THE ROLE OF PRAGMATICS IN LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF THE ASSESSMENT OF PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE IN STANDARDIZED LANGUAGE TESTS

Language evaluation is placing more and more importance onthe study of pragmatics, which is concerned with how speakers use language in context. This article discusses the difficulties in assessing this complicated area of language competency, pragmatic competence, in standardized language examinations. It draws attention to the need for a more thorough and accurate assessment of pragmatic ability and makes suggestions for potential remedies, including the inclusion of real-world language use tasks and the creation of pragmatics-specific rating scales. The need of incorporating pragmatics into language teaching and learning is also emphasized in the essay, as are the possible advantages of a more nuanced pragmatic competence evaluation for language learners, educators, and researchers