Linguistic Self-Confidence: A Perception of Pakistani University Students in English as a Foreign Language Setting

Abstract

This research paper is to examine the perception of Pakistani university students’ linguistic self-confidence in English as a foreign language across variety of conversational contexts i.e. public encounters, small meetings, large meetings and group discussions. The examination of Linguistic Self-Confidence (LSC) under aforementioned conversational contexts was limited to three types of interlocutors such as friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Linguistic self-confidence can generally be viewed as one of the great sources of encouragement for L2 learners to communicate in English (Clark, 1989:237). The research participants (N=100) of the study were from the Department of English, Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur, Pakistan who were studying English for last couple of years in the department. For the analysis of the data, Statistical-analysis Package for Social Science (SPSS 22) was used analyzed data obtained through questionnaire. Also, Pearson correlation was run to examine the relationship of the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ linguistic self-confidence with three aforementioned audiences. The findings of the study suggested that significant number of informants were linguistically competent to communicate in English. It was also found that there was no statistically significant relationship between the students’ LSC with friends and acquaintances as well as with friends and strangers. But there did appear to be a correlation of the students’ LSC with strangers and acquaintances. Based on the results, suggestions were recommended for future studies along with limitations.