Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Fereshteh Abolhasanpour ¹
• Hamid Allami ²
• Minoo Alemi ¹

¹ Department of English Language Teaching, WT.C., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

² Department of ELT, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University

Abstract

Although prior research has discursively examined the inclusion of intercultural pragmatic content in EFL contexts, there has been little focus on how teachers perceive and implement intercultural pragmatic competence within the classroom. To fill this gap, we tried to develop a theoretically informed instrument to assess intercultural pragmatic competence and administer it to a representative sample of 376 EFL teachers. Using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), we investigated the factor structure underlying the scale. The results indicate six distinct factors: sociocultural awareness, empathetic engagement, adaptive communication, inference, pragmatic motivation, and strategic competence. The Cronbach's alpha values demonstrated that each factor reflected conceptual coherence and internal consistency. The findings revealed that intercultural pragmatic ability comprises several dimensions, and correspondingly highlight the significance of these characteristics within the framework of EFL instruction. The validated instrument can provide researchers, teacher educators, and curriculum designers with a significant resource for assessing and improving intercultural pragmatics in language education.

Keywords

• exploratory factor analysis
• intercultural pragmatics
• EFL teaching
• sociocognitive theory
• scale development

Main Subjects

• Applied Linguistics