Correct Response: A. Pragmatic competence refers to the ability to engage in verbal and nonverbal communication in a way that is deemed contextually appropriate according to the values of a given society and culture. One aspect of pragmatic competence is the ability to change the level of formality of language used in an interaction according to the relative status of the participants and the purpose for the interaction. By considering how to produce language that conforms to a specific sociocultural context, the student in the scenario is demonstrating strength in pragmatic competence. Receptive language skills (B) are those involved in interpreting language provided by others through listening, reading, and viewing, rather than the production of language, which is the main focus of the scenario. Grammatical competence (C) is the ability to recognize and use the rules of a language that dictate how words function and how they are put together to create meaningful sentences. Morphological skills (D) are involved in the structural analysis of words (e.g., identifying roots, prefixes, suffixes) and word formation.
