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A Theoretical Survey of the Notion of Pragmatic Failure Lecturer Ahmed Sahib Jabir Mubarak M. A. In English Language and Linguistics Department of English College of Education University of Babylon 1. Introduction For a long ti me, fo re ign language teach ing ha d focused only on one aspect; namely, grammatical correct ness of languag e. In real communica tion, however, it is observed that not only the linguistic knowledge but the ability to use the language appropriately according to the context is a fundamental issue. Therefore, language studi es have cha nged radi call y to conce ntr ate on how foreign language teaching can be made efficient and succes sf ul . In ot he r wo rd s, the attent ion of fore ign language teaching has become more to language use than to language usage. It is an agreed upon fact th at the realization of language use involves two kinds of ability: the ability to select which form of sen tence is appropriate for a particular linguistic context and the abilit y to recognize wh ic h fu ncti on is fu lf il le d by a cert ai n sentence in a par ti cular communi cat ive si tuat ion. Both abil it ies are 1
