3. Survey and analysis
3.1 Respondents
The respondents we selected were non-English undergraduate freshmen and sophomores in a general
undergraduate university in Shandong Province. The reason why we chose students of these two grades was that
only freshmen and sophomores of non-English majors in Shandong Province are allowed to select college
English course, whereas students of the other grades were not allowed to take this course. Since students of these
two grades were receiving college English education, the frequency of their usage of English was relatively
higher than students of other grades and their competence of application of English was also relatively better.
Selection of students of these two grades was mainly aimed to grasp universality of the status quo of the English
pragmatic competence among non-English majors.