Investigating pragmatic information in an efl coursebook: A case of "yes you can"

This quantitative study aimed to focus on the communicative functions of the speech acts, accordingly on the functional competence as the component of pragmatic competence via investigating speech acts and language functions contained in the coursebooks, Yes You Can A1.1 and Yes You Can A2.1, which are written for use at high schools in Turkey. To this end, the conversations and dialogues in the coursebooks were examined in terms of types of speech acts/language functions and their distribution over the coursebooks. Searle's (1979) classification of speech acts was applied so as to determine the types of speech acts and van Ek Threshold's (1990) micro-functions' list was applied to investigate the language functions of the conversations and dialogues. The data were collected via data sheets. According to the results, the most frequently used speech acts were those of assertive whereas there were no types of declarations. In addition, the results of frequency and percentages revealed that there were various and unequal distribution of speech act types and language functions. To be regarded as efficient in improving pragmatic competence, the conversations and dialogues in the coursebooks must provide all types of speech acts and language functions that are used during communication. Finally, some implications were suggested for coursebooks' writers in considering all types of speech acts/language functions and providing more pragmatic awareness coursebooks convenient for language learning.