A Pragmatic Analysis of Speech Acts and Language Functions: The case of English Result Series

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to analyze the conversation sections of English Result Series from the pragmatic dimension of language functions and speech acts. For this purpose, all conversations from all four levels (elementary, intermediate, pre-intermediate, and upper-intermediate) of the books were selected and two pragmatic models of Halliday (1975) and Searle (1976) were applied to analyze them. The results showed that the conversations in these textbooks are not pragmatically efficient with regard to language functions and speech acts. Finally, some implications for teachers, material developers, and textbook designers were proposed.