Pragmatic proficiency has been incorporated in the EFL teaching and testing syllabi
in China, but the corresponding tests still focus on linguistic competence. The gap
between the teaching and testing is mainly due to the lack of generally accepted
measures of communicative abilities such as pragmatic competence. This study
developed a multiple-choice discourse completion test (MDCT) to assess the pragmatic
knowledge of Chinese EFL learners in relation to the speech act of apology. The
development involved several stages. First, students in China were asked to identify
situations in which apologies might be required and to report how likely the
situations were to occur in their daily lives. Next, metapragmatic assessment
involving both Chinese and North American students was used to ascertain the social
variables which applied in each scenario. This was followed by studies to validate
the scenarios and to develop multiple-choice options for each scenario. Finally, a
pilot test was conducted with 105 Chinese university students. The results provided
evidence for the reliability and validity of the test, and suggest that after
further investigation it may be feasible to assess the pragmatic competence of
Chinese learners by means of a MDCT in the future.
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