Abstract

The pragmatic competence is an extra-grammatical competence. Therefore it is, in Saussurian terms, a matter of langage not of langue. From a semiotic point of view, indeed, the forms of language become formulas referring to a modality of thought, whose reasons are based on the system of values shared by a society and a culture. The speaker’s approach to this system is always automatic because the formulas do not have autonomous evidence from sign, but only intuitive intellectual evidence, suggested by socio-cultural habits acquired. Here we will posit that the pragmatic teaching/learning should try to promote the competence of langue into a competence of langage. Then the first step of a syllabus should be the acquisition of a spontaneous understanding of extra-grammatical linguistic formulas.