1 Presented in Siliwangi International English Conference Siliwangi University, Tasikmalaya, November 27 th -28 th 2014 PRAGMATICS IN EFL INSTRUCTION: SPEECH ACTS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASS Ahmad Madkur STAIN Jurai Siwo Metro, Lampung madzkur_ahmad@yahoo.com Abstract To be able to speak English effectively, learners need to know the English expressions or sayings commonly used in day-to-day life. For example, instead of saying to an assistant “Drop by my office,” a native speaker is likely to use the grammatically more elaborate “Can you drop by my office?” This illustrates that it is not enough to only see the grammatical aspect of utterance, but understanding the speaker’s intention is considered more urgent to achieve the successfulness of conversation. This paper mainly presents discussion on speech acts and events and benefits of its involvement in speaking class. INTRODUCTION Pragmatics is the study of comprehension and production of linguistic action in context. In other words, in pragmatics, the language users’ ability to make their utterances fitting with the context is studied. Deda (2013) says that it is the way of delivering meaning through the communication. Blackman (cited in Barron, 2003, p. 173) identified pragmatic competence as one element of communicative competence, placing pragmatic competence as part of illocutionary competence, which is a combination of speech acts and speech functions along with the appropriate use of language in context. In order to study the communicative behavior within a speech community, it is necessary to work with units of interaction. Crowley & Mitchell (as cited in Tupan & Natalia, 2008) explained that “in a conversation, a speaker and a listener are supposed to respond to each other in their turn and exchange with the needed information that benefits both of them”. DISCUSSION A. Speech Act When communicating one another, people do not only swap information. They also actually do something through talking or writing in various circumstances. Actions performed via speaking are called speech acts. "In English, specific labels are commonly given, such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request."