Source Culture and Target Culture in English Language Teaching: A Study of Intercultural Pragmatics and Students’ Learning Outcomes

The study explores the role of intercultural pragmatics in the improvement of students’ reading comprehension of English. This is an experimental research conducted upon 50 eighth-grade Pashtun students aged around 12 and 13 years. The experimental group (n=25) was taught an intercultural curriculum which included topics from the British culture (target culture) and Pashtun culture (source culture) in addition to the form of language. The control group (n=25) was treated traditionally in which the focus was on the structure and form of language. The pre- and post-tests were administered to both groups. After comparing the mean scores of the tests, it has been found that the experimental group showed greater improvement in their English language proficiency as compared to the control group. It is recommended that topics from both the source and target cultures written in the target language be included in the English curriculum. Further, training programs for language teachers should include intercultural pragmatics in their syllabi. Further research may be conducted in the same area in different places with participants from different cultures and age groups.