The Relationship between Lower- Intermediate EFL Learners Emotional Intelligence and Their Interlanguage Pragmatics Competence

The development of pragmatic competence as one of the subcomponents of the general language proficiency might be affected by not only cognitive factors but also emotional factors. From the emergence of emotional quotient (EQ) in the 1990s, researchers have explored that EQ more than intelligence quotient (IQ) accounts for success in life and education (Goleman, 1995). Given that, EQ sounds to affect EFL learners interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) competence development due to the face-threatening nature of some of the speech acts involved. In spite of the importance of EQ and ILP, very few studies have investigated the relationship between them. Therefore, the present study aimed to unearth the interrelationship between EQ and its components and ILP competence of two speech acts of apology and request. To this end, 72 (50 females and 22 males) lower intermediate learners ranging in age from 17 to 25 from two universities of Golestan and Gonbad-Qavoos, GolestanProvince, Iran voluntarily took part in this study. The participants were homogenized through Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) (2004). The multiple choice discourse completion test (MDCT) (Liu, 2004) and Bar-Onʼs(1997) EQ-i were administered to find out the correlation between ILP and EQ. The results of running Pearson product moment correlation did not show any significant relationship between EQ and ILP although it was revealed that there was a significant relationship between independence as one of the constructs of EQ and EFL learners’ ILP competence. Finally, the results of regression analysis did not feature EQ as an effective predictor of EFL learners’ ILP competence. The findings of the present study seem important for both teachers and students who need to gain a deeper understanding about the nature of language learning and, ultimately, to gain insight about themselves.

Keywords:

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