Abstract: Research on pragmatic strategies in English as a lingua franca has been confined to the similarities and disparities of speech act performance by both native speakers and non-native speakers. This paper thus aims to describe such strategies employed by English majors in their English speech and debate and summarizes underlying reasons for disparities and similarities of pragmatic strategy distribution among both the claim side and the counterclaim side. This paper also puts forward some suggestions to improve the course of English speech and debate. This research widens the scope of pragmatic strategies in academic discourse and enriches pragmatic strategy research paradigm in English as an academic lingua franca.