Which term is used for the study of how utterances function in social interaction to achieve interactional goals?

• A. Pragmatic competence
• B. Metalanguage
• C. Realia
• D. Tautology

Answer: (A)

Pragmatic competence is the ability to understand and produce language that fits the social context, using utterances to achieve specific goals in interaction. It covers how people perform actions with words (speech acts), manage politeness and turn-taking, and infer meaning beyond the literal phrasing through context and implicature. This focus on how language functions to accomplish interactional aims is exactly what the question targets. The other terms aren’t about this function in social talk: metalanguage is language about language, realia are real objects used in teaching, and tautology refers to redundant wording rather than a study of social use of language.