procurement Reports
- Survey Reports
- Risk Assessment Reports
- Counseling Reports
REPORTS - Production Reports
- Financial Reports
- Project Reports
- Statistical Reports
- Failure Analysis Reports
- Accident Reports
- Standard Operating Manuals
- Standard Operating Procedures
- Standing Instructions
MANUALS - Evaluation Procedures
- Document Control Procedures
- Business Letters
- Complaints Letters
LETTERS - Sales and Service Letters
- Invitation Letters
- E-mails
- Memos
- Meeting minutes
- Notices
- Tender Documents
OTHERS - Advertisements
- Press Releases
- Business Summaries
- Leaflets
- Brochures
- Business Plans/Surveys
- Faxes
- Announcements
- Invoices/Bills
- Client’s Requisites

Table 4: Types of Written Communicative Events

4.3. Questionnaire

Responses from the questionnaire elicited data related to the problems in writing
experienced by newly employed fresh graduates. Item 5 of the questionnaire evaluated
frequency of the written tasks performed by the respondents while item 6 evaluated the
frequency of various types of difficulties faced by the respondents when attempting the
assigned written tasks. The findings of item 6 are elaborated in detail in Table 5 below.

Type of difficulty Responses (%)

in writing Never Seldom Sometimes Often Very
Often
1. Lack of confidence 0 0 8.33 25.00 66.67
2. Lack of vocabulary 0 0 0 41.66 58.34
3. Constructing proper sentences 0 0 0 33.34 66.67
4. Delivering the intended content 0 0 16.66 50.00 33.34
5. Sequencing the points 0 8.33 25.00 16.66 50.00
6. Applying sentence connectors 0 0 33.33 33.33 33.34
7. Understanding the meaning 0 0 8.33 58.33 33.34
8. Spelling errors 0 0 16.66 41.66 41.67
9. Appropriate use of words 0 0 8.33 66.67 25.00
10. Applying different styles of writing 0 0 33.33 25.00 41.67

Table 5: Types and Level of Difficulties Faced

According to the analysis of the questionnaire, these newly appointed employees

are facing difficulties mainly in the areas of confidence, sentence structure, and meaning
and also in terms of using the right words in their written events. 66.67% of the
respondents stated having lack of confidence in the assigned written events and
difficulties in constructing proper sentences in their writings while the same percentage
stated of having difficulties finding suitable English language words when attempting to
write. Other highly asserted areas of difficulties include style of writing, spelling
difficulties and lack of vocabulary knowledge.

4.4 Text Analysis

Data from the questionnaire revealed that among the most frequently performed
written communicative events in these companies are writing e-mails, procedures,
progress reports and memos. In order to understand the linguistics and structural features
of the written events, it was crucial to conduct an in-depth analysis of the most frequently
assigned written tasks. To obtain an example of a large written data, I decided to look at a
procedure on an execution plan written by one of the newly appointed employees.
A content analysis of the document revealed that the written document consists of
mainly detailed explanation related the activities of the organization. The writing
technique used was accommodating simple and short sentences where generally the aim
was to get the message across, eliminating the need of variety in writing.
 Another noticeably finding was the writing is aimed to inform a targeted audience
and not for general purpose. The linguistics characteristic of the document reflected the
use of technical words along with purposive wordings. For example;

“HUC Team will prepare a work pack for WORKS that will be technically sound
and be executed in the most efficient and safe manner. A list of final offshore
scope of works will be produced. The list shall include all the fabrication yard
outstanding works and punch lists. Utilizing Primavera or Microsoft Excel
software shall then be used to develop level IV planning or job cards. The job-
cards should be complete with estimated man-hours and appropriate resources
category employed to execute the task. Task estimated man-hours (weight value)
are derived by referring to the industry norms. The task estimated man-hours will
be rolled up and will arrive at the activity-estimated man-hours categorized by
trades. This will further aggregated to disciplines level and finally to project’s
overall. The job cards should also reflect the preparatory and supporting
activities such as scaffolding and material handling. References should be made
to the relevant drawings.”

The text analysis provided insights into the actual language practice. It is crucial
for the fresh graduates to be prepared for the real life language requirement. However, as
it is reflected in the analysis of the text, the actual language requirements differs
significantly with what these learners are equipped with.

5. Limitation

As this study was aimed basically at investigating the language needs of fresh
graduates with degrees in business and management, it may be inadequate to justify the
actual language needs of the overall Malaysian potential human capital. Further studies
should be conducted, employing similar methodology, to generate sufficient findings in
order to reach a rationalized conclusion.

6. Discussion and Conclusion

Teaching English language to undergraduates of various ESP courses has always

encountered problems. The major problem is preparing these learners for the potential job
market and equipping them with sufficient linguistic knowledge to be competent in their
daily tasks. Although many researchers are trying to figure out the best approach, at
present there has yet to surface a single suitable approach of teaching these courses. It
seems that the language content being taught is not corresponding to the actual language
needs of the learners, reflecting incompatibility as they penetrate into the real world
requirements. Subsequently, I ask myself; why take the trouble of alienating ESP from
EAP? Can these two notions of language teaching be merged for the utmost advantages
of the language teaching process? The primary goal of language teaching is to promote
competency in language use whether it is for ESP or EAP purposes. The dilemma of
incompatibility in language utilization may well be conquered by merging these two.
 Bhatia (1994) suggested that "it is not enough for ESP professionals to look at
language trying to bridge the gap between language and the professions; they need to
make significant inroads in the world of professions, especially in the form of relevant
ESP research output". Johns (1993) emphasized on the need of locally-based research
particularly into the area of ESP teachings.
This study has been conducted in response to calls for an applicable approach to
bridge the fundamental gap that exists between the present situation of business and
management undergraduates and the targeted situation of the potential employees of the
nation’s business and management sector. Teaching English language to undergraduates
of business and management courses seems to be unsatisfactorily compelling. Research
in this particular area needs to be spawned further till it reaches the ultimate destination
of individuals trailing the path.
The findings in this research offer a fresh platform for the designing of ESP
courses, especially in the specific area of business and management. The job-related
written output deliberately supports the existing of comprehensible output hypothesis
suggested by Swain (1985), requiring learners to be exposed to opportunity for pushed
output which is very much situationally appropriate. The types and subtypes of the
communicative events that emerge from the analysis may well be useful in creating
authentic teaching materials for business and management courses. The existing gap
between the present situation of the business and management learners and the targeted
situation of these learners need to be sealed. And the rational application would be to
analyze the target needs within the potential situation.
This study informed the main research on the language needs of ESL learners.
The findings will be employed to justify the rationale of conducting a further research
into the linguistic structure of language used by learners from business and management
background. The findings will also support the analysis of learner corpora which will be
the foundation of the main research.

REFERENCES

Bhatia, V.K. (1994). ESP and the world of professions: bridging the gap or making Inroads?
ESP Malaysia. 2(1): 19-31.

Brindley. G. P (1989). The role of needs analysis in adult ESL programme design. In
R.K. Johnson (Eds) The Second Language Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). “Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to

second language teaching and testing.” Applied Linguistics. 1. 1-47.

Canale, M. (1983). From communicative competence to language pedagogy. In J.

Richards & R. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and communication (pp. 2-27). London:
Longman.

Hutchinson, T. & Waters, A. (1987). English for Specific Purposes: A learning-centered

approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johns, A.M. (1993). Directions for English for specific purposes research . ESP Malaysia.
1(2): 88 - 101.

Mark Chang – Founder/CEO of Jobstreet.com: “Why Some Graduates Are More

Marketable Than Others” (presented on 25 July, 2004).

Swain, M. (1985). ‘Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and

output in its development’ S. Gass and C. Madden (eds.): Input in Second
Language Acquisition. Rowley, Ma: Newbury House.

Suzihana Shaharom. (2003). English Language Writing Proficiency At The PMR Level:
A Needs Analysis in A Rural Secondary School. (Master Thesis) USM Library
Collections.

Wan Irham Ishak. (2002). EAP English Language Needs Analysis of Engineering
Students in Higher Education. (Master Thesis) UiTM Library Collections.

BIODATA

Manvender Kaur A/P Sarjit Singh is a lecturer in Universiti Utara Malaysia. She
graduated with a Master degree in Education (TESL) from Univeristi Teknologi
Malaysia, Johor in 2004. She is currently pursuing a doctorate program under Hadiah
Skim Latihan Akademik IPTA (SLAI) from KPTM. Her area of interest is language
needs analysis, morphology, syntax and second language acquisition.

Dr. Sarimah binti Shamsudin is currently a lecturer and Head of the English Language
Panel at the Department of Modern Languages, Faculty of Management and Human
Resources Development in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. She graduated with a PhD
degree in ELT and Applied Linguistics from the University of Warwick, UK in 2008. She
has published a few research-based book chapters on corpus linguistics (2008) and a
journal article on CMC in ESP in Computer-Assisted Language Learning Journal (2006).