The Teaching and Learning of Speech Acts

Alc�n, E., & Martinez-Flor, A. (Eds.). (2008). Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching and testing. Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

This book focuses on investigating pragmatic learning, teaching and testing in foreign language contexts. The volume brings together research that investigates these three areas in different formal language learning settings and focuses on different foreign languages. The book should be of interest to graduate students and researchers working in the area of second language acquisition.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2011). Assessing familiarity with pragmatic formulas: Planning oral/aural assessment. In N. R. Houck & D. H. Tatsuki (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching natural conversation (pp. 7-22). New York: TESOL.

Batjargal, D. (2010). The study of verbal communication in the case of English speech acts (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of the Humanities, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

This doctoral study looked at speech acts in an English language textbook series (English1-6), including a Student’s book, an Activity book, and the Teacher’s book. The series was designed for use in Mongolian secondary schools and was of particular interest because it was based on a communicative approach and was student-centered, whereas more traditional textbooks had followed the grammar-translation method. The researcher was curious to see the extent to which a functional approach to language was featured in this series. A hand count of speech acts in the series found speech acts in 2,000 utterances across 18 textbooks. Altogether 45 types of English speech acts such as requests, promises, warnings, making and accepting suggestions, offers, thanking, apologies, and accepting or refusing invitations were identified. It was found that requests accounted for almost 40 percent of the speech acts in these textbooks. There were at least a dozen ways that offers and suggestions were expressed. Giving instructions or orders was also of relative high frequency. The least frequent speech act was that of complaining, particularly in the more advanced textbooks. So, it could be said that the series did constitute a departure from traditional approaches to EFL teaching, and that it represented a welcome shift in materials development. The researcher underscored the need for promoting such materials in teachingdevelopment programs and in the language classroom.

Brown, J. D. (2001). Pragmatics tests: Different purposes, different tests. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 301-326). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, J. D. (2001). Six types of pragmatics tests in two different contexts. In K. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 301-325). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University.

Brown, J. D. (2008). Raters, functions, item types and the dependability of L2 pragmatics tests. In E. Alc�n Soler & A. Mart�nez-Flor (Eds.), Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching and testing (pp. 224-248). Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

The chapter reviewed to literature on pragmatics testing -- written DCTs, MC DCTs, oral discourse completion tasks, role plays, self-assessments, and role-play self-assessments. In addition, it looked at design issues in pragmatics testing and at statistical analyses that could improve the test, including both classical theory and generalizability theory approaches. The author took a data set from Korean FL respondents on five pragmatics measures (Ahn, 2005, U of Hawaii Ph.D.) and reanalyzed the data. His findings were complex but seemed to favor a generalizability theory approach over a classical theory approach to data analysis.

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1-47. doi:10.1093/applin/I.1.1

Cohen, A. D. (2008). Teaching and assessing L2 pragmatics: What can we expect from learners? Language Teaching, 41(2), 215-237. doi:10.1017/S0261444807004880

This paper starts by giving a rationale for why there is value in explicitly teaching second-language (L2) learners pragmatics in the target language. The importance of a research basis for choosing pragmatic materials to teach is underscored, and the focus is put on sources for materials on pragmatics and the means of data collection. Issues in the teaching of pragmatics are considered, including determining which material to teach, how to prepare teachers to teach it, and the role of teachers in facilitating the learning of pragmatics. Next, L2 pragmatics is viewed from the learners' perspective, in terms of the learning and performance of pragmatics, as well as approaches to assessing what it is that learners are able to do in a pragmatically appropriate way. Finally, consideration is given to the role of technology in making pragmatics accessible to learners, with reference to a website for teachers and curriculum writers and to websites designed for learners of specific languages such as Japanese and Spanish. Recent work on virtual environments for practicing Spanish pragmatics is discussed and preliminary findings from a small-scale study of this effort are reported.

Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1981). Developing a measure of socio-cultural competence: The case of apology. Language Learning, 31(1), 113-134.

The study aimed at developing a measure to assess sociocultural competence (Ervin-Tripp 1972, Hymes 1974, Canale and Swain 1980). It focused on one important aspect of sociocultural competence: the ability to use the appropriate sociocultural rules of speaking by reacting in a culturally acceptable way in context and by choosing stylistically appropriate forms for that context. The authors chose to look at productive performance in sociocultural aspects of speaking, focusing on the speech act of “apology.” The research question that prompted this study was, “Can a rating scale be developed for assessing sociocultural competence?” Participants included 32 native Hebrew speakers, 20 of whom served as informants for apologies in English L2 and 12 as informants in Hebrew L1, and 12 Americans who served as informants in English L1. These participants were asked to role-play their responses in eight situations in which an apology was expected. Findings revealed that it was possible to identify culturally and stylistically inappropriate L2 utterances in apology situations. The authors felt, however, that the results provided at best a crude measure of sociocultural competence and that further work with the speech act of apology and with others was necessary.

Cook, H. M. (2001). Why can’t learners of JFP distinguish polite from impolite speech styles? In K. R. Rose, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 80-102). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

In this study, learners of Japanese FL with Ll English at the University of Hawai'i had to judge the appropriateness of speech styles in Japanese. Participants listened to recordings of simulated self-introductions from three applicants for a job as a bilingual clerk at a clothing store in Honolulu, and had to judge which applicant would be most suitable the position. This was deemed a realistic situation in Hawai'i where many stores rely heavily on from sales to Japanese tourists, and require their sales staff to be able to communicate to Japanese customers in Japanese, so the participants were familiar with the larger imaginary context of the task. The three monologues differed in the degree of appropriateness of style for the context of a job application: one applicant employed a clearly inappropriate speech style, inconsistently using polite forms and overusing plain forms, not hedging appropriately, and underusing fixed expressions and honorifics. This applicant also used emphatic final particle /yo /and contracted verb forms, all of which conveyed an impression of casual speech without the humility and formality required by Japanese cultural norms for interactions between lower- and higher-power interlocutors in a job interview situation. The other two applicants displayed a far more appropriate speech style and followed cultural norms in not asserting their qualifications for the position as directly and on-record as the first applicant.

To Cook’s and other Japanese instructors’ surprise and dismay, the vast majority of participants chose the applicant with the inappropriate speech style as most suitable for the position, citing her more direct approach to addressing the selection criteria. It appeared that participants were prioritizing referential content over stylistic form, and did not notice the rampant violations of sociopragmatic norms, which invariably led native and near-native instructors to reject the applicant outright as being far too rude. However, when later directed to pay attention to speech styles on re-playing the self-introductions, some participants were able to identify violations of pragmatic norms in the focal applicant’s speech, but apparently they had not been able to process referential content and pragmatic form simultaneously in the original test situation. They also interpreted contextualization cues differently: as Cook reported, many of her participants felt that the inappropriate applicants’ voice quality sounded enthusiastic, which is a positive factor in an American job application. However, Cook described her own impression from a native speaker point of view that the voice quality did not appear enthusiastic at all. This differential perception of voice quality pointed to crosscultural differences in reading contextualization cues and showed how far the participants truly are from being able to read these cues like target community members.

According to Roever (2009), Cook’s study illustrated an interesting and different approach to assessing pragmatic competence on a larger scale. While the setting was imaginary, the tasks were contextualized in a way that was familiar to learners, and they included rules of interaction and social relations that pervaded the target culture as a whole. This went beyond traditional, atomistic approaches of assessing ability to draw inferences from implicatures, recognized a situationally bound formula in multiple-choice tests, or produced a brief contextually appropriate utterance in a DCT. Cook’s approach was far more holistic and did not just assess knowledge of isolated sociopragmatic features, but actually went a long way towards gauging learners’ degree of overall socialization into target community norms. Cook claimed that test-takers could assess others’ presentations of self if they were given enough context information, and if the contexts were something that they were familiar with.

Douglas, D., & Hegelheimer, V. (2007). Assessing language using computer technology. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 27, 115-132.

In this article, the authors proposed to follow up on the most recent ARAL survey article on trends in computer-based second language assessment (Jamieson, 2005) and reviewed developments in the use of technology in the creation, delivery, and scoring of language tests. They discussed the promise and threats associated with computer-based language testing, including the language construct in relation to computer-based delivery and response technologies; computer-based authoring options; current developments; scoring, feedback, and reporting systems; and validation issues. In this review, it was commented that computer-assisted language tests (CALTs) had not fully lived up to their promise, but that research and development of CALTs continued in interesting and principled directions. The authors noted that there was a need for empirical research to resolve questions related to the joint role of technology and language in defining the construct to be measured, the effect of nonverbal input as part of the listening construct, and the effect of multimodal input of authenticity. In addition, the authors suggested that development of authoring systems that allow the implementation of innovative language test tasks was needed.

Enochs, K., & Yoshitake-Strain, S. (1999). Evaluating six measure of EFL learners’ pragmatic competence. JALT Journal, 21, 29-50.

This study examines the reliability, validity, and practicality of six measures of cross-cultural pragmatic competence. The multi-test framework used here was developed by Hudson, Detmer, and Brown at the University of Hawaii and consists of six tests which focus on the students' ability to appropriately produce the speech acts of requests, apologies, and refusals in situations involving varying degrees of relative power, social distance, and imposition. These measures have previously tested on native Japanese learners of English in an ESL context (Hudson et aI., 1992, 1995) and on learners of Japanese in a JSL context (Yamashita, 1996). The current study administered these tests to native Japanese learners in an EFL context. Four of the tests proved highly reliable and valid and two of the tests less so. Furthermore, the tests clearly differentiated those students who had a substantial amount of overseas experience from those who had not, a distinction not shown by the students' TOEFL scores.

Fukuya, Y. J., & Mart�nez-Flor, A. (2008). The interactive effects of pragmatic-eliciting tasks and pragmatic instruction. Foreign Language Annals, 41(3), 478-500.

The authors asserted that the effects of data-gathering methods on pragmatic data had been well documented, but not an inquiry into the interactive effects of assessment tasks with pragmatic instruction. This study investigated the interaction between two assessment tasks (e-mail and phone) and two types of pragmatic instruction (explicit and implicit). Participants included 49 Spanish learners of English (43 male and 6 female) (age range, 19-25) who were engaged in these two tasks as pre- and posttests. The explicit group received 12 hours of metapragmatic information on head acts and hedges in suggestions (6 2-hour sessions) while the implicit group was the recipient of recast and input enhancement activities. Both groups saw the same videotapes. The results showed that post-instructional improvement of the explicit condition was significantly more than that of the implicit condition in the phone task (where they left a message on a machine in 4 situations for the pre- and posttest), while improvements in these two conditions were on par in the e-mail task (in a lab, responding to four situations for pre- and posttesting respectively). This task-induced variability might have been caused by an interaction between the feature of the two types of knowledge (i.e., monitoring capability) and an access to the knowledge bases (i.e., the role of attention to appropriateness and accuracy) in the two tasks. In addition, the author claimed that instructional effects appeared to vary substantially depending on the demands required in the assessment task (i.e., the context that the tasks create). For that reason, it is asserted that the effect of task should not be underestimated.

Hudson, T., Detmer, E., & Brown, J. D. (1992). A framework for testing cross-cultural pragmatics. Honolulu, HI: Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawai‘i Press.

This volume presents a framework for developing methods which assess cross-cultural pragmatic ability. Although the framework has been designed for Japanese and American cross-cultural contrasts, it can serve as a generic approach which can be applied to other language contrasts. The focus is on the variables of social distance, relative power, and the degree of imposition within the speech acts of requests, refusals, and apologies. Evaluation of performance is based on recognition of the speech act, amount of speech, forms or formul� used, directness, formality, and politeness.

Ishihara, N. (2009). Teacher-based assessment for foreign language pragmatics. TESOL Quarterly, 43(3), 445-470. doi:10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00244.x

Despite the growing interest in teaching second language (L2) pragmatics, the issue of assessment of learners' pragmatic skills, particularly in the context of the classroom, seems to be less prominently discussed, even though the assessment is an integral part of the instruction. This qualitative case study aims to demonstrate an operationalization of a principle of pragmatics within the classroom context and demonstrate the effectiveness of teacher-based assessment of pragmatic competence grounded in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. In freshman English courses at a Japanese university, the teacher researcher implemented pragmatics-focused instruction throughout a semester based on empirically established information on speech acts in English. The instructor used collaboratively developed authentic assessment tools, such as reflective writing, rubrics, role-plays, and self/peer-assessment, and facilitated interaction and assessment in the learning process. These assessments were designed (a) to elicit learners' pragmalinguistic competence to use community norms, (b) to elicit their sociopragmatic awareness of the consequences of their own pragmatic language choice, and (c) to evaluate the extent of the match between learners' intention (illocution) and interlocutors' interpretation (perlocution). Examples of the assessments actually used in the classroom and learner language will be shown, and the instructor's assessment will be interpreted in the sociocultural framework (Vygotsky, 1978).

Ishihara, N. (2010). Assessing learners’ pragmatic ability in the classroom. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 209-227). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

The author contends that classroom-based assessment of learners’ pragmatic competence is an indispensable component of instruction, although it is no simple task. This chapter first discusses potential areas for pragmatic-focused assessment in the classroom regarding the evaluation focused aspects of learners’ pragmatic language use and awareness. The majority of the paper is devoted to the consideration as to how pragmatic-focused assessment may take shape as part of every-day language teaching practice. Preliminary sample instruments for holistic, analytic, primary-trait, and multi-trait assessment are proposed, as well as learner language and instructors’ assessment samples.

Liu, J. D. (2007). Developing a pragmatics test for Chinese EFL learners. Language Testing, 24(3), 391-415. doi:10.1177/0265532207077206

Pragmatic proficiency has been incorporated in the EFL teaching and testing syllabi in China, but the corresponding tests still focus on linguistic competence. The gap between the teaching and testing is mainly due to the lack of generally accepted measures of communicative abilities such as pragmatic competence. This study developed a multiple-choice discourse completion test (MDCT) to assess the pragmatic knowledge of Chinese EFL learners in relation to the speech act of apology. The development involved several stages. First, students in China were asked to identify situations in which apologies might be required and to report how likely the situations were to occur in their daily lives. Next, metapragmatic assessment involving both Chinese and North American students was used to ascertain the social variables which applied in each scenario. This was followed by studies to validate the scenarios and to develop multiple-choice options for each scenario. Finally, a pilot test was conducted with 105 Chinese university students. The results provided evidence for the reliability and validity of the test, and suggest that after further investigation it may be feasible to assess the pragmatic competence of Chinese learners by means of a MDCT in the future.

McNamara, T., & Roever, C. (2006). Language testing: The social dimension. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

The book reviews some findings and theoretical positions, presents new data and interpretations, and sketches interdisciplinary research programs. The authors survey the work that language testers have done to establish internal equity in assessment, and they describe the consequences of language testing in society as a whole and in the lives of individuals. Chapter 1 is a brief introduction that orients readers. Chapter 2 surveys the development of validity theory from the 1950s up until the present. It considers validity as understood within language testing and concludes by turning to the critical language testing movement. In chapter 3, the authors deal with the testing of social aspects of language competence. They note that the field still encounters difficulties in conceptualizing and operationalizing the measurement of the social dimension of language use, a problem that was recognized more or less from the outset of the testing of practical communicative skill. Most of this chapter is about measures of pragmatics. A section on assessing pragmatic aptitude proposes measures that could tap individuals’ ability to acquire pragmatic knowledge. Chapter 4 considers the historical background of investigations into bias and differential item functioning (DIF). The authors explain four methods of detecting when DIF constitutes bias by examining studies of language testing. Chapter 5 looks at how fairness reviews and codes of ethics link testers to stakeholders and to the wider language testing community. The authors question the extent to which such codes can be enforced. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with issues of test use by analyzing a broad range of historical and contemporary uses of language tests. In chapter 8, the authors suggest different proposals for future research on social factors in language testing, distinguishing impartially between those advancing psychometric and social theory approaches. The authors also emphasize the importance of academic preparation of language testers that should include both psychometric theory and critical perspectives on the role of tests in society.

Olshtain, E., & Blum-Kulka, S. (1985). Crosscultural pragmatics and the testing of communicative competence. Language Testing, 2(1), 16-30. doi:10.1177/026553228500200103

This article addresses the issue of testing for communicative competence in second language acquisition, focusing specifically on the learner's ability to use the appropriate sociocultural rules of speaking. The main notion underlying the arguments presented here is the one forwarded by Shohamy (1984) that the construction of quality language tests necessitates the integration of knowledge from the domain of language learning with knowledge from the domain of measurement theories. The authors discuss a whole range of data collection instruments which serve the sociolinguistic researcher, in view of their features of authenticity and crosscultural comparability. Such instruments are further discussed in light of their suitability for language testing purposes.

Roever, C. (2004). Difficulty and practicality in tests of interlanguage pragmatics. In D. Boxer & A. D. Cohen (Eds.), Studying speaking to inform second language learning (pp. 283-301). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

Assessment of second language pragmatic knowledge is a growing but complex area of second language assessment.� Two particularly central challenges for test design in interlanguage pragmatics are item difficulty and practicality of administration and scoring.� This chapter reviews finding on factors influencing item difficulty for different types of pragmatic items, and discusses ways of increasing practicality for productive item types.� It concludes with pedagogical recommendations and an agenda for future research.

Roever, C. (2005). Testing ESL Pragmatics: Development and validation of a web-based assessment battery. Berlin: Peter Lang.

Although second language learners' pragmatic competence (their ability to use language in context) is an essential part of their general communicative competence, it has not been a part of second language tests. This book helps fill this gap by describing the development and validation of a web-based test of ESL pragmalinguistics. The instrument assesses learners' knowledge of routine formulae, speech acts, and implicature in 36 multiple-choice and brief-response items. The test's quantitative and qualitative validation with 300 learners showed high reliability and provided strong evidence of the instrument's construct validity. Its web-based format makes it easy to administer and score. The book ends with a discussion of future research directions in assessing second language pragmatics.

Roever, C. (2006). Validation of a web-based test of ESL pragmalinguistics. Language Testing, 23(2),229-256. doi:10.1191/0265532206lt329oa

Despite increasing interest in interlanguage pragmatics research, research on assessment of this crucial area of second language competence still lags behind assessment of other aspects of learners’ developing second language (L2) competence. This study describes the development and validation of a 36-item web-based test of ESL pragmalinguistics, measuring learners’ offline knowledge of implicatures and routines with multiple-choice questions, and their knowledge of speech acts with discourse completion tests. The test was delivered online to 267 ESL and EFL learners, ranging in proficiency from beginner to advanced. Evidence for construct validity was collected through correlational analyses and comparisons between groups. The effect of browser familiarity was found to be negligible, and learners generally performed as previous research would suggest: their knowledge of speech acts increased with proficiency, as did their knowledge of implicature. Their knowledge of routines, however, was strongly dependent on L2 exposure. Correlations between the sections and factor analysis confirmed that the routines, implicatures, and speech act sections are related but that each has some unique variance. The test was sufficiently reliable and practical, taking an hour to administer and little time to score. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Roever, C. (2008). Rater, item and candidate effects in discourse completion tests: A FACETS approach. In E. Alc�n Soler & A. Mart�nez-Flor (Eds.), Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching and testing (pp. 249-266). Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

In this study, the author attempted to improve rater training by using Many Facet Rasch Measurement (MFRM) in the FACETS program to understand the relationship between test-taker ability, rater judgments, and item difficulty on discourse completion tasks (DCTs). Roever used MFRM to reanalyze data from his 2005 study, which was based on DCT results and focused on learners’ pragmalinguistic competence. The MFRM looked at both harshness and leniency in raters, and although it has been usually to oral language assessment, the author applied it to written DCTs. More specifically, the author looked at the item characteristics of the 12 DCT items he used on an EFL test (refusals, requests, and apologies). He wanted to know if some speech acts were more difficult than others, if the test differentiated better between test takers of different ability levels, and the interactions among raters, test takers, and items. Results indicated that the test was reliable overall. In addition, it showed consistency across raters, but the author pointed out the ratings were simply whether the response fit the situation, without requesting fine-tuning of ratings. Rover concluded that using DCTs with rejoinders was able to indicate knowledge of pragmalinguistic strategies. While the results were positive, the author gave the caveat that the findings could not be generalized to actual conversation.

Roever, C. (2009). Assessing language use in social context: A new approach to testing second language pragmatics. In Wu, J., et al. (Eds.), 2009 LTTC International Conference on English Language Teaching and Testing. A new look at language teaching and testing: English as subject and vehicle (pp. 87-97). Taipei, Taiwan: Language Teaching and Testing Center.

Roever started by underlining the importance of context in tests of second language pragmatics. He noted that context is mostly understood along the lines of Brown & Levinson’s (1987) context factors of power, social distance, and imposition, which influence politeness in speech acts. But he asserted that context goes beyond these three factors, just as pragmatics goes beyond speech acts. He pointed out that testing learners’ knowledge of implicature and recognition of routine formulae requires a different conceptualization of context but remains in the somewhat anachronistic tradition of atomizing language use. This paper suggested a different way of thinking about testing of L2 pragmatics by focusing on language use in interaction, and thereby assessing whether learners were able to convey presentations of self that were comprehensible to target community members. At the same time, the author asserted that learners need to be able to interpret contextualization cues to understand the interlocutor’s social positioning. The goal of this study was the assessment of language use as an indicator of learners’ degree of successful socialization. This also required a different view of context as setting the scene for the task itself but also being constantly shaped and reshaped during interactive tasks. Roever called attention to the study by Haruko Cook (2001) which focused on metapragmatic assessment of sociopragmatic appropriateness through level of politeness.

Ross, S., & Kasper, G. (Eds.). (in press). Assessing second language pragmatics. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Sasaki, M. (1998). Investigating EFL students' production of speech acts: A comparison of production questionnaires and role plays. Journal of Pragmatics, 30(4), 457-484. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00013-7

The present study compares two popular measures of second language pragmatic competence: production questionnaires and role plays. Twelve Japanese university students representing three different English proficiency levels responded to both measures for the same four request and four refusal situations. Response length, range and content of the expressions, and native speaker evaluations of these responses were analyzed.

The production questionnaire and role play elicited somewhat different production samples from the students. Role plays induced longer responses, and a larger number and greater variety of strategies/formulas, than production questionnaires. These differences appear to be caused by the interactive nature of role plays. Students often switched strategies for the same situations across different methods. Such intra-participant variations could have been missed if different participants had responded to different methods as in many previous studies. In addition, the correlation between the appropriateness scores of the two methods was not high enough to support the claim that they measured exactly the same trait. The low correlation probably resulted not only because the two methods produced different responses, but also because the role play responses provided additional audio-visual information, which might have affected the raters' evaluations. These findings suggest that production questionnaire scores cannot be simply substituted for role play scores.

Soler, E. A. (2008).� Learning how to request in an instructed language learning context. Berlin: Peter Lang.

Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP) is a field of growing interest. Focussing on the speech act of requesting, the volume provides information about opportunities for pragmatic learning and how pragmatics can be integrated into instructional foreign language learning contexts. In addition, the research reported here provides methodological insights for those interested in investigating ILP from a second language acquisition perspective. The reader will also encounter some research issues worth examining in relation to pragmatic language learning. Topics include the use of assessment instruments in measuring learners' perception and production of different pragmatic issues, the long-term effects of instruction, and the effectiveness of different teaching approaches.

Soler, E. A., & Mart�nez-Flor, A. (Eds.). (2008). Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching, and testing. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

This book focuses on investigating pragmatic learning, teaching and testing in foreign language contexts. The volume brings together research that investigates these three areas in different formal language learning settings. The number and variety of languages involved both as the first language (e.g. English, Finnish, Iranian, Spanish, Japanese) as well as the target foreign language (e.g. English, French, German, Indonesian, Korean, Spanish) makes the volume especially attractive for language educators in different sociocultural foreign language contexts. Additionally, the different approaches adopted by the researchers participating in this volume, such as information processing, sociocultural, language socialization, computer-mediated or conversation analysis should be of interest to graduate students and researchers working in the area of second language acquisition.

Taguchi, N. (2008). Pragmatic comprehension in Japanese as a foreign language. The Modern Language Journal, 92(4), 558-576.

This study developed an instrument that aimed to measure pragmatic comprehension in Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). It examined the ability to comprehend implied meaning encoded in conventional and nonconventional features and the effect of proficiency on comprehension. Participants included 63 college students of Japanese at two proficiency levels: elementary (EJ) and intermediate (IJ). They completed a listening test measuring their ability to comprehend three types of implied meaning: indirect refusals, conventional indirect opinions, and nonconventional indirect opinions. Comprehension was analyzed for accuracy (scores on a multiple-choice measure) and comprehension speed (average time taken to answer items correctly). There was a significant effect of item type on accuracy but not on comprehension speed. A proficiency effect was observed on accuracy but not on comprehension speed. In addition, analyses of error data and introspective verbal reports revealed the nature of comprehension difficulty among JFL learners. Findings of this study also revealed a significant effect of proficiency on the accuracy of comprehension for all three types of implied meaning. Regardless of the degree of conventionality, or of the difficulty levels across item types, learners with higher proficiency were always more accurate in comprehending implied meaning than lower proficiency learners were. For the IJ group, there was statistical evidence that indirect refusals were the easiest and fastest to comprehend. Comprehension of conventional indirect opinions was less accurate than that of nonconventional indirect opinions; however, comprehension speed was faster for the conventional opinions than for the nonconventional opinions. These findings suggested that although some linguistic conventions encoded in the items were difficult for the IJ learners to access, when they understood the conventions they were able to derive meanings quickly by relying on the conventions. Nonconventional items, by contrast, did not reveal such a facilitative effect in comprehension speed. The EJ group demonstrated the same patterns as the IJ group, except that the conventional and nonconventional indirect opinions were equally difficult for them (both item types produced low accuracy scores). The author asserted that it might have been due to their lower proficiency.

Takimoto, M. (2009). Exploring the effects of input-based treatment and test on the development of learners’ pragmatic proficiency. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(5), 1029-1046. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2008.12.001

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of three types of input-based instruction: comprehension-based instruction (proactive explicit information + structured input task), structured input instruction (structured input task), and consciousness-raising instruction (consciousness-raising task). The present study also investigates how the effectiveness of these different types of input-based instruction varies according to the method of assessment of learners’ pragmatic proficiency. Treatment group performance was compared to that of a control group on pre-, post-, and follow-up tests, which took the form of a planned discourse completion test, a planned role-play test, an unplanned listening judgment test, and a planned acceptability judgment test. The results of the data analysis indicate that the three treatment groups performed significantly better than the control group, but that the comprehension-based instruction group did not maintain the positive effects of the treatment between the post-test and follow-up test in the listening test. The results of the data analysis also reveal a significant main effect for Test and the three types of input-based instruction varies according to the method of testing.

Walters, F. S. (2009). A conversation analysis-informed text of L2 aural pragmatic comprehension. TESOL Quarterly, 43(1), 29-54.

The author pointed out that speech act theory-based, L2 pragmatics testing raised test-validation issues owing to a lack of correspondence with empirical conversational data. He took the position that conversation analysis (CA) provided a more that could serve as an accurate and empirically-valid basis for assessing pragmatics. The article reported on efforts to develop an effective test for pragmatic competence. The author started with the premise that current L2 pragmatics assessment testing did not necessarily relate adequately to empirical conversational data, where it was crucial to capture the complexity of intentions and reception in the moment-by-moment negotiation of talk. His study explored this proposal by administering a pilot CA-informed test of listening comprehension to ESL learners and to a control group of native speakers of English. The listening task involved participants' responding to multiple-choice items after listening to audio-taped conversational sequences derived from the CA literature. Walters presented statistical analyses of pilot-test responses, correlations of the test score with participant demographic variables, and CA-informed, qualitative analyses of nonnative and native-speaker responses with reference to pragmatic norms for the English speech community. On the basis of his findings, he concluded that his CA-based aural-comprehension measure possessed some utility in assessing pragmatics.

Yamashita, S. (2008). Investigating interlanguage pragmatic ability: What are we testing? In E. Alc�n Soler & A. Mart�nez-Flor (Eds.), Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching and testing (pp. 201-223). Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

The article discussed the possible components for testing both the comprehension and production of interlanguage pragmatics. The author reviewed the literature in interlanguage pragmatics and testing and discussed issues related to learners’ pragmatic ability. She asserted that it has not been an easy task to obtain a comprehensive picture of what has been an appropriate measure of interlanguage pragmatics. In addition, she reviewed three components of a test of interlanguage pragmatics: speech acts, conversational implicatures, and routines. Then five types of tests were briefly described: discourse completion tests (DCTs), MC tests, role-plays, picture prompts, and video prompts. Furthermore, the article described instruments or methods of testing interlanguage pragmatic ability. It also presented future perspectives in testing interlanguage pragmatic ability. To conclude, the author pointed out the need to assess more aspects of pragmatics, rather than just speech acts.

Yamashita, S. O. (1996). Six measures of JSL pragmatics. Technical Report #14. Honolulu, HI: Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Investigated differences among test formats for measuring the cross-cultural pragmatic competence of English-speaking learners of Japanese as a second language (N=34) and as a foreign language (N=13). The focus, as in Hudson and Brown’s work, was on control over degree of imposition, power, and distance in requests, apologies and refusals.

I. Self-assessment of performance on situations, with the description given in English and the respondents asked to think about what they would say in Japanese in each situation and rate themselves on a five-point scale.

II. Listening lab production test: participants listened to brief tape-recorded descriptions and then tape-recorded their responses. The responses were rated by three natives on scales for (a) the appropriateness of the speech act for the given situation, (b) the use of formulaic expressions (typical speech, gambits), (c) the appropriateness of the amount of speech and/or information for the given situation, and the appropriateness of (d) the level of formality, (e) degree of directness, and (f) level of politeness for the given situation.

III. Open discourse completion test: the respondents wrote out what they thought they would say in a given situation. These responses were also rated by three natives with the six categories used for the oral production test.

IV. Video-taped roleplays: specific descriptions about who, when, where, and with whom were listed under the scenario label. Also, the sequence of the contents of the scenario was listed in numerical fashion so the participants would know what they were to say next. Some key words were listed in Japanese. Role-plays were conducted with a native speaker of Japanese and 2-3 minutes of preparation time were given. Three native raters rated each role-play response on a five-point scale from very unsatisfactory to completely appropriate.

V. Self-assessment of the video-taped roleplay: participants rated their own roleplay videotape immediately upon finishing the roleplays to rate the appropriateness of each situation on the same five-point scale.

VI. Multiple-choice discourse completion test: the respondents selected their answer from three possible responses for each situation. This measure was administered last so as not to give respondents ideas for how to answer the other subtests. (The subtest was not included in the book.)

Alc�n, E., & Safont, M. P. (2008). Pragmatic awareness in second language acquisition. In J. Cenoz & N. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education (Vol. 6, pp. 193�204). New York: Springer.

Pragmatic awareness is the conscious, reflective, explicit knowledge about pragmatics. It thus involves knowledge of those rules and conventions underlying appropriate language use in particular communicative situations and on the part of members of specific speech communities. Following an educational perspective, we deal with pragmatic awareness in relation to the construct of communicative competence, and we consider research on the role of awareness in pragmatic learning. First, pragmatic competence is introduced as part of the overall framework of communication. Second, we raise the need to focus on pragmatics including pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic awareness. Third, a review on research dealing with learners' pragmatic awareness is provided. Finally, some future directions deriving from the previous subsections are briefly mentioned.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2006). On the role of formulas in the acquisition of L2 pragmatics. In K. Bardovi-Harlig, C. F�lix-Brasdefer, & A. S. Omar (Eds.), Pragmatics & language learning (Vol. 11, pp. 1-28). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawai'i.

Bardovi-Harlig asserts that the role of formulas and the learning of formulaic sequences have only just begun to be described through empirical research with adults in L2 pragmatics. She notes that there are three primary uses of the term, to describe a feature of the acquisition process, to describe the end point or target, and to describe components of a speech act or semantic formulas, which she would agree is a somewhat unfortunate term since "semantic formulas need not be formulaic, in either the acquisitional or target sense, and indeed are often not" (p. 4). The article also considers the evidence from the acquisitional approach. The author contends that the stages at which developmental formulas play the greatest role is in the earliest stages of acquisition. It is also considered the social formulas as target and as input.

Belz, J. A. (2007). The role of computer mediation in the instruction and development of L2 pragmatic competence. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 27, 45-75.

This article provides a selective review of the role of computer mediation in the instruction and development of L2 or interlanguage pragmatic competence within foreign and second language education. She points out that both researchers and practitioners have noted consistently that several aspects of the teaching and tutored learning of L2 pragmatics have been reported as problematic and/or underexplored in the published knowledge base to date: 1) the availability and authenticity of instructional materials, 2) the provision of opportunities for the performance and practice of L2 pragmatic competence in meaningful interactions, 3) the relative lack of developmental data documenting the precise (and varied) pathways of L2 pragmatic competence over time, and 4) the efficacy of particular pedagogical interventions in classroom-based L2 pragmatics instruction. The role of computer mediation and computer-mediated communication in each of these underexplored areas is examined with an emphasis on the teaching and learning of L2 pragmatics in Internet-mediated partnerships and on the use of (learner) corpora in L2 pragmatics instruction and research. The author notes that studies of the use of L2 learner corpora in online learning are not truly longitudinal and that this would be beneficial. The author makes a case of telecollaboration to trace the history of native speakers and non-native speakers’ interactions (accompanied by participant observation, field notes, bio surveys, sociolinguistic interviews), to do a microgenetic analysis of learner behavior. She claims that the “value of the microgenetic analysis lies in the ability to closely detail varying individual pathways of development in association with particular aspects of the learners' history of participation” (p. 59). Another study by Kinginger and Belz (2005) with one 19-year-old learner of German in a similar telecollaborative partnership demonstrated how gaps in her pragmalinguistic and grammatical knowledge impeded the overall accuracy of her sociopragmatic performance despite multiple episodes of peer assistance. The author also cites Belz and Vyatkina (2005) as a unique study in that it took 14 learners of German and demonstrated over a 9-week telecollaborative partnership with German speakers in computer-mediated interaction (email and chat) that it was possible to heighten dramatically (to 90% accuracy from less than 25% the correct use of four German modal particles (ja, mal, doch, and denn). She claims it is one of the only reports of a developmental pedagogical intervention for L2 pragmatics in which teaching materials were based on learners’ own previous productions and sensitive to their emerging performance profiles. So the learners' performance was situated both quantitatively and qualitatively within a rich documented ecology of use (e.g., classroom instruction, students’ learning histories, reactions to the interventions, journal reflections, and keypals’ interactions). She admits the process was labor-intensive, calling for daily data input. Furthermore, there was no follow-up after the course to see the long-term impact.

Dufon, M. A. (2008). Language socialization theory and the acquisition of pragmatics in the foreign language classroom. In E. Alc�n Soler & A. Mart�nez-Flor (Eds.), Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching and testing (pp. 25-44). Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

Dufon cited House' 2003 of English in international business and how the norms of interaction are more fluid when it is EFL than when there are native speakers � that grounds for success are different. The author pointed out that in English, as a lingua franca, native-speaker norms should not be the standard. On p. 38 she noted that we must ask what cultural group the given learners are being socialized into. For example, if the purpose is to use it as a lingua franca in international discourse, then inner circle native speaker norms would not necessarily be appropriate. She cited an MA study by a student of hers (Narzieva, 2005) where it was found that context-enriched instruction (video clips and role-plays with authentic photos) was more effective than context-reduced instruction (linguistic forms, semantic formulas and strategies, and verbal explanations regarding contextual variables for the realization of apologies and role-plays with line drawings in support). She noted that students may socialize teachers to modify their pedagogical practices.

F�lix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2006). Teaching the negotiation of multi-turn speech acts: Using conversation-analytic tools to teach pragmatics in the FL classroom. In K. Bardovi-Harlig, C. F�lix-Brasdefer, & A. S. Omar (Eds.), Pragmatics & language learning (Vol. 11pp. 167-197). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawai'i.

The study started with the premise that teaching materials and strategies used to improve learners' pragmatic competence in the classroom has not often addressed pedagogical considerations for negotiation of speech acts from a conversation-analytic perspective. The chapter described analytic tools from CA and showed how they could be applied to teaching the negotiation of speech acts across multiple turns, then offered pedagogical recommendations at the level of discourse, and presented a model for teaching the negotiation of refusals in Spanish. The author took an interaction involving an invitation and refusal with its various sequences and multiple turns, and demonstrated how the teacher could lead an analysis of such discourse to help learners unpack and understand how it worked. It entailed looking at the boundaries of the sequences, characterizing the actions in each sequence, describing the packing and delivery of the actions, organizing the turns, and how the actions were accomplished as well as the construction of roles and identities.

House, J. (2003). Teaching and learning pragmatic fluency in a foreign language: The case of English as a lingua franca. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 133-159). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

House called attention to the need to teach the pragmatics of English as a lingua franca (ELF), noting the benefits of contrastive studies, and recognizing the likelihood of negative transfer into the target language. She noted that ELF talk has been largely ignored in the research literature. She ended with suggestions for the classroom: 1) teaching a broad ELF, not based just on American, British, or Canadian norms; 2) re-thinking norms to include bilingual or multilingual speakers and to see ELF as a hybrid variety of English where successful NNS-NNS communication may not be based on native norms; 3) successful EFL communication can entail drawing on other languages that the speakers know through code-switching or borrowing; 4) speakers need to stay true to their own personalities and individual discourse styles so pragmatics instruction must be sensitive to this and work with learners on practical communicative-linguistic skill such as the following: teaching gambits, discourse strategies, and phase-specific speech acts; ability to initiate topics and change them using appropriate routines; ability to "carry weight" in conversations; ability to show appropriate uptaking, and replying/responding behavior (anticipation of end of turns via latching and overlapping); appropriate rate of speech, types of filled and unfilled pauses, frequency and function of repairs); 5) need to practice relevant routines with explicit focus on the forms and functions of these routines; 6) engage the learners in collaborative talk because it encourages learners to notice the gaps; 7) despite ability to manage in ELF interactions without pragmatic competence, House advocated instruction in interactional phenomena so learners are better at turn taking, lubricating and modifying discourse with gambits and discourse strategies, being polite -- increasing their metapragmatic awareness; 8) having the teachers and learners in such courses be both researchers and subjects at the same time.

Hsin, C.-L. & Wu, W.-S. (2007). Pragmatics and cultures � a comparison between Chinese and English. In Yiu-nam Leung et al. (Eds.), Selected papers from the 16th International Symposium and Book Fair on English Teaching (pp. 114-118). Taipei, Taiwan: English Teachers' Association�Republic of China.

This paper made the case that when we interpret people’s spoken discourse, pragmatic competence and language-use (linguistic competence) should be both taken into account because they are the key elements to avoid ambiguity and make our inter-cultural conversations more effective in a pragmatic way. By reviewing some examples of cultural differences between Mandarin Chinese and English, this paper aimed to provide pragmatic differences existed between two languages and cultures. Understanding the pragmatic and cultural differences between the two languages could enhance second language learners’ pragmatic competence for an effective oral communication. This paper also indicated the importance of bringing pragmatic competence into a foreign/second language classroom because learners need pragmatic knowledge to communicate successfully with native speakers of the target language.

Ishihara, N., (2003). Identity and pragmatic performance of second language learners. Paper Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics.

Few studies in interlanguage pragmatics have investigated the important link between L2 speaker’s cultural identity and pragmatic performance.� Current methodologies compare L2 speakers’ performance with L1 speaker baseline data serving as a model for L2 learners.� An underlying assumption of these studies is that native speakers provide the sole communication model for nonnative speakers, whose linguistic performance is viewed as deficient.� L2 speakers are often expected to adopt and conform to the local pragmatic practices and assimilate into the target culture.� However, awareness of pragmatic norms is acquired via socialization into L1 culture norms and L2 speakers’ pragmatic choice often remains primarily first-culture based even for those with high L2 proficiency (Hinkel, 2001).� This is complicated by the fact that such cultural identities can shift across time and space depending on the social interaction in which the speaker is situated (Norton, 1995, 2000).�

This interpretive study investigates the role of learner identity on the pragmatic use of the target language.� Seven advanced learners of Japanese first performed speech acts of requesting, refusing, and responding to compliments through speech elicitation tasks (oral discourse completion and role play tasks) both in their L2 Japanese and L1 English.� Subsequent individual retrospective interviews and e-mail correspondence identified specific instances in which the participants emulated perceived target language norms.� Furthermore, evidence of their resistance to such norms were scrutinized in order to explore to what extent the participants resisted emulating native speakers of the target language, not because of linguistic deficiency but due to a desire to maintain their sense of self.� The participants’ convergence with or divergence from the norms seemed to have been in flux, and often depended on the complex negotiation between the pressure and expectations from the target speech community on one hand and the learners’ subjectivity on the other.� In deciding whether to accommodate to or resist L2 pragmatic norms, the participants seemed to be constantly exercising agency, their capacity to operate with volition and power to make their own pragmatic choices.� Implications of the study call for reconsideration and sensitivity toward issues of learner agency among second/foreign language educators.� Also, the study poses a question as to the ways in which unique aspects of the language and culture (such as culturally specific pragmatic routines in speech act realizations) can be taught and evaluated in formal instruction so that learners can arrive at an emic understanding of the target language and culture.�

Kasper, G. (2001). Four perspectives on L2 pragmatic development. Applied Linguistics, 22(4), 502-530.

The paper dealt with four approaches to pragmatic development in a second language: pragmatics and grammar (the relationship between control over grammatical features and pragmatic performance), cognitive processing perspectives (the issue of noticing and of the value of explicit instruction in pragmatics -- with explicitness advantageous according to research), sociocognitive theory (interactionist, Vygotskian, developmental), language socialization perspective on pragmatic development (both implicit and explicit socialization in the classroom).

Mart�nez-Flor, A., & Us�-Juan, E. (2006). A comprehensive pedagogical framework to develop pragmatics in the foreign language classroom: The 6Rs approach. Applied Language Learning, 16(2), 39-64.

The authors made the point that since a main goal for ESL/EFL at the university level has been to prepare learners for successful communication, language teaching needs to focus not only on linguistic or strategic aspects of the target language, but also on the development of the learner’s pragmatic competence (i.e., the ability to employ target-language linguistic resources in an appropriate way for a particular context). In an attempt to contribute to the research of teaching pragmatics in the foreign language setting, that is, with authentic language use outside the classroom, the paper aimed to present a comprehensive pedagogical framework, called the 6Rs Approach (researching, reflecting, receiving, reasoning, rehearsing, and revising). This framework aimed at providing EFL lectures with a pedagogical tool that could help them incorporate pragmatics in their teaching practice to allow learners’ full communicative success. Thus, by integrating such an approach in their teaching, learners may be provided with the three necessary conditions for the acquisition of their pragmatic ability in the target language (i.e., exposure to authentic input, opportunities for practice, and feedback from both their peers and the lecture). The authors focused on the two directive speech acts of requests and suggestions which intrinsically could threaten the hearer’s face and, therefore, they asserted that learners need some cultural and linguistic expertise to perform them in an appropriate way for a successful communication.

Akikawa, K., & Ishihara, N. (2010). Requesting a letter of recommendation: Teaching students to write e-mail requests. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 47-66). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Baleghizadeh, S. (2007). Speech acts in English language teaching.Iranian Journal of Language Studies (IJLS), 1(2), 143-154.

This paper is an attempt to investigate the role of speech acts in second/foreign language teaching. It first starts with an analysis of the term grammatical competence and its comparison with the more comprehensive term communicative competence. It then deals with the components of the communicative competence emphasizing the role of speech acts in our daily use of language. Next, it looks into various techniques used in teaching speech acts. Finally, the term speech act set is introduced and its application in developing language teaching materials is examined.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1996). Pragmatics and language teaching: Bringing pragmatics and pedagogy together. In L. F. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and Language Learning, (Vol. 7, pp. 21-39). University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Division of English as an International Language.

Discussion of the role of pragmatics research in language teaching looks at the role such research should play in the language classroom, and the role of researcher, teacher, and teacher educator in making that connection. It is noted that pragmatics research has discovered a number of differences in the ways in which first- and second-language learners acquire the target language: differences in speech acts used, in forms of speech acts, in choice of semantic formulas, and in the content of semantic formulas. Research has also revealed the importance of input and its sources, and cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics research has begun to help in development of pedagogically appropriate materials. It is argued that a speech act framework is useful for translating pragmatics research into classroom practice that helps learners attend to interactions and reactions and consider the effects of one choice of words over another. Learner-centered teaching methods are viewed as useful in this effort. Suggestions are offered on the selection of speech acts on which to focus in the second language classroom and techniques for presenting new speech act information, drawing on results of research. Contains 44 references.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2001). Evaluating the empirical evidence: Grounds for instruction in pragmatics? In: K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 13-32). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The author arrived at the conclusion that untutored learners diverge from the others in pragmatic production and perception (although she noted there are fewer of these studies), suggesting that instruction may be beneficial. The question was what to teach and how. Empirical studies are needed to determine this. She noted the ways that native speakers and non-native speakers may differ in speech act performance: the choice of speech act (giving the example from Cohen & Olshtain, 1993, of a student not apologizing but attacking), semantic formulas, content, and form (e.g., NSs use downgraders). Bardovi-Harlig gave as factors deterring L2 pragmatic competence the following: input, the influence of instruction, proficiency, length of exposure, and transfer.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., F�lix-Brasdefer, C., & Omar, A. S. (Eds.). (2006). Pragmatics and Language Learning, (Vol. 11).Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i, National Foreign Language Resource Center.

This volume features cutting-edge research on L2 pragmatics from a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches. It offers fresh perspectives on standard topics such as the use and learning of speech acts and the pragmatic meanings of linguistic resources, and the effect of planned intervention on pragmatic development in language instruction. The chapters also document researchers' increasing attention to different forms of computer-mediated communication as environments for using and developing L2 pragmatic competence and of conversation analysis as an approach to different aspects of interaction in a variety of settings. PRAGMATICS & LANGUAGE LEARNING, a refereed series sponsored by the National Foreign Language Resource Center at the University of Hawai`i, publishes selected papers from the biannual International Pragmatics & Language Learning Conference under the editorship of the conference hosts and the series editor, Gabriele Kasper.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. (1993). Learning the rules of academic talk: A longitudinal study of pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15(3), 279-304. doi:10.1017/S0272263100012122.

This paper is a longitudinal study of the acquisition of pragmatic competence. Advanced adult nonnative speakers of English were taped in advising sessions over the course of a semester. Two speech acts, suggestions and rejections, were analyzed according to their frequency, form, and successfulness and compared with similar data gathered for native speakers. The nonnative speakers showed change toward the native speaker norms in their ability to employ appropriate speech acts, moving toward using more suggestions and fewer rejections, and became more successful negotiators. However, they changed less in their ability to employ appropriate forms of the speech acts, continuing to use fewer mitigators than the native speakers. Furthermore, unlike native speakers, they also used aggravators. We claim that these results may be explained by the availability of input: Learners receive positive and negative feedback from the advisor regarding the desirability and outcome of particular speech acts, but they do not receive such feedback regarding the appropriateness of the forms of such speech acts.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., Hartford, B. A. S., Mahan-Taylor, R., Morgan, M. J., & Reynolds, D. W. (1991). Developing pragmatic awareness: Closing the conversation. ELT Journal, 45(1), 4-15.doi:10.1093/elt/45.1.4

Many commercially available English-language materials do not provide natural, or even pragmatically appropriate, conversational models for learners. This paper argues for increasing the role of pragmastics in English-language instruction. Classroom teachers can integrate pragmatics into the language curriculum by drawing on natural conversations, students' observations, and incomplete dialogues in textbooks. The paper provides guide-lines for pragmatically-centred lessons, as well as examples of specific activities, using closings in American English to illustrate these examples.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Mahan-Taylor, R. (Eds.). Teaching pragmatics. Washington, DC: US State Department. Retrieved from http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/teaching-pragmatics

Teaching Pragmatics explores the teaching of pragmatics through lessons and activities created by teachers of English as a second and foreign language.

Barraja-Rohan, A.-M. (1999). Teaching conversation for intercultural competence. In J. lo Bianco, A. J. Liddicoat, & C. Crozet (Eds.), Striving for the third place: Intercultural competence through language education. Melbourne: Language Australia, NLLIA.

The aim of this paper is to show how conversational English and Socioculutrual norms can be taught in an ESL/EFL context and have been taught successfully in adult ESL classes by utilising the findings of Conversational Analysis as well as aspects of pragmatics.� In so doing, a new methodology to teach conversation has emerged which has been the result of three years of classroom-based research (for more detail, see Barraja-Rohan and Pritchard 1995a, 1995b).� This new methodology has been encapsulated in a coursebook, Beyond Talk, (Barraja-Rohand and Pritchard 1997), which is designed for adult learners at lower intermediate to upper intermediate levels.

This paper will be structured as follows.� First, I will give a diffenition of conversation and outline the reasons why we need to teach it.� Second, I will give a rationale for the creation of the coursebook by explaining how some difficulties in teaching conversation can be dealt with and by looking at what is involved in conversation.� Lastly, I will explore the teaching methodology and what needs to be taught.

Billmyer, K. (1990). "I really like your lifestyle": ESL learners learning how to compliment. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 6(2), 31-48. [Available online]

A study investigated the effect of classroom instruction in giving compliments on actual encounters between native and non-native speakers of English. Production of compliments and replies to compliments were compared in two nine-member groups of Japanese learners of English as a Second Language, one group receiving six hours of formal instruction in the rules of complimenting in American English and the other given no instruction on this topic. Interaction in conversation with native English-speakers studying Japanese was observed. Several measures of learner performance of compliments were used, including: frequency of occurrence of norm-appropriate compliments; level of spontaneity (speaker-initiated, task-related spontaneous, and addressee-induced); level of appropriateness; well-informedness of utterance; and adjectival repertoire. Replies to compliments were evaluated by reply type and its effect on the interaction, and length of reply. On five of seven measures, subjects in the tutored group showed complimenting behavior more closely approximating native speaker norms than subjects in the untutored group, supporting the idea that formal classroom instruction in social rules of language can assist learners in communicating appropriately and meaningfully with native speakers. A 44-item bibliography is included.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1982). Learning to say what you mean in a second language: A study of the speech act performance of learners of Hebrew as a second language. Applied Linguistics, 3(1), 29-59. doi:10.1093/applin/III.1.29

Adult native speakers of Hebrew, English-speaking learners of Hebrew, and an additional group of native English speakers were administered a discourse-completion test. Results indicate that to some extent speech-act realization in interlanguage benefits from the activation of a non language-specific pragmatic competence. Conformity to the conventions of use in the native or target language was not necessarily in evidence, and subjects often realized a speech act in the target language by a strategy that differed from both conventions. Learners were shown to violate social norms in the target language by deviating from the preferred speech acts of native speakers, often by choosing less direct formulations. An analysis of deviations reveals that pragmatic competence and the level of linguistic competence interact with second language acquisition processes in determining speech-act realization in the interlanguage. This research supports the position that comparable speech act strategies across languages differ on several dimensions, such as speech act procedure, linguistic realization, potential pragmatic force, and social appropriateness rules. As a result, second language learners often fail to realize their communicative act in the target language both in terms of social appropriateness and pragmatic effectiveness.

Borkin, A., & Reinhart, S. M. (1978). Excuse me and I'm Sorry. TESOL Quarterly, 12(1), 57-69.

In this paper we examine two different but often functionally similar phrases, excuse me and I’m sorry.� We discuss the use and effect of these phrases in particular social situations, with reference to two basic definitions:� (1) a definition of excuse me as a formula to remedy a past or immediately forthcoming breach of etiquette or other minor offense on the part of the speaker, and (2) a definition of I’m sorry as an expression of dismay or regret at an unpleasantness suffered by the speaker and/or the addressee.� In the light of these definitions, we examine reasons for the inappropriateness of some uses of excuse me and I’m sorry on the part of non-native speakers of English, and we point out the importance of cultural knowledge for the accurate interpretation of generalizations about these formulas.� We review how excuse me and I’m sorry are treated in current ESL texts, and describe a teaching unit that is compatible with the assumptions and assertations of this paper.� Finally, we argue that, in the current enthusiasm for developing communicative competence, the use of basic linguistic research in preparing materials for teachers and students should not be ignored.

Bornmann, G. (2001). “Where you go?”: Teaching Thai students about speech acts. Thai TESOL Bulletin, 14(2), 16-28.

As the form and significance of speech acts vary across cultures, language teachers must do more than simply supply their students with grammar and vocabulary.� Speech acts such as greetings, invitations, complaints, and compliments can cause difficulty for Thai learners of English due to differing politeness strategies and cultural norms.� Thai learners sometimes use phrases and strategies from Thai when speaking English (e.g., “Where you go?”).� Such interference can lead to misunderstandings or “pragmatic failure”.

Bouton, K., Curry, K., & Bouton, L. (2010). Moving beyond “in my opinion”: Teaching the complexities of expressing opinion. In D. H. Tatsuki and N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 105-123). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Bouton, L. F. (1990). The effective use of implicature in English: Why and how it should be taught in the ESL classroom. In L. F. Bouton & Y. Kachru (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning, (Vol 1, pp. 43-51). University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Division of English as an International Language.

Bouton, L. F. (1994). Conversational implicature in the second language: Learned slowly when not deliberately taught. Journal of Pragmatics, 22(2), 157-67. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(94)90065-5

The importance of conversational implicature (Grice, 1975) in expressing a message indirectly is well established. Yet Keenan (1976) has shown that members of different cultures derive different implicatures from the same utterance in essentially the same context, and Bouton (1988) found that even reasonably proficient nonnative speakers (NNS) of English (average TOEFL score = 550) interpret implicatures differently from American native speakers (NS) 21% of the time. Yet relatively few examples of implicature appear in ESL textbooks and few of those are dealt with directly (Bouton, 1990). These facts, then, suggest that little attempt is made in the ESL/EFL classroom to make learners aware of implicature as a tool of communication or to give them practice at using it in English. And this raises a question: can NNS learn to use implicature with little or no direct instruction. To investigate this question, two groups of international students at an American university who had been tested with regard to their ability to interpret implicatures when they first arrived on campus were tested again 18 and 54 months later, respectively. This paper reports on their progress in regard both to the overall set of implicatures and to various specific types identified during the original study.

Bouton, L. F. (1996). Pragmatics and language learning. In L. F. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and Language Learning, (Vol. 7, pp.1-20). University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Division of English as an International Language.

The roles that pragmatics can play in the development of communicative competence are discussed, and three uses are examined in greater detail, with examples offered: (1) for the refinement of the study of speech acts as they occur in different cultures; (2) to help determine the extent to which explicit instruction can increase the rate at which non-native speakers of English can develop different facets of their pragmatic competence (in the example cited, competence with implicatures); and (3) as a contribution to the presentation of different functions of a language in textbooks designed for second language learners. Data from studies are presented for illustration. It is concluded that the current challenge is to ensure that what is learned about pragmatics is used effectively in the second language classroom. Contains 30 references.

Boxer, D. (2003). Critical issues in developmental pragmatics. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 45-67). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

Boxer focused on difficulties in teaching pragmatic competence. She asserted that materials currently lack contextual/interlocutor information. She noted the role of social identity in language learning and the development of relational identity (DRI) -- when individuals perceived each other as valid interlocutors, since the classroom has the potential of becoming a community of practice. She refered to her work on complaining and on how Japanese speakers had difficulty knowing what American speakers were trying to accomplish by griping. They gave only a minimal response, as if to acknowledge the complaint, while Americans expected commiseration or some kind of agreement. Japanese see talk as potentially problem-making, and see Americans as going on and on.

Boxer, D., & Cohen, A. D. (2004). Studying speaking to inform language learning. Clevedon, England:� Multilingual Matters.

In a series of studies specially written for this volume, Studying Speaking to Inform Second Language Learning offers the applied linguist research on spoken interaction in second and foreign languages and provides insights as to how findings from each of these studies may inform language pedagogy. The volume offers an interweaving of discourse perspectives: speech acts, speech events, interactional analysis, pragmatics, and conversational analysis.

Boxer, D., & Pickering, L. (1995). Problems in the presentation of speech acts in ELT materials: The case of complaints.� ELT Journal 49(1), 44-58.doi:10.1093/elt/49.1.44

This article surveys seven ELT texts that are organized around the teaching of functions in order to explicate several problems evident in their presentation of speech acts. A specific speech act sequence, that of complaint/commiseration, is the focus of the analysis. This speech behaviour is highlighted in order to demonstrate the mismatch between data from spontaneous speech, and data that is contrived through the native speaker intuitions of textbook developers. A first problem is that intuition about speech act realization often differs greatly from the way in which naturalistic speech patterns out. Second, it is demonstrated that important information on underlying social strategies of speech acts is often overlooked entirely. A sample lesson on complaining/commiserating based on spontaneous speech is offered, to draw a contrast with the lessons on complaining presented in the texts surveyed.

Bublitz, W., & Norrick, N. R. (Eds.). (2011). Foundation of pragmatics. Berlin: De Gruyter.

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the foundations of pragmatics. It covers the central theories and approaches as well as key concepts and topics characteristic of mainstream pragmatics, i.e. the traditional and most widespread approach to the ways and means of using language in authentic social contexts. The in-depth articles provide reliable orientational overviews useful to researchers, students, and teachers. They are both state of the art reviews of their topics and critical evaluations in the light of subsequent developments. Topics are thus considered within their scholarly context and also critically evaluated from current perspectives. The five major sections of the handbook are dedicated to the Conceptual and Theoretical Foundations (with a historiographic overview of the establishment and subsequent development of pragmatics), Key Topics (investigating indexicality, reference and other concepts that were the first to make their way from grammar into pragmatics and mainstream notions like speech acts, types of inference), the Place of Pragmatics in the Description of Discourse (delimiting pragmatics from grammar, semantics, prosody, literary criticism), and Methods and Tools.�

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1-47. doi:10.1093/applin/I.1.1

Celce-Murcia, M., & Olshtain, E. (2001). Discourse and context in language teaching: A guide for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This book is for teachers of English as a second or foreign language. It is especially useful for a methods course for pre- or in-service teachers. The authors believe that teachers need to include aspects of discourse and pragmatics in their teaching if they wish to implement a communicative approach in their pedagogical practices. The first two chapters provide an easily comprehensible introduction to discourse and pragmatics. These are followed by chapters in which the authors demonstrate how a discourse-based approach can enrich the teaching of traditional aspects of language such as phonology, grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading, writing, and speaking. After these, there are chapters which discuss how such an approach may be implemented in curriculum design and materials, in assessment and for discourse training for teachers and learners. There are discussion questions and activities at the end of each chapter to facilitate comprehension making this a reader friendly text.

Cohen, A. D. (1996). Developing the ability to perform speech acts. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18(2), 253-267. doi:10.1017/S027226310001490X.

This paper calls attention to an increasingly prominent field of interest within second language acquisition research and pedagogy, namely, that of pragmatic ability. It focuses on an area within pragmatics, that of speech acts, considers the processes underlying the performance of such speech acts, and looks at the effects of explicit instruction in this area. The paper starts by asking what speech act ability entails. Several basic distinctions are made in the description of speech acts, such as that between sociocultural and sociolinguistic ability. Second, directions of previous research describing speech acts are indicated and directions yet to be taken are pointed out. Difficulties in researching oral speech act performance are noted, and verbal report is recognized as one of a limited number of research tools available for investigating cognitive processes involved in speech act production. The paper then reviews four studies that utilize verbal report to gain at least some access to the underlying processes. Finally, the paper looks at previous research on the tutored and untutored acquisition of speech acts and provides suggestions for future research.

Cohen, A. D. (1996). Speech acts. In S. L. McKay, & N. H. Hornberger (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language teaching (pp. 383 � 420). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cohen, A. D. (1997). Developing pragmatic ability: Insights from the accelerated study of Japanese. In H. M. Cook, K. Hijirida, & M. Tahara (Eds.), New trends and issues in teaching Japanese language and culture. (Technical Report #15) (pp. 137-163). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i, Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center.

This self-study was intended to describe the development of pragmatic ability of an adult learner of Japanese in a four-month accelerated course. The focus of the paper is on foreign-language learning, in which the context for learning was almost exclusively that of a classroom in an academic setting. In addition, over half of the instructional focus was on the learning of structure, and to a large extent on more formal language rather than on plain or vernacular Japanese. The paper sets out to describe the experience, the perceptions of the learner about the development of his ability to use pragmatic rules, and to relate the learner’s motivation, learning style, and learning strategy preferences to his efforts at developing pragmatic ability.

Cohen, A. D. (1998). Contrastive analysis of speech acts: What do we do with the research findings? Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, 33, 81-92.

Cohen, A. D. (1998). Developing pragmatic ability: A case study. In E. S. Castillo (Ed.), Applied linguistics: Focus on second language learning/teaching (pp. 1-13). Manila, Philippines: De La Salle University Press.

Cohen, A. D. (2003). Learner strategy training in the development of pragmatic ability. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching. (pp. 93-108). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

Cohen, A. D. (2005). Strategies for learning and performing L2 speech acts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(3), 275-301. doi:10.1515/iprg.2005.2.3.275

This article presents a taxonomy of language learner strategies which are offered in support of learners in their efforts to obtain knowledge about speech acts and to perform them more effectively. Relevant language learner strategy literature and speech act literature are reviewed. After defining language learning and use strategies, the article makes the case for enhancing learner strategies in developing speech act ability. Next, as a lead up to the presentation of the taxonomy of strategies, the issue of where learners are to find empirical sources for speech act material is addressed, with attention given to the current concerns for naturally-occurring data. This is followed by a review of literature on efforts to teach pragmatics. The article concludes with a discussion of suggested avenues for validating the strategy taxonomy.

Cohen, A. D. (2008). Speaking strategies for independent learning: A focus on pragmatic performance. In S. Hurd & T. Lewis (Eds.), Language learning strategies in independent settings (pp. 119-140). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Cohen, A. D. (2008). Teaching and assessing L2 pragmatics: What can we expect from learners? Language Teaching, 41(2), 215-237. doi:10.1017/S0261444807004880

This paper starts by giving a rationale for why there is value in explicitly teaching second-language (L2) learners pragmatics in the target language. The importance of a research basis for choosing pragmatic materials to teach is underscored, and the focus is put on sources for materials on pragmatics and the means of data collection. Issues in the teaching of pragmatics are considered, including determining which material to teach, how to prepare teachers to teach it, and the role of teachers in facilitating the learning of pragmatics. Next, L2 pragmatics is viewed from the learners' perspective, in terms of the learning and performance of pragmatics, as well as approaches to assessing what it is that learners are able to do in a pragmatically appropriate way. Finally, consideration is given to the role of technology in making pragmatics accessible to learners, with reference to a website for teachers and curriculum writers and to websites designed for learners of specific languages such as Japanese and Spanish. Recent work on virtual environments for practicing Spanish pragmatics is discussed and preliminary findings from a small-scale study of this effort are reported.

Cohen, A. D. (2009). Comprehensible pragmatics: Where input and output come together. In M. Pawlak (Ed.), New perspectives on individual differences in language learning and teaching (Special issue of Studies in Pedagogy and Fine Arts, pp. 253-265). Poznan� � Kalisz: Adam Mickiewicz University Press.

Cohen, A. D. (2011).� Learner strategies for performing intercultural pragmatics. MinneWITESOL Journal, 28, 13-24. Retrieved from http://minnetesol.org/blog1/minnewitesol-2011/home/learner-strategies-for-performing-intercultural-pragmatics/

This article focuses on the strategies that learners employ in an effort to ensure that the input that they process is pragmatically comprehensible to them. Likewise, attention is given to the strategies that learners can make use of so that their output is comprehensible pragmatically to their interlocutors. This entails taking a close look at specific examples of what comprehensibility of language at the level of intercultural pragmatics actually means in terms of intercultural pragmatics. In looking at both the comprehension and production of pragmatic material, the strategies that might be called on in order to avoid pragmatic failure are considered. Focus is first given to what it might take strategically in order to effectively comprehend input pragmatically, whether the input is through language, through gestures, or through silence. Then focus is given to strategies for diminishing threats to comprehensible output, such as negative transfer of norms from the L1 or another language, limited L2 grammar ability, overgeneralization of perceived L2 pragmatic norms, the effect of instruction or instructional materials, and resistance to perceived L2 norms. The ultimate concern is to identify strategies that might assist learners in their efforts to have their conversational partners correctly interpret the intended pragmatics in their communications, and on the role that ESL teachers can play in facilitating this process.

Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1991). Teaching speech act behavior to nonnative speakers. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (2nd edition, pp. 154-190). New York: Newbury House.

Cohen, A. D., & Olshtain, E. (1994).� The production of speech acts by EFL learners.� TESOL Quarterly, 27(1). doi:10.2307/3586950

Descriptions are now available of the speech act realizations of native speakers in given situations and of expected deviations from these patterns in the speech of nonnative speakers. Still largely lacking is a description of the processes involved in the production of these speech act utterances. This paper reports a study describing ways in which nonnative speakers assess, plan, and execute such utterances. The subjects, 15 advanced English foreign language learners, were given six speech act situations (two apologies, two complaints, and two requests) in which they were to role play along with a native speaker. Retrospective verbal report protocols were analyzed with regard to processing strategies in speech act formulation. The study found that in executing speech act behavior, half of the time respondents conducted only a general assessment of the utterances called for in the situation without planning specific vocabulary and grammatical structures, often thought in two languages and sometimes in three when planning and executing speech act utterances, utilized a series of different strategies in searching for language forms, and did not attend much to grammar or pronunciation. In an effort to characterize the speech production of the respondents in the study, three different styles seemed to appear: metacognizers, avoiders, and pragmatists.

Cohen, A. D., & Tarone, E. (1994). Describing and teaching speech act behavior:  Stating and changing an opinion.  In L. Barbara & M. Scott (Eds.), Reflections on language learning (pp. 110-121).  Clevedon, UK:  Multilingual Matters.

Cohen, A. D., & Tarone, E. (1994).  The effects of training on written speech act behavior:  Stating and changing an opinion. MinneTESOL Journal, 12, 39-62.

Cook, M., & Liddicoat, A. J.� (2002). The development of comprehension in interlanguage pragmatics: The case of request strategies in English. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 25(1), 19-40.

In the past, research in interlanguage pragmatics has primarily explained the differences between native speakers' (NS) and non-native speakers' (NNS) pragmatic performance based on cross-cultural and linguistic differences. Very few researchers have considered learners' pragmatic performance based on second language comprehension. In this study, the authors examine learners' pragmatic performance using request strategies. The results of this study reveal that there is a proficiency effect for interpreting request speech acts at different levels of directness. It is proposed that learners' processing strategies and capacities are important factors to consider when examining learners' pragmatic performance.

Crandall, E., & Basturkmen, H. (2004). Evaluating pragmatics-focused materials. ELT Journal, 58(1), 38-49.doi:10.1093/elt/58.1.38

Learners often find the area of pragmatics (that is, using speech acts such as requesting, inviting, and complimenting) problematic. Teachers are urged to teach pragmatic aspects of language, and make use of authentic samples of spoken discourse to do so. However, information about the effectiveness of pragmatics-focused instruction of this nature has been lacking. This paper describes how we evaluated a set of instructional materials targeting the speech act of requests. The materials aimed to raise learners’ awareness of native-speaker norms of requesting in an academic environment. They employed a ‘guided discovery’ approach in which the learners analysed samples of authentic spoken language. The findings of our evaluation showed that the learners found this experience positive. After instruction, their perceptions of the appropriateness of requests matched those of native speakers more closely than they did prior to instruction. These findings have implications for the development of pragmatics-focused materials.

Creese, A. (1991) Speech act variation in British and American English. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 7(2). Retrieved from http://www.gse.upenn.edu/wpel/sites/gse.upenn.edu.wpel/files/archives/v7/v7n2Creese1.pdf

Comparisons of British English and American English in the past have concentrated on similarities and differences at the phonetic, semantic and syntactic level, while overlooking variation at the socio-cultural level.� This paper attempts first to investigate how cultural differences are reflected in five speech acts:� requesting, thanking, apologizing, complimenting and greeting.� It reports on the results of preliminary study in which eight Americans and four Britons were interviewed in order to elicit their perceptions concerning speech act differences between the two cultures.� Then the focus of the paper shifts to a more comprehensive analysis of on of the above speech acts, namely complimenting.� Compliment data was collected in both Britain and the United States and analyzed with a view to revealing differences and similarities in language use.� Results how that despite sharing an essentially common linguistic system, the rules for complimenting differ significantly cross culturally.� Given the current trends of teaching language and culture simultaneously and given that American and British dialects serve as models of language instruction throughout the world, it is argued that consideration be given to such differences by ESL textbook writers, teachers and students alike.

Cribb, M. (2009). Discourse and the non-native English speaker. Cambria Press.

This book is for graduate students and English language teachers and researchers and deals with the problems that non-native speakers of English have with extended turns and monologues. The book examines a corpus of spoken data collected from the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and focuses on how semantic and pragmatic miscues lead to breaks in coherence and comprehensibility. It specifically analyzes how a lack of verbal and non-verbal support from interlocutors leads to difficulties in expression at the discourse level. This book represents both a textual and evaluative approach to discourse studies. Numerous transcripts of the discourse of speakers of English as a second or foreign language are analyzed to identify the points at which miscues leading to lack of coherence arise. It also examines the relationship between fluency and coherence. This book would be of interest to applied linguistics and English language teachers and assessors.

Da Silvia, A. J. B. (2003). The effects of instruction on pragmatic development: Teaching polite refusals in English. Second Language Studies, 22(1), 55�106. Retrieved from http://www.hawaii.edu/sls/sls/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Silva.pdf

This study was set up to further investigate whether relatively explicit instruction may be facilitative for L2 pragmatic development, and the most appropriate and effective ways to deliver the pragmatic information to L2 learners. Adopting a pre-test/post-test design with treatment and control groups, it incorporated metapragmatic awareness into task-based methodological principles in its instructional treatment in order to teach the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic components of the speech act of refusals. Fourteen low-intermediate learners from various L1s (Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Serbian, and Portuguese) were randomly assigned to both control (7) and treatment (7) groups. Data, collected by means of role-play, were transcribed, and a qualitative discourse analytic approach was used to examine the learning outcomes in the treatment group as compared to the control group. The findings illustrate that the instructional approach enhanced the L2 pragmatic ability of performing the speech act in focus. This suggests that L2 pedagogy which aims at providing learners with metapragmatic information associated with meaningful opportunities for language use may result in gains in learners’ L2 pragmatic development.

DuFon, M. (2003). Gift giving in Indonesian: A model for teaching pragmatic routines in the foreign language classroom of the less commonly taught languages. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 109-131). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

Data from group discussions and dialog journals were used to identify points of confusion that lead learners of Indonesian to question the meanings associated with particular expressions and actions used in gift-giving such that this routine might need to be taught in the classroom. Among teaching techniques she included frame analysis, critical incidents, and interviewing native speakers. She noted that teachers of Indonesian may not be natives and their intuitions may be inaccurate -- hence, the need not to set themselves up as authorities but as learners as well. In this instance, the data were from a six-month study abroad experience in Indonesia. She reported on the experiences of six learners, 4 native speakers of English and two of Japanese. They kept diaries which contributed to discussion in identifying "rich points" in sorting out the problematic aspects of a routine such as gift giving. They would look at critical incidents and use a frame analysis. Such activities would provide learners with strategies for dealing with other "rich points" they might encounter. Frame analysis entailed making a list of what happened in chronological order, so as to see the structure of the routine or the sequence of frames, the presence or absence of frames, the content of frames, and so forth. What was the occasion? What was the gift? Was it wrapped in gift paper? Was it opened in the giver's presence? What was the relationship of the participants?

Dumitrescu, D. (2011). Aspects of Spanish pragmatics. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

This collection of essays on Spanish pragmatics can be understood in its broadest sense in Iacob L. Meys words as the study of the conditions of human language use in a societal context. The essays, which can be read independently from one another, revolve around three key areas within the Anglo-American school of pragmatics: speech acts, conversation, and politeness as sociocultural manifestations of communication. The first part of the book emphasizes the study of politeness in different Spanish-speaking communities, paying special attention to the realization of polite speech acts and their cross-cultural and cross-linguistic implications, as well as the face-work that interlocutors conduct in casual conversations and other communicative settings. The second part expands the topic of politeness strategies to the study of new contexts (such as echo questions and conversational repairs) and addresses other language phenomena that can be best explored from a pragmalinguistic perspective, such as evidentiality, mitigation, contrastive emphasis, and topicality and discourse salience. The examples (with the exception of a few literary quotes) proceed from naturally occurring data or were collected through questionnaires, and represent a wide range of colloquial Spanishes, from Peninsular to Latin American, from monolingual to bilingual, and from native to heritage to second language learners varieties. The empirical nature of Aspects of Spanish Pragmatics will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in the us of Spanish for real-life communicative interactions, as well as in the topic of intercultural communication and the teaching of authentic language to students of Spanish in the United States.

Edmondson, W., House, J., Kasper, G., & Stemmer, B. (1984). Learning the pragmatics of discourse: A project report. Applied Linguistics, 5(2), 113-127. doi:10.1093/applin/5.2.113

Reports on a research project conducted in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1976 and 1981 in which the conversations of three groups of speakers -- native speakers of English, native speakers of German, and German learners of English -- and discourse in an English as a second language classroom were subjected to discourse analysis in the hope that the results would show how foreign language teaching might be more effectively oriented toward communicative goals. Each language group was taped in 48 role play situations that involved some conflict, imposition, or social diffiulty which could not be handled in a routinized manner. The analyses resulted in the following: (1) descriptions of pragmatics and discourse in the English native speaker conversations and a model for the analysis of spoken discourse, (2) contrastive discourse analyses of the English and German native speaker conversations, (3) interlanguage analyses of the conversations between learners and native speakers, and (4) analyses of classroom discourse. Hypothesized pedagogical principles derived from these analyses focused on reconsidering the traditional teacher's role in terms of responsibility-sharing, and the joint negotiation of pedagogic decisions. These and other pedagogical principles were incorporated in two publications, A Pedagogic Interactional Grammar for Secondary School Teachers and Teachers-in-Training, and A Communication Course for Tuture Teachers of English.

Eslami-Rasekh, Z. (2005). Raising the pragmatic awareness of language learners. ELT Journal 59(3), 199-208.doi:10.1093/elt/cci039

The development of pragmatic and sociolinguistic rules of language use is important for language learners. It is necessary to understand and create language that is appropriate to the situations in which one is functioning, because failure to do so may cause users to miss key points that are being communicated or to have their messages misunderstood. Worse yet is the possibility of a total communication breakdown and the stereotypical labelling of second language users as people who are insensitive, rude, or inept (Thomas 1983). In this paper I will discuss different approaches to teaching pragmatics, and, based on my teaching experiences, I will provide some strategies that can be used to raise the pragmatic awareness of English language learners (ELLs).

Fukushima, S. (1990). Offers and requests: Performance by Japanese learners of English. World Englishes, 9(3), 317-325. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1990.tb00269.x

This paper investigates how Japanese university students performed in English, when offering something to someone and when making requests, in situations where the addresser and the addressee are equal in status, and the degrees of closeness between them are different. The performances by the Japanese subjects were compared with those of native English-speaking people. The major findings of this study include: (1) the Japanese subjects could not use appropriate expressions according to situations, even when they wanted to be more polite to the addressees; and (2) the expressions used by the Japanese subjects were too direct in most situations, and sounded rude. This meant that the Japanese subjects could not express their intentions in English, when they wanted to differentiate expressions under various situations. The results of this study revealed that the pragmatic competence of Japanese learners of English needs to be reinforced in their language instruction.

Garc�a, C. (1996). Teaching speech act performance: Declining an invitation. Hispania, 79, 267-79.

The author explored the teaching of speech acts through inviting and declining an invitation. The author advocated that instructing about frames of participation, underlying preferred politeness strategies, and linguistic strategies is essential to pragmatic development. The importance of using empirical data for instruction was discussed and pedagogical suggestions were made based on Cohen & Olshtain (1991) and DiPetro (1987). Examples of each of the five stages of pragmatic instruction were given�(1) Diagnostic Assessment, (2) Model Dialogue, (3) Evaluation of Situation, (4) Role play Activities, and (5) Feedback, Discussion, Conclusion.

Garc�a, C. (1997). Using authentic reading texts to discover underlying sociocultural information. In Heusinkveld, P. R. (Ed.), Pathways to Culture: Readings on Teaching Culture in the Foreign Language Class (pp. 303-26). Yarmount, ME: Intercultural Press.

This chapter provides a practical exploration of teaching socio-cultural information in the classroom by using authentic reading texts. It describes the process used as well as the results of a unit entitled "De la cuna a la tumba" in which students read various authentic materials (birth announcements, wedding invitations, and obituaries) in order to glean important socio-cultural information. Twenty-one third semester university students participated in the unit. Suggestions are given for pre-reading, reading, and post-reading activities that focus on socio-cultural information. Results show a number of advantages. Students were able to reflect on their own culture and discover a greater underlying understanding of a different culture by making comparisons. The author also gives suggestions for future units (e.g., time, entertainment, church, political). Overall, the students participating in this unit made a positive step towards cultural understanding.

Garcia, P. (2004). Developmental differences in speech act recognition: A pragmatic awareness study. Language Awareness, 13(2), 96-115.

With the growing acknowledgement of the importance of pragmatic competence in second language (L2) learning, language researchers have identified the comprehension of speech acts as they occur in natural conversation as essential to communicative competence (e.g. Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Thomas, 1983). Nonconventional indirect speech acts are formed in a variety of ways by native English speakers and are therefore not easily recognised by non-native English speakers (Cook & Liddicoat, 2002; Kasper, 1984). In order to investigate this aspect of pragmatic comprehension, this study compared the pragmatic awareness of low and high ability L2 learners and native English speakers by examining each group's ability to recognise indirect speech acts as they occurred in a corpus of conversations taking place in academic settings. Participants (n = 56) identified requests, suggestions, corrections, and offers with varying success. Results show that contextual knowledge and linguistic features, such as specified agent, lexical markers, false starts, and use of modals, may have interacted with speech act type to account for performance variability. This information can be used by language teachers to raise English language learners' awareness of how pragmatic meaning is conveyed.

Gass, S., & Neu, J. (1995). Speech acts across cultures: Challenges to communication in a second language. New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Articles on speech acts and intercultural communication include: "Investigating the Production of Speech Act Sets" (Andrew Cohen); "Non-Native Refusals: A Methodological Perspective" (Noel Houck, Susan M. Gass); "Natural Speech Act Data versus Written Questionnaire Data: How Data Collection Method Affects Speech Act Performance" (Leslie M. Beebe, Martha Clark Cummings); "Cross-Cultural Realization of Greetings in American English" (Miriam Eistenstein Ebsworth, Jean W, Bodman, Mary Carpenter); "Egyptian and American Compliments: Focus on Second Language Learners" (Gayle L. Nelson, Waguida El Bakary, Mahmoud Al Batal); "Politeness Strategies in French and English" (Michael L. Geis, Linda L. Harlow); "Transfer and Proficiency in Interlanguage Apologizing" (Naoko Maeshiba, Naoko Yoshinaga, Gabriele Kasper, Steven Ross); "My Grade's Too Low: The Speech Act Set of Complaining" (Beth Murphy, Joyce Neu); "Ethnographic Interviewing as a Research Tool in Speech Act Analysis: The Case of Complaints" (Diana Boxer); "From the Addressee's Perspective: Imposition in Favor-Asking" (Myra Goldschmidt); "Transfer of Pragmatic Competence and Suggestions in Spanish Foreign Language Learning" (Dale April Koike); "Suggestions To Buy: Television Commercials from the U.S., Japan, China and Korea" (Richard Schmidt, Akihiko Shimura, Zhigang Wang, Hy-sook Jeong); and "Culture, Negotiations and International Cooperative Ventures" (John L. Graham).

George, A. (2011).� Teaching pragmatics using technology: Requests in the foreign language classroom. In C. Torres, L. G�mez Chova, & A. L�pez Matinez (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation.� Valencia: International Association of Technology, Education and Development.

This study examines how teaching, through the use of online videos, affects the acquisition of second language pragmatics, specifically the acquisition of requests by students whose first language is English. These online videos bring native Spanish speakers to the foreign language classroom and serve as a model to students in that they show speakers in their age group speaking about topics interesting to them. Pragmatics is often ignored in the beginning foreign language classroom and this paper will show that instruction, even at the beginning level, is essential to teaching learners the differences between making requests in their first language versus their second language.

This paper shows the pragmatic awareness possessed by third semester learners of Spanish and how instruction impacts the performance of these learners’ requests. The results show that participants demonstrated pragmatic awareness, as measured by directness, level of imposition, and social distance, after watching and discussing videos in which native speakers make requests. The participants also completed a written pre and post-test discourse completion test, which elicited requests, before and after a lesson on requests in the target language. The lesson incorporated videos and activities from the Dancing with Words website (/speechacts/sp_pragmatics/home.html), as well as small group and class discussion about directness, level of imposition, and social distance and how this impacts requests in the target language. Differences between target language and native language requests were also pointed out. The results show that without any teaching, very few requests were target-like. After instruction, 45% of the participants improved their production of requests. The results also show that more instruction on how to incorporate target-like grammar into the requests is needed.

Ghobadi, A., & Fahim, M. (2009). The effect of explicit teaching of English “thanking formulas” on Iranian EFL intermediate level students at English language institutes. System, 37(3), 526�537. doi:10.1016/j.system.2009.02.010

Since the early 1980s, researchers have established that the foreign language learners’ development of various aspects of pragmatic competence may be facilitated by the instruction of pragmatic routines and strategies in the foreign language classroom (Kasper and Rose, 2001). Consistent with this line of research this study, using conversations compared the use of explicit and implicit instruction of English “thanking formulas” on Iranian EFL intermediate level students’ sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic awareness. The data collected for the present study, applying a DCT (discourse completion test) and four role-plays were analyzed at two distinct levels. First using descriptive statistics the mean and SD (standard deviation) of the data collected were estimated. Then using inferential statistics and applying independent samples T-test, the researcher investigated the (dis)approval of the hypotheses proposed for the study.

The results obtained from the explicit instruction group indicated that instruction had an impressively positive effect on raising students’ sociopragmatic awareness as well as their hindrance of L1 pragmalinguistic transfer to L2 (second language). Also, comparing the level of English proficiency and age of the learners involved in Rose and Connie Ng’s study to our study, it can be concluded that younger students possessing lower levels of grammatical and sociolinguistic competence in the second language need explicit instruction both on sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic preferences of the NSs (native speaker); that is, they will not be able to understand the differences between the two languages without being exposed to instructions.

Halenko, N., & Jones, C. (2011). Teaching pragmatic awareness of spoken requests to Chinese EAP learners in the UK: Is explicit instruction effective? System, 39(2), 240-250. doi:10.1016/j.system.2011.05.003

The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of explicit interventional treatment on developing pragmatic awareness and production of spoken requests in an EAP context (taken here to mean those studying/using English for academic purposes in the UK) with Chinese learners of English at a British higher education institution. The study employed an experimental design over a 12 week period with 26 students assigned to either an explicitly instructed group or a control group receiving no instruction. Performance was measured based on a pre, immediate and delayed post test structure using Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs). The findings firstly revealed that explicit instruction facilitated development of pragmatically appropriate request language, although this was not noticeably maintained after a six week period. Secondly, despite the potential advantage that the second language environment affords to pragmatic development, this was not necessarily instrumental in enhancing competence. Finally, study abroad (ESL) (taken here to mean those studying English in an English speaking country as opposed to EFL learners studying English in their home country) learners found pragmatic instruction valuable, which suggests practitioners should consider incorporating this at the pre departure stage in order for learners to be more adequately prepared for communicating in similar EAP contexts.

Hinkel, E. (1996). When in Rome: Evaluations of L2 pragmalinguistic behaviour. Journal of Pragmatics, 26(1), 51-70. doi: 10.1016/0378-2166(95)00043-7

Research has found that perceptions of and attitudes toward an L2 affect language acquisition. This study focuses on the effect that perceptions of L2 pragmalinguistic norms and behaviors can have on their acquisition. In two experiments, a total of 240 speakers of Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, and Arabic responded to a questionnaire containing 29 statements dealing with various aspects of L2 politeness, subjects' awareness of it, and perceptions of L2 pragmalinguistic norms. The subjects and control groups of 61 NSs of American English ranked the statements according to their agreement or disagreement on a 10-point Likert scale. The results of the study indicate that the NNSs recognized pragmalinguistic behaviors accepted in the U.S. However, despite their evident recognition of L2 pragmalinguistic norms, NNSs often viewed L2 behaviors critically, compared to those accepted in L1 communities, and were not always willing to follow them.

Houck, N. R., & Fujimori, J. (2010). Teacher, you should lose some weight: Advice giving in English. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 89-103). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Houck, N. R., & Tatsuki, D. H. (Eds.). (2010). Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Language teachers have long been aware of the devastating effect of learners' grammatically correct, yet situationally inappropriate spoken or written communication. This volume addresses how to raise learner awareness of pragmatic gaffs through research-based, field-tested activities such as composing e-mail requests, giving advice, making workplace requests, expressing opinions, providing constructive peer-to-peer critical feedback, negotiating refusals, and collaborating through activities enabled by an online tool called Talkpoint. Teachers are given vital support in these activities through extensive worksheets, audio files, transcripts, and answer keys. The chapters in this volume provide information and activities primarily related to the realization of speech acts and the effect of different contexts on their form. The subsequent volume, "Pragmatics: Teaching Natural Conversation" (due off press in early 2011), focuses on the role of formulas in performing speech acts and on the characteristics of longer sequences. This book is divided into four parts: (1) Requests; (2) Indirect Acts; (3) Responding Acts; and (4) Assessment. It also contains 14 chapters. Chapters include: (1) Pragmatics From Research to Practice: Teaching Speech Acts (Donna H. Tatsuki and Noel R. Houck); (2) Misunderstandings: Pragmatic Glitches and Misfires (Virginia LoCastro); (3) It's 8 O'clock in the Morning--Are You Watching Television? Teaching Indirect Requests (Zohreh R. Eslami and Kent D. McLeod); (4) I Want You to Help Me: Learning to Soften English Requests (Carol Rinnert and Chiaki Iwai); (5) Requesting a Letter of Recommendation: Teaching Students to Write E-Mail Requests (Kumiko Akikawa and Noriko Ishihara); (6) Soften Up! Successful Requests in the Workplace (Lynda Yates and Jacky Springall); (7) Teacher, You Should Lose Some Weight: Advice Giving in English (Noel R. Houck and John Fujimori); (8) Moving Beyond "In My Opinion": Teaching the Complexities of Expressing Opinion (Kristin Bouton, Katy Cur and Lawrence Bouton); (9) Teaching Constructive Critical Feedback (Thi Thuy Minh Nguyen and Helen Basturkmen); (10) Indirect Complaints as a Conversational Strategy (Dana Saito-Stehberger); (11) I'm Sorry--Can I Think About It? The Negotiation of Refusals in Academic and Nonacademic Contexts (J. Cesar Felix-Brasdefer and Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig); (12) They Made Me an Invitation I Couldn't Refuse: Teaching Refusal Strategies for Invitations (Emma Archer); (13) Online Collaboration for Pragmatic Development--Talkpoint Project (Emi Yamanaka and Kenneth Fordyce); and (14) Assessing Learners' Pragmatic Ability in the Classroom (Noriko Ishihara). References and index are included.

Houck, N. R., & Tatsuki, D. H. (Eds.). (2010). Pragmatics: Teaching natural conversation. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

This volume offers teachers in the ESL/EFL classroom some of the first published materials for guiding learners past grammar into authentic-sounding (conventional) utterances and sequences, replacing the scripted unnatural or stilted dialogue provided in textbooks. Teachers will find a range of pedagogical activities to put to immediate use in the classroom, as students learn turn-taking, initiations and responses for formal academic and informal conversation, thanking expressions, apologies, compliments and compliment responses, differences in complimenting behavior between men and women, opening and closing telephone conversations, and use of responders such as "oh, uh-huh/mm-hm, and yeah". "Pragmatics: Teaching Natural Conversation", taken together with the previous volume, "Pragmatics: Teaching Speech Acts", provides teachers with a comprehensive basis for the theoretically sound and pedagogically effective teaching of this important, but often neglected, area of language. This book contains 13 chapters. Chapters include: (1) Introduction (Noel R. Houck and Donna H. Tatsuki); (2) Assessing Familiarity With Pragmatic Formulas: Planning Oral/Aural Assessment (Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig); (3) No Thanks. I'm Full! Raising Awareness of Expressions of Gratitude and Conventional Expressions (Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Edelmira L. Nickels); (4) Oh, I'm So Sorry! Are You All Right? Teaching Apologies (Carmella Lieske); (5) Have You Paid Someone a Compliment Today? (Jessie Carduner); (6) Male and Female Complimenting Behavior (Anne McLellan Howard); (7) Taking Turns and Talking Naturally: Teaching Conversational Turn-Taking (Donald Carroll); (8) Teaching Preference Organization: Learning How Not to Say "No" (Donald Carroll); (9) Pragmatic Competency in Telephone Conversation Openings (Jean Wong); (10) Pragmatic Competency in Telephone Conversation Closings (Jean Wong); (11) Responders: Continuers (David Olsher); (12) Responders: Change-of-State Tokens, News Markers, and Assessments (David Olsher); and (13) Developing Students' Language Awareness (Maria Dantas-Whitney).

House, J. (1996). Developing pragmatic fluency in English as a foreign language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18(2), 225-52.

The study examined the problem of whether to teach pragmatics explicitly with a population of advanced FL learners. One group of advanced German learners of EFL (14 weeks) received explicit metapragmatic information and not the other group (N=32). Samples of tape-recorded conversations at various stages of the courses were used to assess how students' pragmatic fluency developed. House asked whether students' awareness of the functional and contextual distribution of routines might improve their pragmatic fluency. Using an experimental-control group design, data of different conversational activities were collected during classroom lessons, and students' progress was measured through role-plays before, during, and after instruction. While the "explicit" group profited more from the communication course, neither group displayed much improvement in offering appropriate responses to their interlocutors' initiating acts.

House, J. (2003). Teaching and learning pragmatic fluency in a foreign language: The case of English as a lingua franca. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 133-159). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

House called attention to the need to teach the pragmatics of English as a lingua franca (ELF), noting the benefits of contrastive studies, and recognizing the likelihood of negative transfer into the target language. She noted that ELF talk has been largely ignored in the research literature. She ended with suggestions for the classroom: 1) teaching a broad ELF, not based just on American, British, or Canadian norms; 2) re-thinking norms to include bilingual or multilingual speakers and to see ELF as a hybrid variety of English where successful NNS-NNS communication may not be based on native norms; 3) successful EFL communication can entail drawing on other languages that the speakers know through code-switching or borrowing; 4) speakers need to stay true to their own personalities and individual discourse styles so pragmatics instruction must be sensitive to this and work with learners on practical communicative-linguistic skill such as the following: teaching gambits, discourse strategies, and phase-specific speech acts; ability to initiate topics and change them using appropriate routines; ability to "carry weight" in conversations; ability to show appropriate uptaking, and replying/responding behavior (anticipation of end of turns via latching and overlapping); appropriate rate of speech, types of filled and unfilled pauses, frequency and function of repairs); 5) need to practice relevant routines with explicit focus on the forms and functions of these routines; 6) engage the learners in collaborative talk because it encourages learners to notice the gaps; 7) despite ability to manage in ELF interactions without pragmatic competence, House advocated instruction in interactional phenomena so learners are better at turn taking, lubricating and modifying discourse with gambits and discourse strategies, being polite -- increasing their metapragmatic awareness; 8) having the teachers and learners in such courses be both researchers and subjects at the same time.

Hudson, T. (2010). Indicators for pragmatic instruction: Some quantitative tools. In K. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics and language teaching (pp. 283-300). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

With ever-increasing attention to the study of the development and use of pragmatics in a second language, there has arisen a concomitant interest in developing appropriate and valid means for the assessment of pragmatic competence. Although there are established methods for assessing other factors of language production, similar instruments have not yet been developed for the assessment of pragmatics. This chapter will discuss three methods of assessing pragmatic production by Japanese learners of English as a second language. Although the full study involved developing a number of different instruments for assessing pragmatics, only three instruments will be examined here: the written discourse completion test, language lab discourse completion test tape recordings, and role-play of scenarios. These were the instruments that required language production by the examinees, and it was felt that these would provide the most information regarding pedagogical applications of language samples obtained through pragmatic assessment.

Ishihara, N. (2003). Formal instruction on the speech act of giving and responding to compliments. In Proceedings of the 7th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics (pp. 62-78).� Retrieved from http://paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/PAAL7/pdfs/06noriko.pdf

This preliminary case study explores immediate and delayed effects of formal instruction on giving and responding to compliments in an ESL classroom setting. The instruction, given to 31 intermediate adult ESL learners, facilitated their outside-of-class observation and interaction. Their performance in and awareness of giving and responding to compliments were described as measured before, during, immediately after, and one year after the instruction. As the instruction progressed, learners produced longer written complimenting dialogues on appropriate topics, approximated native speakers in their use of syntactic structures of compliments, and utilized newly learned response strategies. Even one year after instruction, a subset of the learners demonstrated their retention of central skills although a few response strategies were marginally employed and may have largely been forgotten. The instruction also contributed to the learners’ understanding of the culturally specific nature of complimenting and awareness of gender, relative status, and appropriate topics in the interaction. After the instruction, the learners reported a higher level of confidence in complimenting interactions and enhanced motivation for learning other speech acts. The analyses lend support to the positive effects of formal instruction in pragmatics reported in previous studies.

Ishihara, N. (2003). Giving and responding to compliments. In K. Bardovi-Harlig & R. Mahan-Taylor (Eds.), Teaching pragmatics. Washington DC: Office of English Programs, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved from http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/giving.pdf

Ishihara, N. (2004). Formal instruction on the speech act of giving and responding to compliments. Minnesota and Wisconsin Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 21. 37-70. Retrieved from http://paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/PAAL7/pdfs/06noriko.pdf

Ishihara, N. (2007). Web-based curriculum for pragmatics instruction in Japanese as a foreign language: An explicit awareness-raising approach. Language Awareness, 16(1), 21-40. doi:10.2167/la398.0

Pragmatic ability has been recognised as an essential component of communicative competence (Canale & Swain, 1980; Hymes, 1972). However, it has been largely neglected in today's second/foreign language (L2) instruction and teacher education; few curricular attempts for teaching pragmatics have been made. This paper describes a web-based pragmatics curriculum for learners of Japanese as a foreign language, and presents the key components and principles of the curriculum. The curriculum takes an explicit pragmatic-focused awareness-raising approach (learners-as-researchers/ethnographers, Bardovi-Harlig, 1996; Tanaka, 1997) with the intention to instil in learners a sense of appropriate language use. A series of awareness-raising tasks are provided throughout the curriculum that features naturalistic audio samples and empirically established pragmatic information. Learners study L2 pragmatics through various exercises while self-checking or self-evaluating the answers and electronically sending exercise responses to the teachers and curriculum writer through the web system. During 2003-2004, this curriculum was adopted in a third year university course where learners independently completed an assigned portion of the curriculum for an introductory unit and two speech act units. The paper also explores the instructional impact on 18 learners' pragmatic awareness as found in their reflective journaling.

Ishihara, N. & Cohen, A. D. (2014). Teaching and learning pragmatics: Where language and culture meet.em> Abingdon, England: Routledge. (First published 2010 by Pearson Education.)

This book aims to enhance language teachers’ awareness of second-language (L2) pragmatics, namely, the sociocultural aspects of language learning and teaching. It offers practical insights as to how to incorporate a pragmatics component in language curriculum and instruction. The premise that the authors take is that communication in an L2 works best when it is appropriate for the given sociocultural context. While this view would mandate that instruction in language teacher education programs address the learning and performance of L2 pragmatics, the reality is that teacher development programs tend to focus just on theory rather than on practical applications. This book is intended as a guidebook for teachers with various hands-on activities. Special attention is afforded to instructional approaches and classroom processes, as well as to modes of assessment in this context. Through a hands-on approach, teacher readers will engage in classroom-oriented tasks designed to help them become able to 1) identify research-based information about pragmatics, 2) identify possible causes of learner errors and choices in cross-cultural communication, 3) understand second language acquisition theories that support their classroom practices, 4) develop a pragmatics component to their instruction utilizing research-based information, 5) design classroom-based assessments, 6) better support learners in being more strategic about their learning and performance of speech acts, 7) incorporate technology into their instructional offerings for the learning of pragmatics, and 8) develop a pragmatics-focused curriculum.

Ishihara, N., & Tarone, E. (2009). Subjectivity and pragmatic choice in L2 Japanese: Emulating and resisting pragmatic norms. In N. Taguchi (Ed.), Pragmatic competence in Japanese as a second language. Mouton.

The study analyzed the link between adult learners’ subjectivity and their pragmatic use in L2 Japanese. It aimed at exploring the stated reasons that seven advanced Japanese learners at a US university provided for their pragmatic choices in previously completed tasks (multiple-rejoinder oral discourse completion task and role-play). Also, retrospective interviews and follow-up email correspondence examined the deliberate pragmatic decisions learners made while requesting, refusing, and responding to compliments in both their L1 and L2. The authors pointed out that the interviews identified occasions where learners intentionally either accommodated to or resisted perceived L2 pragmatic norms, and probed how they arrived to those decisions. In addition, findings showed that while the participants largely converged toward L2 norms to emulate the target culture, on occasion they intentionally diverged from L2 norms to resist pragmatic uses of, for example, higher-level honorifics or gendered language. Ishihara and Tarone found that learners’ pragmatic decisions were guided by their subjectivity and intertwined with their life experiences and previous learning and use of Japanese in and outside the classroom. The authors proposed that their agency could be accounted for in terms of speech accommodation theory (Beebe and Giles, 1984) which views pragmatic decisions as an enactment of social, psychological, and affective dispositions. They suggested that the findings could help explain why certain areas of Japanese pragmatic competence may be slow to develop (if at all) for some learners. The paper called for greater sensitivity to learners’ cultures in pragmatics-focused instructions and suggested how pragmatics could be more aptly taught and evaluated with learners’ subjectivity in mind.

Jeon, E. H., & Kaya, T. (2006). Effects of L2 instruction on interlanguage pragmatic development. In N. John & L. Ortega (Eds.), Synthesizing research on language learning and teaching (pp. 165�211). Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Judd, E. L. (1999). Some issues in the teaching of pragmatic competence. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in second language teaching and learning (pp. 152-166). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The article raised a series of legitimate questions regarding the teaching of speech acts -- to provide detailed information on speech acts is time-consuming and takes time away from studying other features of the language. In teaching speech acts, Judd indicated three areas: cognitive awareness, receptive skill development, and productive use. Each was presented and analyzed in terms of its benefits and shortcoming for both ESL and EFL language learners. This may call for access on the part of the instructor to this pragmatic information, may not transfer to real-life situations (research not definitive on this -- p. 155), whether students can incorporate knowledge from research into their speech act realizations partly because of possibly limited linguistic proficiency. Also, students need to transfer from knowledge base to actual language use. Also in question was whether native informants actually perform speech acts the way they said they do or model in role plays. Materials may not be available that allow students to be exposed to the range of occurrences of a given speech act. If instructors create their own materials, learners may overgeneralize from one instance to others. The author suggested productive activities in class: close-type conversation with speech acts deleted and situation role-play. The author pointed out some possible problems: students may never actually need to assume those roles, language used in such role plays may not be accurate for the actual situation, and teachers may not be knowledgeable enough to provide meaningful feedback. Then Judd questioned whether native speaker pragmatic knowledge is necessary. Judd provided a framework for teaching pragmatics in the classroom: 1. teacher analysis of the speech act, 2. cognitive awareness skills, 3. determining if students have the receptive skills to recognize the speech act, 4. controlled productive skills, 5. free integrated practice.

Kasper, G. (1997). Can pragmatic competence be taught? Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii Press.  Retrieved from http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/networks/NW06/

'Can Pragmatic Competence Be Taught?' The simple answer to the question as formulated is "no". Competence, whether linguistic or pragmatic, is not teachable. Competence is a type of knowledge that learners possess, develop, acquire, use or lose. The challenge for foreign or second language teaching is whether we can arrange learning opportunities in such a way that they benefit the development of pragmatic competence in L2. This, then, is the issue I will address in this paper.

Kasper, G. (1997). The role of pragmatics in language teacher education. In K. Bardovi-Harlig & B. Hartford (Eds.), Beyond methods: Components of second language teacher education (pp. 113-136). New York: McGraw-Hill.

The author noted that knowing how a community acts and interacts linguistically in different contexts is not enough. It is also necessary to know how L2 learners go about acquiring pragmatic competence, what kinds of L2 pragmatic info are easy or difficult to learn, to what extent learners rely on their L1 pragmatic knowledge, the success of transfer from L1, and the developmental paths in acquiring pragmatic competence. Then the function and organization of the teaching process itself is another issue. She started by looking at pragmatic knowledge as a component of communicative competence, and considered goals and process in the development of pragmatic competence. Then she gave a pragmatic view of language teaching.

Kasper, G. (2001). Classroom research on interlanguage pragmatics. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (2001). Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 33-60). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Reviews the small body of data-based research on pragmatic learning in the second or foreign language classroom and to propose some guidelines for future research on the topic. She looks at what we know about actual classroom learning of L2 pragmatics, the issues that research in this area has addressed, the theoretical perspectives adopted, the research approaches and techniques, and the main outcomes of this research. The paper examines how pragmatics is learned in the L2 classroom and the instructional options that appear most effective. She focuses on the issues that research on instruction in L2 pragmatics have examined, the theoretical perspectives adopted, the research approaches and techniques used, and the main outcomes of the research. She first reviews observational studies -- namely, those the focus primarily on classroom processes. Then she looks at interventionist studies which examine the effect of a particular instructional treatment on students' acquisition of the targeted pragmatic feature. She further classifies observational studies into non-developmental ones and developmental ones. The former include studies examining speech acts and discourse functions, discourse organization and management, discourse markers and strategies, repair, and politeness. The studies include both classroom and non-classroom contexts and both experiments and non-experiments, where the latter illustrate language acquisition and language socialization research. The Ellis (1992) study of the acquisition of requests by two elementary-school children and Cohen's (1997) study of his own Japanese learning in an accelerated course fall under developmental language acquisition research, for example. In concluding remarks about these studies, she notes that the studies are informed by different theoretical orientations -- pedagogically oriented models of discourse-pragmatic competence, SLA theories, language socialization, and socio-cultural theory. And this, in turn, impacts the selection of topics and issues for study, their treatment, methodological choices, and evaluation of outcomes. She then cites seventeen (!) interventionist studies. She notes that a number of studies found an advantage for explicit metapragmatic teaching. She raises the issue of focus on form vs. focus on meaning. She endorses the provision of metalinguistic information that is embedded in purposeful activities, triggered by an actual learner problem, and teachable at the learners' current stage of interlanguage development. That intervention would be termed "FonF." When pragmatics is involved then, interventionist studies may well reflect FonF -- focus on form and function. She also raises the issue of length of intervention and notes other variables associated with that. Kasper makes a plea for further research, especially of observational studies. She would also like to see observational data associated with interventionist studies.

Kasper, G. (2001). Learning pragmatics in the L2 classroom. In L. F. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and language learning (Vol.10, pp. 1-22).� Urbana-Champaign, IL:� University of Illinois, Division of English as an International Language.

Kasper, G., & Rose, K. R. (1999). Pragmatics and SLA. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 19, 81-104.

Article focusing just on those pragmatics studies dealing with language development or SLA. The paper first lists those 18 that were cross-sectional in nature. Many fewer are longitudinal in nature -- she includes 9, such as Schmidt's (1993) study of Wes and then of himself, written up with Frota (1986), Siegal (1994) of five women in Japan, and then Cohen (1997) learning Japanese in Hawaii. Only one deal with comprehension -- of implicature by 30 ESL learners (Bouton, 1992, 1994). Much of this paper reappeared in Kasper's chapter, "Classroom research on interlanguage pragmatics" (33-60), in the Rose & Kasper CUP volume (2001).

Kasper, G., & Rose, K. R. (2001). Pragmatics in language teaching. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp.1-9). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The author defined pragmatics and then spoke to the issue of pragmatics in language teaching. They ended by asking whether pragmatics can be taught. They indicated differential results. The chapter ended by briefly considering the assessment of pragmatic ability.

Koester, A. J. (2002). The performance of speech acts in workplace conversations and the teaching of communicative functions. System, 30(2), 167�184. doi:10.1016/S0346-251X(02)00003-9

This article, based on a 34,000-word corpus of spoken discourse, argues for a discourse approach to teaching communicative functions or speech acts in spoken English. Starting with the premise that spoken corpora can provide valuable insights into the way speakers ‘do’ things through talk, I analyze the performance of speech acts in a corpus of workplace conversations. First a number of devices used to perform direct speech acts are analyzed in the corpus as a whole, and then the transcripts of two workplace conversations are examined in order to ascertain how the performance of two particular speech acts�giving advice and giving directives�is accomplished. These analyses show that speech acts are not usually performed directly and that it is necessary to look beyond the individual utterance to see how particular communicative acts unfold within a conversational sequence. The final section of the article discusses relevance of these findings for the teaching of functional language.

Koike, D. A., & Pearson, L. (2005). The effect of instruction and feedback in the development of pragmatic competence. System, 33(3), 481�501. doi:10.1016/j.system.2005.06.008 �

This study examines the effectiveness of teaching pragmatic information through the use of explicit or implicit pre-instruction, and explicit or implicit feedback, to English-speaking learners of third-semester Spanish. Results on a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest indicate that the groups that experienced explicit pre-instruction and explicit feedback during exercises performed significantly better than the other experimental group and the control group in multiple choice items. The group that had implicit instruction together with implicit feedback performed significantly better in the open-ended dialogues, suggesting that the question recasts used had a positive effect on their pragmatic production. The delayed posttest, however, revealed that such gains are not clearly retained in the longer term. Nevertheless, the two posttests indicate that those groups that received instruction and feedback, whether explicit or implicit, appear to become aware of a greater number of options to express suggestions, and also of a need for pragmatic mitigation, more quickly than the control group. These findings are encouraging for the use of pragmatic instruction in the classroom to develop a greater pragmatic competence.

Kubota, M. (1995). Teachability of conversational implicature to Japanese EFL learners. IRLT Bulletin, 9, 35-67. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED397640.pdf

As teaching pragmatic competence is considered to be one of the neglected aspects in English language teaching in Japan, this paper investigates the teaching of conversational English implicature of 126 Japanese English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) learners. University student participants were divided into three groups and given a multiple choice test and a sentence-combining test. In one group, the explanations of rules were given by a teacher; in the second, consciousness-raising tasks evolved from group discussion. The third group was a control. All subjects received a pre-test and two post-tests. Results indicate that experimental groups generated significantly better responses. In addition, no subjects extracted the expected pragmatic generalizations from the treatment that they were applying to the new items. Also, the conscious-raising groups performed better in the post-test than in the pre-test, and they had significantly higher scores in the guessing of items on the first post-test than the pre-test. Results confirm that teaching conversational implicature through explicit explanations of rules and consciousness-raising tasks is highly facilitative, amount of time and exposure to the pragmatic system may be a crucial factor to induction, and it may be advantageous for learners to process language on their own through consciousness-raising tasks.

Kubota, M. (1996). Appropriacy planning: Speech acts studies and planning appropriate models for ESL learners. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, (12)2, 53-70. Retrieved from http://www.gse.upenn.edu/wpel/sites/gse.upenn.edu.wpel/files/archives/v12/v12n2kubota1.pdf

Since the emergence of the concept of communicative competence, the language teaching field has focused on teaching appropriate language use in addition to general linguistic elements. Speech act studies have contributed to providing appropriate models for second and foreign language learners. In this paper, the effort toward the creation and use of appropriate models for learners in relation to the theoretical framework of planning in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) is examined. The resulting construct, "appropriacy planning," is viewed as a process of corpus intervention for ESL learners consisting of four stages: selection of speech norms; codification; implementation; and evaluation or feedback. The contribution of speech act research to each of these stages, and perceived problems in research methodology and results, are discussed. Several problems in the research and, by extension, in appropriacy planning are identified: poor definition of targeted speech communities; insufficient communication between researchers and ESL teachers, resulting in teachers' continued reliance on native-speaker intuition in determining language appropriateness; and results that may be inappropriate for some contexts and audiences of ESL instruction. Areas for future research are noted.

Lipson, M. (1994). Apologizing in Italian and English. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 32(1), 19-39.

How much do cultural values affect the use of language?� How can the language teacher help build the advanced student’s language awareness?� This experiment tries to address itself to these two issues.� It analyzes and contrasts apology strategies in American English and in Italian in terms of Marion Owen’s remedial strategies (Owen, M., 1983) and Olshtain and Cohen’s semantic formulas in the apology speech act set (Olshtain and Cohen, 1983).� The subjects for the study were 10 students at the University of Bologna and the unusual instrument used for data collection was the television:� a series of American sitcoms was shown to the students and the respective apology episode in each sitcom was rewritten by the students for an appropriate Italian context.� The difference between the original script and the students’ version were discussed and analyzed together.� The purpose of the study was not only to compare apology speech acts and remedial strategies but to also exploit the television as an educative and stimulating resource in the language classroom where live and spontaneous language is difficult to isolate for observation and analysis.� The findings suggest that the status and role of the participants in the remedial exchange situation affect the Italian speaker’s choice of apology strategies and semantic formulas more so than they do the American English speaker’s.� The limitations of the study are pointed out as well as the benefits of this kind of work in the classroom for the development of the student’s language awareness.

LoCastro, V. (2003). An introduction to pragmatics: Social action for language teachers. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

The book is designed for use in introductory courses in pragmatics (both undergraduate and graduate level) for students preparing to teach. By including the perspective of ESL and EFL educators, this book provides prospective teachers with an understanding of pragmatics that will help them: integrate the teaching of pragmatic competence in language programs and materials understand the problems learners have with comprehension of messages requiring cognitive processing beyond that of the spoken or written word evaluate textbooks and materials as well as assessment procedures for language proficiency assess the value of communicative language teaching practices assist learners in developing strategies to handle misunderstandings and other communication problems expand knowledge of how language is used in the world by people in everyday situations, including classrooms

L�rscher, W. (1986). Conversational structures in the foreign language classroom. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Learning, teaching and communication in the foreign language classroom (pp. 11-22). �rhus: Aarhus University Press.

Lubecka, A. (2000). Requests, invitations, apologies and compliments in American English and Polish: A cross-cultural communication perspective. Krak�w: Ksie�garnia Akademicka.

Martinez-Flor, A., & Uso Juan, E. (2006). A comprehensive pedagogical framework to develop pragmatics in the foreign language classroom: The 6Rs approach. Applied Language Learning, 16(2), 39�64.

To prepare learners for successful communication is nowadays one of the main goals of teaching practices of lecturers of English as a Second (ESL) or Foreign (EFL) language in the University setting. Consequently, language teaching needs to focus not only on linguistic or strategic aspects of the target language, but also on the development of the learner’s pragmatic competence, which refers to the ability of employing target-language linguistic resources in an appropriate way for a particular context. Given this necessity, instruction in pragmatics has recently motivated a lot of research (Rose & Kasper, 2001; Bardovi-Harlig & Mahan-Taylor, 2003; Mart�nez-Flor, Us�-Juan & Fern�ndez-Guerra, 2003; Alc�n & Mart�nez-Flor, 2005). Additionally, this need is stronger in the foreign language setting, since the opportunities to be in contact with authentic language use outside the classroom are very limited (Rose, 1999). In an attempt to contribute to this area of research, in this paper we present a comprehensive pedagogical framework, called the 6Rs Approach, aimed at providing EFL lecturers with a pedagogical tool that may help them to integrate pragmatics in their teaching syllabi. This guiding framework, which has been elaborated on previous approaches and techniques from the field of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP), focuses on requests and suggestions as two speech acts that may intrinsically threaten the hearer’s face and, therefore, need to be performed in an appropriate way for their successful completion.

Martinez-Flor, A., & Uso-Juan, E. (2010). Speech act performance: Theoretical, empirical and methodological Issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Speech acts are an important and integral part of day-to-day life in all languages. In language acquisition, the need to teach speech acts in a target language has been demonstrated in studies conducted in the field of interlanguage pragmatics which indicate that the performance of speech acts may differ considerably from culture to culture, thus creating communication difficulties in cross-cultural encounters. Considering these concerns, the aim of this volume is two-fold: to deal with those theoretical approaches that inform the process of learning speech acts in particular contextual and cultural settings; and, secondly, to present a variety of methodological proposals, grounded on research-based ideas, for the teaching of the major speech acts in second/foreign language classrooms. This volume is a valuable theoretical and practical resource not only for researchers, teachers and students interested in speech act learning/teaching but also for textbook writers wishing to have an informed opinion on the pedagogical implications derived from research on speech act performance.

Martinez-Flor, A., Uso-Juan, E., & Fernandez Guerra, A. (Eds.), (2003). Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching. Castello de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

McLean, T. (2004). Giving students a fighting chance: Pragmatics in the language classroom. TESL Canada Journal. 21(2). 72-92.

In order to give language learners a fighting chance outside the classroom, teachers must provide them with consciousness-raising opportunities for developing pragmatic awareness. By attending to pragmatic factors in second-language (L2) situations, students will be better able to make informed decisions in negotiating effective communication., This article examines the potential use of the pragmatic discourse completion task (DCT) as a springboard for discussion in the L2 classroom. A description of a DCT used in a study involving advanced L2 learners at the University of Alberta (Ranta, 2002) is provided. The author also provides suggestions for developing students' pragmatic awareness.

Meier, A. J. (1996). Two cultures mirrored in repair work. Multilingua, 15(2), 159-169. doi:10.1515/mult.1996.15.2.149

This paper explores the reflections of two cultures in their respective use of Repair Work strategies (i.e., apologies, excuses) as exhibited in a contrastive corpus-based study of Midwest American English and Austrian German.� The interplay of cultural perceptions revealed in particular situations in this study supports an awareness-raising approach to incorporating sociopragmatic aspects into foreign and second language pedagogy.

Meier, A. J. (2003). Posting the Banns: A marriage of pragmatics and culture in foreign and second language pedagogy and beyond. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 185-210). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

Meier picked up on the House (1999) case for pragmatics in English as a lingua franca. Her question was how culture might be included in language teaching without contaminating it with an undue amount of linguacultural imperialism. She argued for a culture general approach -- getting beyond one's singular world view.

Mor�n, R. G., Cruz, M. P., Amaya, L. F., & Lopez, M. O. (Eds.). (2009). Pragmatics applied to language teaching and learning. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

This volume presents a wide ranging overview of key theoretical and practical issues, empirical research and various analyses of pragmatic phenomena that will certainly be most useful and helpful to students and researchers in pragmatics and other linguistic disciplines and, of course, to L2 teachers. It is divided into five parts that include chapters addressing cognitive issues on L2 teaching, how and what to teach when dealing with specific speech acts, intercultural aspects of communication, the teaching of languages for academic and specific purposes and some other methodological issues on pragmatics teaching.

Myers-Scotton, C., & Bernstein, J. (1988). Natural conversation as a model for textbook dialogue. Applied Linguistics, 9(4), 372-384. doi:10.1093/applin/9.4.372

This paper considers the relevance for TESOL classes (and, indirectly, for any second language classes) of several studies of natural conversations involving native speakers of American English in direction-giving and also in directive use in service encounters. The study demonstrates all direction-givers show overwhelming uniformity in the structure of their direction-giving turn. Also, natural direction-giving contains many other turns and parts outside of the request for directions and the actual directions. In addition, findings show such exchanges make cognitive and interactional demands on the direction-seeker not normally taught in TESOL textbook dialogues. The directive studies present empirical evidence on how the unmarked (expected) directive form in American English varies across situations. The paper argues that unless classroom materials contain the interactional and peripheral parts characteristic of real direction-giving, the learner will have little chance to develop selective listening skills. Also, unless classroom directive exercises pay attention to what form is unmarked for what situation, the learner may use syntactically well-formed directives in marked ways.

Nakagawa, Y. (1997). Nihongo iraino hyougen: Iraino sugorateji to nihongo kyouiku. [Expressing requests in Japanese: The strategies for expressing requests and teaching Japanese]. Kyoto University of Foreign Studies Academic Bulletin L, p. 218-227

This study compares the questionnaire-elicited request performance from 203 native speakers of Japanese, 24 highly advanced learners of Japanese, and 8 advanced learners of Japanese. Eleven Japanese language textbooks were also analyzed in terms of the request strategies used. Most of the textbooks, with an exception of a few, employ only a few request strategies and their relationships to contextual variables seem to be mostly ignored.

Nguyen, T. T. M., & Basturkmen, H. (2010). Teaching constructive critical feedback. In D. H. Tatsuki & N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 125-140). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Niezgoda, K., & R�ver, C. (2001). Pragmatic and grammatical awareness: A function of the learning environment. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 63-79). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The study compared 48 ESL learners in a private language school in Honolulu with 124 university-level EFL learners in the Czech Republic. The two independent variables for the study were learning environment and learners' proficiency and the dependent measures were awareness of pragmatic and grammatical errors. The respondents had to judge the appropriateness and grammatical correctness of utterances in a school environment (classrooms, hallways, teachers' offices). They found that environment had little effect except that ESL learners had higher pragmatic than grammatical awareness. They included that contact alone was not the explanation but rather attention to the pragmatic features of the input. For the ESL sample, higher proficiency and a longer stay in the target country meant less awareness of pragmatic errors. The higher proficiency EFL learners found more grammatical errors than did the lower proficiency ones. They concluded that the effect of proficiency was best attributed

Olshtain, E., & Cohen, A. D. (1990). The learning of complex speech behavior. The TESL Canada Journal, 7(2), 45-65. Retrieved from http://teslcanadajournal.ca/index.php/tesl/article/viewFile/568/399

The study reported in this article concerned itself with the learning and teaching of the more subtle and complex features of the speech act of apology in English. Based on available knowledge about apology speech act behavior, the authors addressed themselves to questions relating to the efficacy of teaching such elements as: choice of semantic formula; appropriate length of realization patterns; use of intensifiers; judgment of appropriacy; and students' preferences for certain teaching techniques. In order to attempt to answer these questions the authors carried out a training study with 18 adult learners of English, speakers of Hebrew. The study consisted of: a) a pre-teaching questionnaire aimed at assessing the subjects' use of apologies, b) a teaching materials packet covering three classroom sessions, and c) a post-teaching questionnaire. The findings suggested to the researchers that although they did not find clear-cut evidence of quantitative improvement in the learners' speech act behavior after the given training program, there was an obvious qualitative approximation of native-like speech act behavior with respect to types of intensification and downgrading, choice of strategy, and awareness of situational factors. The authors concluded that the teaching of speech act behavior was a worthwhile project even if the aim is only to raise the learners' awareness of appropriate speech act behavior.

Olshtain, E., & Cohen, A.D. (1991). Teaching speech act behavior to nonnative speakers. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 154-165. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Padilla Cruz, M. (2013). Understanding and overcoming pragmatic failure in intercultural communication: From focus on speakers to focus on hearers. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 51(1), 23�54. doi:10.1515/iral-2013-0002

For learners to communicate efficiently in the L2, they must avoid pragmatic failure. In many cases, teachers' praxis centres on the learner's performance in the L2 or his role as a speaker, which neglects the importance of his role as interpreter of utterances. Assuming that, as hearers, learners also have a responsibility to avoid pragmatic failure, this paper endorses the relevance-theoretic view of communication, its explanation about why misunderstandings arise, and the belief that the learner's sophistication in understanding is not the same as that of a native. Therefore, it argues that learners must be taught to be cautious optimistic hearers. As a result, learners will be able to reject interpretations of utterances, which, due to the linguistic or cultural incompetence of their native or non-native interlocutors in the L2 system, they are led to regard as relevant enough although their interlocutors may have expected them to arrive at a different interpretation.

Pearson, L. (2006). Patterns of development in Spanish L2 pragmatic acquisition: An analysis of novice learners’ production of directives. Modern Language Journal, 90(4), 473�495. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2006.00427.x

A study examined the development of pragmatic competence by novice students of second language (L2) Spanish. Participants were 131 students of Spanish at the University of Texas at Austin. Results revealed that verb forms with greater morphological complexity took the place of lower level directive strategies. In addition, results suggested that pragmatic competence preceded grammatical competence and that the first language pragmatic system had a role in processing L2 data for use in production. Implications of the results are discussed.

Pearson, L. (2006). Teaching pragmatics in Spanish L2 courses: What do learners think? In K. Bardovi-Harlig, C. Felix-Brasdefer, & A. Omar (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning (Vol. 11, pp. 109-134). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii at Manoa, National Foreign Language Resource Center.

Rose, K. R. (1994). Pragmatic consciousness-raising in an EFL context. In L.F. Bouton & Y. Kachru (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning monograph series (Vol. 5, pp. 52-63). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Research has underscored the need to develop pragmatic competence in learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). Learners have a target community (native speakers) to both model themselves after and practice with. However, in English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) settings, this is not the case. Most learners will not use pragmatic competence at all, and those who do will use it primarily with other non-native speakers (NNSs), so it is not clear just whose pragmatic system is to serve as a model. Most EFL teachers are NNSs and so do not have the native-speaker (NS) intuitions needed to use the approaches and materials common to ESL settings. It seems most feasible to adopt a pragmatic consciousness-raising approach, which has as its aims the sensitizing of learners to context-based variation in language use and the role of variables that help determine that variation. Such an approach can be adopted by both NS and NNS teachers and has the advantage of providing learners with a foundation in some of the central aspects of pragmatics, which they can then apply in whatever setting they may encounter as their English proficiency develops.

Rose, K. R. (1997). Pragmatics in the classroom: Theoretical concerns and practical possibilities. In L. F. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and language learning, (Vol. 8, pp. 267-295). University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Division of English as an International Language.

Rose, K. R. (1999). Teachers and students learning about requests in Hong Kong. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in second language teaching and learning (pp. 167-180). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The study dealt with the nature of pragmatic competence and pragmatic consciousness-raising (PCR). Rose offered some techniques for PCR based on activities focusing on requests that were carried out with students in Hong Kong. He defined PCR as an inductive approach to developing awareness of how language forms are used appropriately in context. The aim was not to teach explicitly the various means of performing a given speech act (request, apology, and compliment) but rather to expose learners to the pragmatic aspects of language (L1 and L2) and provide them with the analytical tools they need to arrive at their own generalizations concerning contextually appropriate language use. A caveat was that very little has been known about the effects of such consciousness-raising activities. Teachers can start by giving examples of pragmatic failure -- anecdotes. Then an area was presented, such as requests, with description of its various components. Then the EFL students had a worksheet and collected data on requests in their L1. From the Hong Kong data the students learned about conventionally indirect requests.

Rose, K. R. (2001). Compliments and compliment responses in film: Implications for pragmatics research and language teaching. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 39(4), 309-326. doi:10.1515/iral.2001.007

Film has been used widely as a resource in second and foreign language classrooms�mainly for the teaching of listening and speaking skills�and some have argued that it represents a useful resource for teaching pragmatics.� Film is also an essentially unexplored potential resource for research on discourse and pragmatics.� A central issue in the use of film for language teaching and research is that of validity:�� how well does film language represent the ways that people actually talk?� This paper examine a corpus of compliments and compliment responses excerpted from forty American feature films, comparing their realization to naturally-occurring data from the available speech act literature.� Results indicate that film language appears to be most representative of naturally-occurring speech from a pragmalinguistic perspective�particularly where major categories such as syntactic formula in compliments is concerned�and less so in terms of sociopragmatics.

Rose, K. R. (2005). On the effects of instruction in second language pragmatics. System, 33(3), 385-399. doi:10.1016/j.system.2005.06.003

Despite the fact that research on the effects of instruction in second language pragmatics is a subset of the literature on instructed second language acquisition, pragmatics as a learning target does not figure prominently in most surveys of this area. This is due partly to the fact that instructional effects research in second language acquisition has only recently come into its own and still has a long way to go [Norris, J., Ortega, L., 2000. Effectiveness of L2 instruction: a research synthesis and quantitative meta-analysis. Language Learning 50, 417�528], but also is the result of a relative neglect of pragmatics in second language acquisition in general. Nevertheless, arguments have been put forward for the necessity of instruction in pragmatics [Bardovi-Harlig, K., 2001. Evaluating the empirical evidence: grounds for instruction in pragmatics? In: Rose, K.R., Kasper, G. (Eds.), Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 13�32], and there is now a growing body of research which addresses this issue [Kasper, G., Rose, K.R., 2002. Pragmatic development in a second language. Blackwell, Mahwah, NJ. (Also Language Learning: Supplement 1, 52)]. This paper will review the literature on the effects of instruction in second language pragmatics by first considering the learning targets, learner characteristics and learning contexts represented in the studies done to date. Following this, are three central issues which occupy much of the literature: the teachability of pragmatics, the relative benefits of instruction versus exposure, and whether different approaches to instruction yield different results.

Rose, K. R., & Kasper, G. (Eds.). (2001). Pragmatics in language teaching. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

This book examines the acquisition of language use in social contexts in second and foreign language classrooms. Included are 2 state-of-the-art survey chapters, and 11 chapters reporting the results of empirical research, all written especially for this collection. The empirical studies cover three areas: incidental acquisition of pragmatics in instructed contexts, the effects of instruction in pragmatics, and the assessment of pragmatics ability. The studies address a number of areas in pragmatics, from speech acts and discourse markers to conversational routines and address terms, and represent a range of target languages and contexts in the United States, Asia, and Europe. A wide array of research methodologies are also employed, from questionnaires to in-depth interviews and conversation analysis. The first collection of its kind, Pragmatics in Language Teaching offers a comprehensive and essential introduction to a rapidly growing area, and should be of interest to researchers, graduate students, and language teachers.

Rose, K. R., & Kwai-fun, C. Ng (2001). Inductive and deductive teaching of compliments and compliment responses. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (2001). Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 145-170). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The article compared the effects of inductive and deductive approaches to the teaching of English compliments and compliment responses to university-level learners of English in Hong Kong. While the deductive group (N=16) was provided with metapragmatic information through explicit instruction before engaging in practice activities, the inductive group (N=16) engaged in pragmatic analysis activities in which they were expected to arrive at the relevant generalizations themselves. Three measures of learner performance were administered in a pretest/posttest design: a self-assessment task (from Hudson et al. and asking respondents to indicate what they believe to be the level of their ability to respond appropriately in the 18 scenarios), a discourse completion task (DCT) (with respondents providing both the compliment and the response for the 18 scenarios), and a metapragmatic assessment task (where they had to rank-order four possible responses from the most to the least appropriate for the same scenarios). The DCT and metapragmatic assessment task were also administered to native speakers of English and native speakers of Cantonese. Results were mixed, indicating no effect for instruction on learner confidence or metapragmatic assessment of appropriate compliment responses. However, the results from the DCT showed a marked increase in the use of compliment formulas by both treatment groups, with no similar increase for the control group (N=12). Results for compliment responses revealed a positive effect only for the deductive group, indicating that although inductive and deductive instruction may both lead to gains in pragmalinguistic proficiency, only the latter may be effective for developing sociopragmatic proficiency.

Rose, M. (2012). Grammar in the real world: Enhancing grammar lessons with pragmatics.Hispania, 95(4), 670-680. doi:10.1353/hpn.2012.0129

Previous work in the field of interlanguage pragmatics suggests that learners of a second or foreign language benefit from metapragmatic instruction (e.g., F�lix-Brasdefer 2008a; Kasper and Rose 2002; Koike and Pearson 2005). The most common approach taken in studies on instruction is to focus on a speech act and to develop a lesson that acts as a separate unit for the learners (or study participants). The current article presents a slightly different approach, suggesting that language educators enhance grammar lessons that are already part of the curriculum with instruction on pragmatics. Instead of developing additional units, this article shows how grammar lessons can be extended and enhanced using internet searches on Google and YouTube to find authentic materials in addition to authentic written texts. These lessons, in addition to providing metapragmatic instruction, also present opportunities to make cross-cultural comparisons between different Spanish-speaking countries and the United States.

Safont-Jord�, M. P. (2003). Instructional effects on the use of request acts modification devices by EFL learners. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 211-232). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

While the use of modification devices in requesting was not explicitly taught in her study, the investigator found that awareness-raising and pragmatic production tasks favored the use of peripheral modification devices by 160 female learners of EFL. The categories were "softeners," "attention getters," "hesitation," "grounders," "disarmers," expanders," and "please." She used a discourse completion test in a pretest/posttest design over one semester. She used a 5-point continuum of politeness in requests in her treatment. She found that while at pre-testing few modification devices were used, at post-testing the learners largely modified their requests. In post-testing, the learners began to use attention getters, a bit of grounding, and many instances of "please."

Salazar Campillo, P. (2003). Pragmatic instruction in the EFL context. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 233-246). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

The researcher did her study with 14 English NNS 2nd-year law students (12 F, 2 M), and set out to increase the students' pragmatic awareness by means of tasks to enhance politeness and indirectness. She gave a pretest of requesting with a DCT with 5 production situations and also rating of politeness. Then the next session she taught request strategies (from the most indirect to the most direct) and then focus on lexical downgraders. Then they had a posttest. Three weeks later she gave another, delayed posttest. She found a qualitative increase in the use of requests for on a DCT immediately after instruction (e.g., the use of some mitigation) but this effect was not maintained in delayed tasks (back to ability strategies and the use of "please," as in the pretest). Her conclusions were that the effects of instruction were only for the short term.

Sameshima, S. (1998). Communication task ni okeru nihongo gakusyusha no tenkei hyougen/bunmatsu hyougen no syuutokukatei: Chuugokugo washa no "ira" "kotowari" "shazai" no baai (‘The acquisition of fixed expressions and sentence-ending expressions by learners of Japanese’). Nihongo Kyouiku (‘Journal of Japanese Language Teaching’), 98, 73-84.

This paper examined the speech act performance of request, refusal, and apology by Chinese speakers of Japanese in Taiwan. Three levels of learners, high-beginners, low-intermediate, and high-intermediate, took a discourse completion test that included 3 situations eliciting the three speech act performance. The results were analyzed in terms of the linguistic form of each core speech act and the language use in the opening and closing of the dialogue. The author also compared the learners’ performance with the expressions included in their textbooks. Generally results showed that learners’ linguistic performance approximated that of native speakers as their levels became more advanced, although all level learners tended to oversimplify opening and closing statements.

Sasaki, M. (1998). Investigating EFL students' production of speech acts: A comparison of production questionnaires and role plays. Journal of Pragmatics, 30(4), 457-484. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00013-7

The present study compares two popular measures of second language pragmatic competence: production questionnaires and role plays. Twelve Japanese university students representing three different English proficiency levels responded to both measures for the same four request and four refusal situations. Response length, range and content of the expressions, and native speaker evaluations of these responses were analyzed.

The production questionnaire and role play elicited somewhat different production samples from the students. Role plays induced longer responses, and a larger number and greater variety of strategies/formulas, than production questionnaires. These differences appear to be caused by the interactive nature of role plays. Students often switched strategies for the same situations across different methods. Such intra-participant variations could have been missed if different participants had responded to different methods as in many previous studies. In addition, the correlation between the appropriateness scores of the two methods was not high enough to support the claim that they measured exactly the same trait. The low correlation probably resulted not only because the two methods produced different responses, but also because the role play responses provided additional audio-visual information, which might have affected the raters' evaluations. These findings suggest that production questionnaire scores cannot be simply substituted for role play scores.

Schauer, G. (2006). Pragmatic awareness in ESL and EFL contexts: Contrast and development. Language Learning, 56(2), 269-318. doi:10.1111/j.0023-8333.2006.00348.x

The study reported on in this article set out to replicate and extend Bardovi-Harlig and D�rnyei's (1998) investigation of pragmatic awareness by addressing two research questions: (a) Do learners in English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) contexts display differences in their recognition and rating of pragmatic and grammatical errors?(b) Do ESL learners increase their pragmatic awareness during an extended stay in the target environment? The data were elicited using Bardovi-Harlig and D�rnyei's video-and-questionnaire instrument accompanied by post hoc interviews. The 53 participants in the study included 16 German students studying at a British university, 17 German students enrolled in a higher education institution in Germany, and 20 British English native-speaking controls. The data show that the German EFL participants were less aware of pragmatic infelicities than the ESL group and that the ESL learners increased their pragmatic awareness significantly during their stay in Great Britain.

Schmidt, R. (1993). Consciousness, learning and interlanguage pragmatics. In G. Kasper & S. Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 21-42). New York: Oxford University Press. [Available online]

A discussion of the ways that consciousness may be involved in learning the principles of second-language discourse and pragmatics draws on current theories of the role of consciousness in human learning in general, with suggestions for extension to the learning of pragmatics. First, research on the degree of consciousness in pragmatic learning and on consciousness and principles of language learning is reviewed. Three distinctions are examined: conscious perception versus subliminal influence in learning; explicit versus implicit learning; and intentional versus incidental learning. Anecdotal and empirical evidence that the research findings are relevant for the learning of first- and second-language pragmatics is assessed. Further evidence for the generalization of principles of pragmatics and discourse is also discussed. It is concluded that data from experimental psychology clearly support the following hypotheses: (1) attention to input is a necessary condition for any learning; and (2) what must be attended to is not input in general, but whatever features of the input play a role in the system to be learned. For learning of second language pragmatics, attention to linguistic forms, functional meanings, and relevant contextual features is required.

Schmidt, R., & Richards, C. (1980) Speech acts and second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 129-157. doi:10.1093/applin/I.2.129.

Soler, E. A. (2005). Does instruction work for learning pragmatics in the EFL context? System. 33(3), 417-435.

This paper was based on a study which attempted to examine the efficacy of instruction at the pragmatic level. Specifically, the main purpose of the study was to investigate to what extent two instructional paradigms � explicit versus implicit instruction � affected learners knowledge and ability to use request strategies. One hundred and thirty-two students were randomly assigned to three groups (explicit, implicit and control). The three groups were exposed to excerpts including requests taken from different episodes of the TV series "Stargate." However, while the explicit group received instruction by means of direct awareness-raising tasks and written metapragmatic feedback on the use of appropriate requests, the implicit group was provided with typographical enhancement of request strategies and a set of implicit awareness-raising tasks. Results of the study illustrated that learners’ awareness of requests benefited from both explicit and implicit instruction. However, in line with previous research, this study illustrated that, although an improvement in learners appropriate use of requests did take place after the instructional period, the explicit group showed an advantage over the implicit one. The empirical study also provided insight into interlanguage pragmatic pedagogy and presented suggestions for future research.

Soler, E. A. (2008).� Learning how to request in an instructed language learning context. Berlin: Peter Lang.

Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP) is a field of growing interest. Focussing on the speech act of requesting, the volume provides information about opportunities for pragmatic learning and how pragmatics can be integrated into instructional foreign language learning contexts. In addition, the research reported here provides methodological insights for those interested in investigating ILP from a second language acquisition perspective. The reader will also encounter some research issues worth examining in relation to pragmatic language learning. Topics include the use of assessment instruments in measuring learners' perception and production of different pragmatic issues, the long-term effects of instruction, and the effectiveness of different teaching approaches.

Soler, E. A., & Mart�nez-Flor, A. (Eds.). (2008). Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching, and testing. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

This book focuses on investigating pragmatic learning, teaching and testing in foreign language contexts. The volume brings together research that investigates these three areas in different formal language learning settings. The number and variety of languages involved both as the first language (e.g. English, Finnish, Iranian, Spanish, Japanese) as well as the target foreign language (e.g. English, French, German, Indonesian, Korean, Spanish) makes the volume especially attractive for language educators in different sociocultural foreign language contexts. Additionally, the different approaches adopted by the researchers participating in this volume, such as information processing, sociocultural, language socialization, computer-mediated or conversation analysis should be of interest to graduate students and researchers working in the area of second language acquisition.

Sykes, J. M., & Cohen, A. D. (2008). Observed learner behavior, reported use, and evaluation of a website for learning Spanish pragmatics. In Bowles, M., Foote, R., & Perpi��n, S., (Eds.), Second language acquisition and research: Focus on form and function. Selected proceedings of the 2007 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 144-157). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

With the intention of sparking additional research and discussion in this area, this paper reported on one component of an in-depth, qualitative research project to find out what language learners did when they visited a self-access website dedicated to Spanish pragmatics as well as how they perceived that experience. Ten advanced learners of Spanish participated in a one hour, face-to-face introductory lesson, engaged in various instructional activities using a Spanish pragmatics website, and completed retrospective interviews about their experience. They also completed a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest using an online virtual assessment environment. In this environment, they were required to interact with native speakers and were permitted to use strategies they were provided on the website that were specific to the performance of requests, service encounters, and apologies. The results of this analysis gave preliminary insight into what learners did with the online pragmatics materials as well as how they perceived that learning experience. Results of this small-scale study were presented with the intention of sparking additional research projects in this area. Furthermore, implications for pedagogy were presented to help L2 practitioners expand their own knowledge of student strategies in online environments in order to tailor their own materials and lessons.

Sykes, J. M., & Cohen, A. D. (2008). L2 pragmatics: Six principles for online materials development and implementation. Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language, 11, 81-100.

This article starts by calling attention to what is often a divide between theory and research on language teaching on the one hand, and classroom practice on the other, and especially when it comes to second language (L2) pragmatics.� Numerous theoretical models emphasize the importance of pragmatic instruction and present various means by which pragmatics can be incorporated and assessed in L2 learning experiences.� Despite ongoing research in this area, pragmatics is generally ignored in the second language classroom and curricular materials development (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; F�lix-Brasdefer, 2002).� Furthermore, many of the existing materials draw on intuition and perceptions of language rather than empirically driven content development (Ishihara, 2007).� In an effort to bridge this gap and add additional insights into materials creation and implementation for L2 pragmatic development, we first describe three types of computer-based materials that have recently been created and/or utilized for L2 pragmatic learning.� We then present six principles relevant to both the creation of online materials as well as their implantation in L2 learning contexts.

Sykes, J. M., & Cohen, A. D. (2008). Observed learner behavior, reported use, and evaluation of a website for learning Spanish pragmatics. In M. Bowles, R. Foote, & S. Perpi��n (Eds.), Second language acquisition and research: Focus on form and function. Selected proceedings of the 2007 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 144-157). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [Available online]

Sykes, J. M., & Cohen, A. D. (2009). Learner perception and strategies for pragmatic acquisition: A glimpse into online learning materials. In C. R. Dreyer (Ed.), Language and linguistics: Emerging trends (pp. 99-135). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Taguchi, N. (2007). Development of speech and accuracy in pragmatic comprehension in English as a foreign language. TESOL Quarterly, 41(2), 313-338.

This study examined development of pragmatic comprehension ability across time. Twenty native speakers and 92 Japanese college students of English completed a computerized listening task measuring ability to comprehend two types of implied meaning in dialogues: indirect refusals (k = 24) and indirect opinions (k = 24). The participants' comprehension was analyzed for accuracy (scores on the listening task) and comprehension speed (average time taken to answer each item correctly). L2 learners' accuracy and comprehension speed improved significantly over a 7-week period. However, the magnitude of effect was lower for comprehension speed than for accuracy. This study also examined the relationships among general L2 proficiency (measured on the ITP TOEFL), speed of lexical judgment (measured on a word recognition task), and pragmatic comprehension ability. There was a significant relationship between proficiency and accuracy (r = 0.39), as well as between lexical access speed and comprehension speed (r = 0.40). However, L2 proficiency bore no relationship to comprehension speed, and lexical access speed had no relationship with accuracy. Moreover, accuracy and comprehension speed were not related to each other. These findings suggested that development of pragmatic knowledge and processing capacity of using the knowledge could not coincide perfectly in L2 development. On the basis of her results, Taguchi argued that it was more practical and beneficial to gradually stage efforts to increase performance speech, shifting form an emphasis on lower-level mechanisms such as lexical and syntactic information to higher level mechanisms such as discourse, sociocultural, and pragmatic information.

Taguchi, N. (2007). Task difficulty in oral speech act production. Applied Linguistics, 28(1), 113-135.

This study took a pragmatic approach in examining the effects of task difficulty on L2 oral output. It used social and interpersonal dimensions to develop task types. Learners output was analyzed for appropriateness and production speed to evaluate the kind of impact that task variation could have on L2 oral output. The research aimed to provide insights into what made a task more difficult pragmatically and how the task difficulty was manifested in learners’ oral production. Participants included 20 native English speakers and 59 Japanese students of English at two different proficiency levels who produced speech acts of requests and refusals in a role play task. The task had two situation types based on three social variables: interlocutors’ power difference (P), social distance (D), and the degree of imposition (R). In one situation type, the power relationship was equal, the distance was small, and the degree of imposition was small (PDR-low). In the other situation type, the listener had greater power, the distance was large, and the degree of imposition was also large (PDR-high). The participants’ production was analyzed for overall appropriateness (rated on a 6-point scale), planning time, and speech rate. Results showed that L2 learners produced PDR-low speech acts significantly more easily and quickly, but little difference was observed in native speakers’ production. There was a significant proficiency effect on appropriateness ratings and speech rate, but not on planning time. Post hoc analyses showed that each group demonstrated different patterns in the choice of linguistic expressions over the two situation types, indicating the noteworthy impact of situational variation on oral speech act production.

Taguchi, N. (2008). The role of learning environment in the development of pragmatic comprehension. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30(4), 423-452.

This study examined the role of environment in the development of pragmatic comprehension. It tracked two groups of Japanese college students of English: 60 English foreign language (EFL) students in Japan and 57 English second language (ESL) students in the United States. The learners completed a computerized listening task that measured their ability to comprehend two types of implied meaning: indirect refusals (k = 24) and indirect opinions (k = 24). The task was given to each group twice, before and after the students received approximately 120�130 hours of English classroom instruction. Comprehension was analyzed for accuracy (scores) and speed (average time taken to answer each item correctly). Results showed that accuracy and comprehension speed improved significantly over time for both groups. For the EFL group, the magnitude of effect was much less for speed than for accuracy. In contrast, ESL learners showed significant improvement in comprehension speed, with a sizable effect size, but only marginal improvement in accuracy.

Taguchi, N. (2011). Teaching pragmatics: Trends and issues. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 289-310. doi:10.1017/S0267190511000018

Theoretical, empirical, and practical interest in pragmatic competence and development for second language (L2) learners has resulted in a large body of literature on teaching L2 pragmatics. This body of literature has diverged into two major domains: (a) a group of experimental studies directly testing the efficacy of various instructional methods in pragmatics learning and (b) research that explores optimal instructional practice and resources for pragmatic development in formal classroom settings. This article reviews literature in these two domains and aims at providing a collective view of the available options for pragmatics teaching and the ways that pragmatic development can best be promoted in the classroom. In the area of instructional intervention, this article reviews studies under the common theoretical second language acquisition paradigms of explicit versus implicit instruction, input processing instruction, and skill acquisition and practice. In the area of classroom practice and resources, three domains of research and pedagogical practices are reviewed: material development and teacher education, learner strategies and autonomous learning, and incidental pragmatics learning in the classroom. Finally, this article discusses unique challenges and opportunities that have been embraced by pragmatics teaching in the current era of poststructuralism and multiculturalism.

Takahashi, S. (2001). The role of input enhancement in developing pragmatic competence. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 171-199). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The article examined the effects of input enhancement on the development of English request strategies by Japanese EFL learners at a Japanese university, using four input conditions -- explicit teaching (N=27) (detailed info on requests + a composition exercise packet with Japanese-English translation exercises, hi-lo status and social distance noted), form-comparison (N=25) (respondents to compare their utterances with those of native speakers and determine differences), form-search (N=24) (comparing non-native speakers with native speaker utterances, but not their own), and meaning-focused (N=31) (reading transcripts of interactions and having to answer comprehension questions addressing the content) conditions. The researcher was interested in both success at learning requests and at level of confidence. An open-ended discourse completion task and a measure of confidence in selecting request forms were administered pre-post. Written immediate retrospective verbal report data were also collected to gain information about the subjects’ conscious decisions during their request performance. The degrees of input enhancement were found to influence the acquisition of request forms, with the explicit teaching having the strongest impact, then form-comparison, form-search, and meaning-focused in that order. Explicit instruction helped develop both proficiency and confidence to a greater extent than the other three conditions. The form-search and meaning-focused conditions both failed to draw the learners’ attention to the target forms in the input.

Takahashi, S. (2010). The effect of pragmatic instruction on speech act performance. In A. Mart�nez-Flor & E. Uso-Juan (Eds.), Speech act performance: Theoretical, empirical and methodological issues (pp. 126�142). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Takahashi, T., & Beebe, L. M. (1986). ESL teachers' evaluation of pragmatic vs. grammatical errors. CUNY Forum, 12, 172-203.

The study analyzed ESL teachers' reactions to pragmatic errors as compared with their corrections of grammatical errors -- specifically, how they reacted to refusals that contained grammatical and pragmatic errors. A questionnaire was prepared to elicit ESL teachers' reactions to 18 refusals -- 6 made by intermediate ESL students, 6 by advanced, and 6 from native American English data. Half were refusals of invitations, other half refusals of requests. They varied as to the nature of the mistake(s). The AE responses were doctored to include grammatical errors. 15 teachers graded according to classifications for grammar, style, spelling/punctuation, and pragmatics. This study did not yield clear indications as to whether grammatical or pragmatic errors were attended to more. So, a second study was conducted where the number of grammatical mistakes was controlled for in each item -- one per item. The sequence and content of pragmatic features in each refusal was left unchanged. A new group of 15 teachers was used. Here they found an increase in attention to the pragmatic level, with each higher proficiency level of student rated higher, because grammar errors were controlled. The first study had more corrections and comments per item. In the first study teachers were unable to provide many comments on sociolinguistic appropriateness due, they argued, to preoccupation with grammatical errors. In the second study when minimum attention to grammar was required, ESL teachers' awareness of sociolinguistic appropriateness became well manifested.

Takimoto, M. (2006). The effects of explicit feedback on the development of pragmatic proficiency. Language Teaching Research, 10(4), 393�417. doi:10.1191/1362168806lr198oa

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of two types of input-based instruction, structured input instruction (a structured input task only) and structured input instruction with feedback (the structured input task + reactive explicit feedback) for teaching English polite requestive forms, involving 45 Japanese learners of English. Treatment group performance was compared to that of a control group on the pre-tests, post-tests, and follow-up tests: a discourse completion test, a role-play test, a listening judgement test, and an acceptability judgement test. The results of data analysis indicate that the two treatment groups performed better than the control group, and that the explicit reactive feedback was not always indispensable in the structured input task.

Takimoto, M. (2008). The Effects of deductive and inductive instruction on the development of language learners' pragmatic competence. Modern Language Journal, 92(3), 369-386. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2008.00752.x

A study examined the impacts of deductive and inductive teaching approaches to the attainment of pragmatic competence on learners of English as a foreign language. Each of 60 adult native speakers of Japanese with intermediate-level proficiency in English were randomly assigned to one of four groups, comprised of three treatment groups and one control group. Both the deductive and inductive approaches comprised various types of explicit input-based instruction to teach the learners how to employ lexical/phrasal downgraders and syntactic downgraders in English to perform complex requests. A pretest, a posttest, and a follow-up test were completed by the participants. Results showed that the three treatment groups performed appreciably better than the control group. In addition, for the listening test, only the participants in the deductive instruction group demonstrated a reduction in the positive influences of the treatment between the posttest and the follow-up test.

Takimoto, M. (2009). Exploring the effects of input-based treatment and test on the development of learners’ pragmatic proficiency. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(5), 1029-1046. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2008.12.001

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of three types of input-based instruction: comprehension-based instruction (proactive explicit information + structured input task), structured input instruction (structured input task), and consciousness-raising instruction (consciousness-raising task). The present study also investigates how the effectiveness of these different types of input-based instruction varies according to the method of assessment of learners’ pragmatic proficiency. Treatment group performance was compared to that of a control group on pre-, post-, and follow-up tests, which took the form of a planned discourse completion test, a planned role-play test, an unplanned listening judgment test, and a planned acceptability judgment test. The results of the data analysis indicate that the three treatment groups performed significantly better than the control group, but that the comprehension-based instruction group did not maintain the positive effects of the treatment between the post-test and follow-up test in the listening test. The results of the data analysis also reveal a significant main effect for Test and the three types of input-based instruction varies according to the method of testing.

Tanaka, K. (1997).� Developing pragmatic competence:� A learners-as-researchers approach.� TESOL Journal, 6(3), 14-18.

Argues that one method of successfully raising learners' awareness of the sociocultural rules of speaking a foreign language is to invite them to become researchers of that language. Concludes that while the acquisition of pragmatic competence is a slow process, appropriate activities enhance the learners' chances for academic, professional, and social success.

Tateyama, Y. (2001). Explicit and implicit teaching of pragmatic routines. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 200-222). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The study analyzed the effects of explicit and implicit instruction in the use of attention getters, expressions of gratitude, and apologies to beginning students of Japanese as a foreign language. The groups received treatments four times over an 8-week period, with the treatment for the explicit group (N=13) including explicit metapragmatic information, whereas that for the implicit group (N=14) withheld it. Participants engaged in role-play and multiple-choice tasks as well as two different forms of self-report (retrospective verbal report from the students and the raters' comments as well). There were no differences between the two groups in the multiple-choice and role-play tasks. However, close examination of the errors in the multiple-choice tasks indicated that the participants in the explicit group were more successful in choosing the correct answers in items that required higher formality of the linguistic expressions. It seemed that these participants benefited from explicit teaching on how the degree of indebtedness in thanking situations, the severity of offense in the apology contexts, and such factors as age social status, and in-group/out-group distinction intricately influenced the choice of routine formulas. This suggested that some aspects of interlanguage pragmatics were teachable to beginners before they developed analyzed second language knowledge.

Tateyama, Y. (2007). JFL learners’ pragmatic development and classroom interaction examined from a language socialization perspective. In D. R. Yoshimi &. H. Wang (Eds.), Selected Papers from Pragmatics in the CJK Classroom: The State of the Art. Hawai'i: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawai'i.

The study aimed to do a close investigation of actual talk in order to see the socialization process in action. Using a quasi-experimental design, the study investigated: 1) the effects of instruction in teaching the speech act of requesting in Japanese to adult Japanese foreign language (JFL) learners as measured by pre- and post-tests; and 2) how classroom interaction, in particular teacher’s use of directives or requests as well as interactions that students engaged in with respect to making a request, was related to the L2 learners’ pragmatic development. While the language socialization perspective was primarily used as a theoretical framework for the present study, the researcher expanded its operational definition to include some concepts from sociocultural theory such as assisted performance. In addition, the study examined the effects of instruction in teaching Japanese requests to JFL learners as well as how classroom interaction was related to the learning outcomes. Participants included 46 students in their fourth semester (second year) of Japanese classes at an American university. The findings revealed that the students improved their performances in discourse completion tasks, telephone message tasks, and role plays in the post-test. However, no statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups. With regard to the relationship between classroom interaction and the learning outcomes, it was found that the teacher’s talk included quite a few direct request forms or directives, and the author asserted that this might had affected the students’ extensive use of direct request strategies, in particular in the pre-test. After the instructional intervention, the use of indirect request strategies increased in both groups in the post-test.

Tateyama, Y., & Kasper, G. (2008). Talking with a classroom guest: Opportunities for learning Japanese pragmatics. In E. Alc�n Soler & A. Mart�nez-Flor (Eds.), Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching and testing (pp. 46-71). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Retrieved from http://www.hawaii.edu/sls/sls/wp-content/uploads/Talkingwith.pdf

By employing a social-interactional participation framework, the authors investigated foreign language learners’ exposure to and participation in request utterances. More specifically, the study used a discourse analysis to document the dynamics for a classroom of Japanese foreign language students of processes in their learning how to request. The focus on learning how to request involved describing what participation meant and the kinds of assistance made available to them. The chapter provided numerous samples of data from the classroom discourse. The authors looked at teacher to learners’ requests, teacher to native speaker classroom guest, and a request from the classroom guest to the learners. The results of this investigation demonstrated that the presence of the classroom guest helped expose foreign language learners to a greater variety of request strategies, interactional sequences, linguistic resources, and speech styles than they would normally encounter in a typical foreign language classroom.

Tateyama, Y., Kasper, G., Mui, L. P., Tay, H.-M., & Thananart, O. (1997). Explicit and implicit teaching of pragmatic routines. In L. F. Bouton (Ed.), Pragmatics and Language Learning. Volume 8 (pp. 163-177). Urbana, IL: Division of English as an International Language, Intensive English Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The article reported on a study on the teaching of pragmatics with 14 undergrads in Japanese class at the U of Hawaii. The material included three functions of the routine formula sumimasen � as attention getter, apology, and thanking expression. It was contrasted with other formulae filling those functions. Students had to learn the forms, discourse functions, illocutionary forces, and politeness values for these routines, as well as context factors constraining their use. In an explicit group, they discussed the different functions, followed by teacher examples and explanations. Students were given a handout that illustrated and explained the differences in the use of the routine formulae according to social context. Finally, students watched four short video clips from a Japanese TV program, Standard Japanese Course. They included the functions under study. The implicit group only saw the video and was prompted to pay attention to formulaic expressions. Both groups had only 50 minutes of such instruction. Instruments: questionnaire on students' motivation and goals for learning Japanese, one-paragraph narrative after class on "what did I learn from this lesson," worksheet with discourse completion items on the use of routine formulae. They administered a short questionnaire on the ease and difficulty of the discourse completion task (DCT) items, how the students selected routines, and whether they attended to context factors. Both the DCT and worksheet questionnaire were given as homework. One week later each student individually had to do four short role-plays with a NS Japanese, aimed at eliciting those routines. Each role-play was scored holistically by two Japanese NS instructors. After the role-play, students completed a 10-item multiple choice (MC) questionnaire on routine formulae. This was followed by a questionnaire probing for item difficulty, the respondent's reasons for choosing a particular response, and self-assessment on the MC task. Finally, each student was individually interviewed about his/her role-play performance as well as views on the instruction and alternative suggestions for approaches and activities to learn pragmatic formulae.

The explicit group received higher ratings for the role-plays. It was concluded that in order to learn which pragmatic routines are appropriate in unfamiliar contexts or in contexts where factors have different values and weights, explicit teaching was beneficial and perhaps necessary for successful learning. There was a higher correlation between self-report and role-play in the explicit group. The verbal report data demonstrated how the students considered context variables in response planning. Students also gave feedback on the teaching -- both groups liked the video material, and both expressed a preference for explicit instruction.

Tatsuski, D. (Ed.). (2005). Pragmatics in language learning, theory, and practice. Tokyo: Pragmatics Special Interest Group of the Japan Association of Language Teaching.

The first in this series is a collection of contemporary articles that delineate the role of pragmatics in the proces of language learning, the on-going development of language/linguistic theory, and the innovations of pedagogical practice.

Tatsuki, D., & Houck, N. R. (2010). Pragmatics from research to practice: Teaching speech acts. In D. H. Tatsuki and N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 1-6). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Retrieved from http://www.tesolmedia.com/docs/bookmail/677/Pragmatics_chap%201.pdf

Tatsuki, D., Houck, N. (Eds.). (2011). Pragmatics: Teaching natural conversation. TESOL, New York.

This volume offers teachers in the ESL/EFL classroom some of the first published materials for guiding learners past grammar into authentic-sounding (conventional) utterances and sequences, replacing the scripted unnatural or stilted dialogue provided in textbooks. Teachers will find a range of pedagogical activities to put to immediate use in the classroom, as students learn turn-taking, initiations and responses for formal academic and informal conversation, thanking expressions, apologies, compliments and compliment responses, differences in complimenting behavior between men and women, opening and closing telephone conversations, and use of responders such as "oh, uh-huh/mm-hm, and yeah". "Pragmatics: Teaching Natural Conversation", taken together with the previous volume, "Pragmatics: Teaching Speech Acts", provides teachers with a comprehensive basis for the theoretically sound and pedagogically effective teaching of this important, but often neglected, area of language. This book contains 13 chapters. Chapters include: (1) Introduction (Noel R. Houck and Donna H. Tatsuki); (2) Assessing Familiarity With Pragmatic Formulas: Planning Oral/Aural Assessment (Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig); (3) No Thanks. I'm Full! Raising Awareness of Expressions of Gratitude and Conventional Expressions (Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Edelmira L. Nickels); (4) Oh, I'm So Sorry! Are You All Right? Teaching Apologies (Carmella Lieske); (5) Have You Paid Someone a Compliment Today? (Jessie Carduner); (6) Male and Female Complimenting Behavior (Anne McLellan Howard); (7) Taking Turns and Talking Naturally: Teaching Conversational Turn-Taking (Donald Carroll); (8) Teaching Preference Organization: Learning How Not to Say "No" (Donald Carroll); (9) Pragmatic Competency in Telephone Conversation Openings (Jean Wong); (10) Pragmatic Competency in Telephone Conversation Closings (Jean Wong); (11) Responders: Continuers (David Olsher); (12) Responders: Change-of-State Tokens, News Markers, and Assessments (David Olsher); and (13) Developing Students' Language Awareness (Maria Dantas-Whitney).

Taylor, G. (2002). Teaching gambits: The effect of instruction and task variation on the use of conversation strategies by intermediate Spanish students. Foreign Language Annals, 35(2), 171-189.

A study of the effects of teaching gambits with 16 intermediate students of Spanish being trained in openers, keeping the floor, linking (questioning, restating, counter-argument, redirecting), reactive listening (assent, giving in, dissent, disbelief, noncommital, expressing sympathy or empathy), business situations with a stranger (requesting info or service, disagreeing/disputing/insisting, expressing gratitude or appreciation, greetings and leave-taking). This study showed complex findings -- 16 in two groups for role-playing, 9 and 7. The author found some positive pay off to instruction. Researcher made the point that teachers are not teaching these pragmatic phenomena enough.

Tomlinson, B. (1994). Pragmatic awareness activities. Language Awareness, 3(3-4), 119-129. doi:10.1080/09658416.1994.9959850

This paper advocates a language awareness approach which aims at helping learners of an L2 to develop awareness of how the target language is typically used to achieve communication. It starts by considering different interpretations of the objectives and procedures of language awareness lessons and then specifies the particular principles and objectives of the Pragmatic Awareness Approach. In doing so it stresses that pragmatic awareness can be achieved by exposing learners to language in use in such a way that they are guided to invest energy and attention in order to make discoveries for themselves. These discoveries can help learners when participating in planned discourse. They can also contribute to the learner readiness required for language acquisition by encouraging learners to note the gap between their use of the target language and that of proficient users. In addition, the discovery activities help learners to develop cognitive skills and to gain more independence as language learners. The main part describes an example of a pragmatic awareness lesson for upper intermediate students based on an extract from The Graduate by Charles Webb. In this lesson the learners are guided to make discoveries about how the interrogative and the imperative are actually used in English and about how interaction between context and language form is used to achieve illocutionary force. The paper concludes with an outline of typical procedures in a pragmatic awareness lesson and with a summary of the potential value of a pragmatic awareness approach.

Trosberg, A. (2003). The teaching of business pragmatics. In A. Mart�nez Flor, E. Us� Juan, & A. Fern�ndez Guerra (Eds.), Pragmatic competence and foreign language teaching (pp. 247-281). Castell� de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

Trosberg looked at the handling of customer complaints by business language students. She started by giving a fascinating overview of all the reasons why someone may or may not transfer from the way they would do it in their native language. For example, they may not transfer because they do not know how to do it in their L1, are aware but lack the L2 equivalent, or have faulty knowledge of the L2 cultural expectations. Then she went on to lay out how tricky it can be even if the learner has a sense of the L2 genre for the interaction. She provided an elaborate figure for how to respond to everyday complaints: opting out, evasive strategies (minimizing, querying pre-condition, blaming someone else), apology (direct or indirect -- acknowledging responsibility and explanation), remedial acts (offer of repair, concern for hearer, promise of forbearance). She gave the recipe for how to respond to a customer's complaint (p. 259), and gave a figure with possibilities (ritual acts -- thanking and explaining, or apologizing; attending to the complaint -- promise of immediate attention/correction & asking for information; remedial acts -- offer of repair, check customer satisfaction, prevent future mistakes). Trosberg then described a study carried out by Shaw and Trosberg (2000) and a follow-up study, where learners acquired new pragmatic routines through both explicit and implicit teaching. She found with 15 students a slight advantage to explicit instruction -- she has an inductive group and a deductive group. The follow-up study results indicated the relative ease at teaching pragmatic routines. They found dramatic changes in the way the complaints were handled after very little teaching over a short time. Her conclusion was that pragmatic behavior is much more open to conscious modification than syntax or phonology. She felt that these routines were easier to learn because they had a clear purpose which was meaningful within the learners' own cultural repertoire. Also the values such as "the customer is always right" helped in giving clear guidelines. She pointed out that there is no equivalent in everyday complaints.

V�squez, C., & Sharpless, D. (2009). The role of pragmatics in the master’s TESOL curriculum: Findings from a nationwide survey. TESOL Quarterly, 43(1), 5-28.

The authors noted that while recent years have seen an increase in the number of publications about pragmatics and L2 learning and teaching, the extent to which English language teacher preparation programs incorporate explicit instruction about pragmatics into their curricula remains unknown. The article reported on a national survey of master’s-level TESOL programs to determine where and how pragmatics was covered in the TESOL curriculum, what resources have been used to teach graduate TESOL students about pragmatics, as well as to determine some of the prevalent attitudes, beliefs, and opinions about pragmatics held by TESOL graduate program directors and faculty. Individuals from 94 master’s-level TESOL programs in the United States participated in the study. Participating programs represented a variety of geographic regions, institution types, and departments. The findings of the study indicated that pragmatics was covered in a wide range of courses across programs (Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis, Introduction to Linguistics, Teaching Methods, and SLA), and that the time spent covering pragmatics varied from no time at all, to more than eight weeks, depending on the program. A great deal of variation was also found in graduate program directors’ and faculty members’ beliefs about the role of pragmatics in the TESOL curriculum.

Findings revealed that when most programs taught pragmatics, they focused largely on linguistic politeness (e.g., address forms, taking social distance and relative power of interlocutor into account) and speech acts (i.e., social functions of language, such as requests and apologies). Conversational implicature (i.e., Gricean maxims, the cooperative principle) tended to be addressed somewhat less frequently than politeness and speech acts. Fewer than half of the programs (38/92) reported that they addressed interlanguage pragmatics (i.e., issues related to how pragmatic competence develops during SLA). The same low proportion of programs (38/92) reported addressing the issue of instructional or instructed pragmatics (i.e., L2 teaching applications related to fostering pragmatic competence in language learners) in their courses. One faculty member who covered pragmatics in a sociolinguistics course summarized this trend, by commenting: “I give students the theory � they can figure out the application once they are in the field.” The authors’ position was that all prospective English language teachers (both nonnative- and native-English-speaking students in graduate TESOL programs) needed to be provided systematic, explicit instruction about pragmatics.

Vellenga, H. (2004). Learning pragmatics from ESL & EFL textbooks: How likely? TESL-EJ, 8(2). Retrieved from http://tesl-ej.org/ej30/a3.html

The textbook is the center of the curriculum and syllabus in most classrooms; however, rarely does it provide enough information for learners to successfully acquire pragmatic competence. This paper reports on a qualitative and quantitative study of 8 English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks to determine the amount and quality of pragmatic information included. Detailed analysis focused specifically on the use of metalanguage, explicit treatment of speech acts, and metapragmatic information, including discussion(s) of register, illocutionary force, politeness, appropriacy and usage. Findings show that textbooks include a paucity of explicit metapragmatic information, and teachers' manuals rarely supplement adequately. Teacher surveys show that teachers seldom bring in outside materials related to pragmatics, and thus, learning pragmatics from textbooks is highly unlikely. Implications suggest that textbook developers could include authentic examples of speech acts and sufficient metapragmatic explanations to facilitate acquisition of pragmatic competence.

Vellenga, H. E. (2008). Instructional effectiveness and interlanguage pragmatics (Unpublished doctorial dissertation). Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ.

Direct instruction in pragmatics has been advocated by researchers, with few empirical studies to support this claim, until recently. This dissertation reports on the design and administration of a study of instructional effectiveness using interlanguage pragmatics content. Instruction on requests and refusals were administered to upper-intermediate English language learners who were studying in one of four instructional settings: two U.S.-based university intensive English programs, and universities in Lithuania and Japan. The instructional treatment, delivered over four instructional sessions for six hours of total instruction, used a blended methodological approach which incorporated innovations from previous instructed interlanguage pragmatics research, corpus linguistics, and a variety of second language acquisition methodologies, including adaptations of contrastive analysis and focus-on-form. Student participants (n=148) and instructor participants (n=8) completed demographic questionnaires, including information about gender, age, and previous language learning experience. Pragmatic competence was measured using a multiple choice DCT pre- and post-test, designed specifically for this study (k=18).

Quantitative and qualitative analyses of demographic data, pragmatic assessment and independent language proficiency measures as well as other observations including classroom visits, student journal responses and instructor interviews support direct instruction in pragmatics. Results indicated that learners in the Japan site benefited from direct instruction in speech acts, where a moderate treatment effect (d=0.38) was found for that population as measured by the multiple-choice DCT; however, the other treatment sites demonstrated negligible results. Independent learner characteristics also seemed to affect pragmatic competence including gender and exposure to other languages through classroom instruction or study abroad. Findings presented in this study have important implications not only for development of both a pedagogical norm for pragmatic competence but also methodologies, activities and materials to support instructed interlanguage pragmatics, as well as for teacher training.����

Vyatkina, N., & Belz, J. (2006). A learner corpus-driven intervention for the development of L2 pragmatic competence. In K. Bardovi-Harlig, C. Felix-Brasdefer, & A. Omar (Eds.), Pragmatics and language Learning (pp. 315�357). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center. Retrieved from http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/8686/1/PLL11-12Vyatkina.pdf

Wahsburn, G. N. (2001).� Using situation comedies for pragmatic language teaching and learning.� TESOL Journal, 10(4), 21-26.

Discusses the advantages of using situation comedies to teach pragmatic language usage in a second or foreign language. Gives advice on how to choose and use sitcoms and provides a sample lesson plan.

Wang, H. (2007). The elements of the business Chinese curriculum: A pragmatic approach. In D. R. Yoshimi &. H. Wang (Eds.), Selected Papers from Pragmatics in the CJK Classroom: The State of the Art . Hawai'i: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawai'i. http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/CJKProceedings/

The study attempted to build students’ pragmatic proficiency in the existing business Chinese curricula. The author started the analysis with a survey of 14 MBA students. Two topics were raised overwhelmingly among students from beginning to advanced levels: 1) "Getting to Know Each Other (informally)"; and 2) "First Meeting with Business Partners". The survey results reflected the fact that communicative competence in the most common setting (i.e., getting acquainted with one another in various scenarios and the protocols used in such interactions) were always the primary and permanent concern of learners, regardless of their proficiency level. The author also noted that learners needed to learn different styles when choosing these two topics: formal (i.e., Topic 2) and casual (i.e., Topic 1) styles. Those styles were also introduced in adjacent class periods. Each speaking style was presented with a variety of possible patterns for a given conversation. Results showed that through lecturing, group work, and a combination of teacher-centered and student-centered activities, the pragmatic-oriented explicit instructional approach in the business Chinese classroom proved to be a beneficial way for students to learn. After the completion of the experimental instructional unit, they conducted a survey that indicated the four perspectives that were welcomed by the students: 1) the collaborative or peer learning approach, 2) the list and explanation of conversation flow, 3) learning with meaning-negotiation, and 4) the teacher's analytical and detailed explanation. Students were informed of the cultural practices of the target community in addition to the instruction they received on the linguistic forms. It was noted that using authentic discourse produced by native speakers of the target language as teaching materials was also crucial � allowing students to build their own pragmatic knowledge by imitating native speakers’ action patterns highlighted in the example conversations. The author concluded that natural conversations in different scenarios, explicit instruction of conversational flow, functional use, and cultural practice were the keys for students to develop their pragmatic competence.

Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction (Vol. 53).Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

This book challenges the approaches to human interaction based on supposedly universal 'maxims of conversation' and 'principles of politeness,' which fly in the face of reality as experienced by millions of people crossing language boundaries (refugees, immigrants, etc.) and which cannot help in the practical tasks of cross-cultural communication and education. In contrast to such approaches, this book is both theoretical and practical: it shows that in different societies, norms of human interaction are different and reflect different cultural attitudes and values; and it offers a framework within which different cultural norms and different ways of speaking can be effectively explored, explained, and taught. The book discusses data from a wide range of languages and it shows that the meanings expressed in human interaction and the different 'cultural scripts' prevailing in different speech communities can be clearly and intelligibly described and compared by using a 'natural semantic metalanguage,' based on empirically established universal human concepts. As the book shows, this metalanguage can be used as a basis for teaching successful cross-cultural communication, including the teaching of languages in a cultural context.

Wildner-Bassett, M. (1984). Improving pragmatic aspects of learners' interlanguage. T�bingen: Narr.

Wildner-Bassett, M. (1986). Teaching 'polite noises': Improving advanced adult learners' repertoire of gambits. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Learning, teaching and communication in the foreign language classroom (pp. 163-178). �rhus: Aarhus University Press.

Yamanaka, E., & Fordyce, K. (2010). Online collaboration for pragmatic development- Talkpoint project. In D. H. Tatsuki and N. R. Houck (Eds.), Pragmatics: Teaching speech acts (pp. 195-206). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Yoshimi, D. R. (2001). Explicit instruction and JFL learners’ use of interactional discourse markers. In K. R. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 223�244). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This paper reports on a semester-long study of the explicit instruction of Japanese discourse markers to English-speaking, intermediate learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language. It was found that the learners improved their use of DMs, particularly to manage fundamental aspects of their extended tellings: openings, presentation of content and closings.

Davis, J. M. (2007). Resistance to L2 pragmatic in the Australian ESL context. Language Learning, 57(4), 611-649.

The study aimed at understands the effect of attitude on L2 pragmatic acquisition in a study-abroad setting. More specifically, it looked for an effect of Korean ESL students’ preferential attitudes for North American English on Australian L2 pragmatic routines selection. The study suggested that attitudinal factors in high-proficiency students could affect second language (L2) pragmatic production in important ways, students at times rejecting or resisting undesirable L2 pragmatic forms (Cohen, 1997; Hinkel, 1996; Lo Castro, 2001; Siegal, 1995, 1996). The study included two groups of Korean English speakers who were given a multiple-choice ranking task (MCRT) followed by an attitude questionnaire. Group A consisted of 20 ESL students living and studying temporarily in Melbourne, Australia (mean age: 24.5 years). Group B included 21 Korean EFL teachers from a private language institute in Seoul (mean age: 30 years). Also, a third group of 20 Australian English native speakers (Group C) was given the MCRT in order to see if differences in routine selection existed between Australian native speakers and Korean ESL speakers studying in Melbourne. Findings revealed that there was some avoidance of Australian routines by Korean ESL learners (e.g., no worries, good on you, cheers, to eat here or take away? how did you go? and how are you going?). The author contended that this avoidance represented resistance to Australian-English pragmatic norms.

Hassall, T. (2008). Pragmatic performance: What are learners thinking? In E. Alc�n Soler & A. Mart�nez-Flor (Eds.), Investigating pragmatics in foreign language learning, teaching and testing (pp. 72-93). Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

The study employed a cognitive framework to analyze the use of address and self-reference terms by Australian learners of Indonesian. Participants included a low intermediate group of 12 FL learners and an upper intermediate group of 7 FL/SL learners, who have spent a year in Indonesia. This paper investigated what these learners were thinking and what they knew about pragmatics and how they acquired pragmatic knowledge and ability. Data of elicited two requests and two complaints were collected with role plays and retrospective verbal protocols. The role-plays were videotaped and then replayed after each role play. Findings revealed that learners with lower proficiency focused more on linguistic planning (e.g. looking for lexical items) than on pragmatic issues, whereas the learners with higher proficiency reflected more on the latter. As to learners’ production of requests and complaints, the author noted that learners’ use of a particular form did not automatically indicate firm control over it. In addition, the author felt that replaying the video was useful a useful tool to get deeper insights.

Ishihara, N., & Tarone, E. (2009). Subjectivity and pragmatic choice in L2 Japanese: Emulating and resisting pragmatic norms. In �N. Taguchi (Ed.), Pragmatic competence in Japanese as a second language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

The study analyzed the link between adult learners’ subjectivity and their pragmatic use in L2 Japanese. It aimed at exploring the stated reasons that seven advanced Japanese learners at a US university provided for their pragmatic choices in previously completed tasks (multiple-rejoinder oral discourse completion task and role-play). Also, retrospective interviews and follow-up email correspondence examined the deliberate pragmatic decisions learners made while requesting, refusing, and responding to compliments in both their L1 and L2. The authors pointed out that the interviews identified occasions where learners intentionally either accommodated to or resisted perceived L2 pragmatic norms, and probed how they arrived to those decisions. In addition, findings showed that while the participants largely converged toward L2 norms to emulate the target culture, on occasion they intentionally diverged from L2 norms to resist pragmatic uses of, for example, higher-level honorifics or gendered language. Ishihara and Tarone found that learners’ pragmatic decisions were guided by their subjectivity and intertwined with their life experiences and previous learning and use of Japanese in and outside the classroom. The authors proposed that their agency could be accounted for in terms of speech accommodation theory (Beebe and Giles, 1984) which views pragmatic decisions as an enactment of social, psychological, and affective dispositions. They suggested that the findings could help explain why certain areas of Japanese pragmatic competence may be slow to develop (if at all) for some learners. The paper called for greater sensitivity to learners’ cultures in pragmatics-focused instructions and suggested how pragmatics could be more aptly taught and evaluated with learners’ subjectivity in mind.

Ishihara, N. (2010). Maintaining an optimal distance: Nonnative speakers’ pragmatic choice. In A. Mahboob (Ed.), TESOL nonnative English speaking teacher resource book. Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

This paper questions an assumption in some of the current second language acquisition theories and pedagogical practices that native speakers (NSs) best model target-language use for learners. A commonly-held belief that NSs are ideal language teachers (NS fallacy, Phillipson, 1992) holds that NSs are more competent in language use, thus are the supreme and sole linguistic models for nonnative speakers (NNSs). At the pragmatics level, however, NNSs’ language use may be intertwined with their subjectivity (e.g., their multiple identities, worldview, values, beliefs, and morals), and complete adoption of NS norms may not necessarily be the learners’ choice. In this chapter, Ishihara highlights the findings of a (lived-experience) inquiry into NNSs’ resistance to employing perceived NS pragmatic norms. The six participants speaking English or Japanese as an L2 (two of whom were the primary focus of this paper) sometimes deliberately diverged from community norms and intentionally maintained an optimal distance from the community while expressing their subjectivity. Rather than becoming completely native-like, these NNSs in fact exercised their agency to selectively emulate NS pragmatic norms and negotiate their subjectivity. The researcher sees these findings as suggesting that pragmatic use of language that NSs model may be useful in providing a range of community norms; thus, assist learners in the development of receptive pragmatic skills. However, these NS pragmatic norms may not entirely or solely be the target for learners’ own production. Ishihara recommends that we view NNSs as language users with a wealth of resources and subjectivities that they are able to access in two (or more) languages and cultures. Given the complexity of pragmatic choices that bilingual speakers negotiate, she would recommend exploration of the potentials of a bilingual model with an eye to promoting more culturally-sensitive pedagogy for L2 pragmatics.

This paper aims to provide an overview of research conducted in the area of interlanguage pragmatics with a focus on its pedagogical component, instructional pragmatics. The primary emphasis of this paper will be placed on the introduction of current resources in instructional pragmatics and recent efforts that empirically inform pragmatic-focused instruction and classroom-based assessment. The paper concludes with the discussion of the issues associated with future pragmatics-focused instruction and curriculum development, along with a suggested direction for future research and teacher education in support of instructional pragmatics.

Ishihara, N. (2006). Subjectivity, second/foreign language pragmatic use, and instruction: Evidence of accommodation and resistance (Unpublished doctorial dissertation). University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

This dissertation was aimed at responding to perceived gaps in the issues covered in pragmatics research. Studies 1 and 2 were intended to challenge the conventional assumption that acquiring nativelike pragmatic competence is the goal of all learners. They explored L2 speakers’ pragmatic L2 use in relation to their subjectivity. Study I investigated the stated reasons that 7 advanced Japanese learners provided for their pragmatic choices. Interviews and follow-up e-mail correspondence examined learners’ deliberate pragmatic decisions made while performing elicitation tasks. The interviews identified instances where learners intentionally accommodated to or resisted perceived L2 pragmatic norms. The learners largely converged towards L2 norms to emulate the culture, while they sometimes intentionally diverged from L2 norms to resist certain L2 pragmatic uses (e.g., higher-level honorifics). Ishihara explained their agency in terms of speech accommodation theory (Beebe & Giles, 1984) which views learners’ pragmatic decisions as the enactment of their social, psychological, and affective dispositions.

L2 speakers’ resistance to L2 norms was further investigated in Study 2 through a inquiry into their lived experiences. The meaning of resistance was explored based on six interviews with fluent SL speakers of English and Japanese. These speakers were found to sometimes deliberately diverge from SL norms that conflicted with their own standards to express their subjectivity or to deliberately maintain distance from the SL community. In their acts of resistance, SL speakers negotiated their subjectivity and contested pre-existing SL norms in the community. Study 3 attempted to respond to the paucity of L2 pragmatics curriculum/instruction by describing a web-based curriculum and reporting its preliminary effects on learners’ pragmatic awareness. In this curriculum designed for intermediate/advanced foreign language learners of Japanese, explicit awareness-raising (Kasper & Schmidt, 1996) tasks guided learners to self-discover a range of L2 pragmatic norms. The curriculum featured naturalistic audio samples, empirically-established pragmatic information, explanatory information on L2 norms, and self-evaluation of pragmatic uses. Deductive analysis of 18 learners’ reflective journaling demonstrated the range of pragmatic awareness gained through the use of these materials, and revealed that the instruction enhanced pragmatic awareness of different pragmatic aspects by varying degrees.

LoCastro, V. (1998, March). Learner-subjectivity and pragmatic competence development. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Seattle, WA.

LoCastro undertook a study of her own second language learning progress, focusing on development of pragmatic competence in Japanese and the relationship between language and social identity while living and working in Japan. The study addressed three areas: the formal instructional context of studying Japanese in Japan; the influence of the social context; and the learner’s social and cultural identity in relation to efforts to increase pragmatic ability in Japanese. Data were gathered in a diary on experiences, thoughts, and insights concerning the three areas of study; in an oral proficiency interview conducted at the beginning of the project; and in discussions with other non-Japanese and Japanese individuals. With regard to the educational context for learning Japanese, findings concerning the teacher and concerning group vs. individual lessons were discussed. The influence of social context on pragmatic development was then examined in out-of-class encounters, noting the difficulty of finding "safe" contexts in which to practice language skills. In discussing the role of the learner’s social and cultural identity in pragmatic development, focus was on the subjectivity involved in constructing those identities in this context.

Molloy, H. P. L., & Shimura, M. (2005). Instruction and student confidence in L2 pragmatics. Pragmatic Matters � JALT Pragmatics SIG Newsletter, 6(2), 8-11.

The focus of this short research report was on whether instruction in requests in English would make Japanese speakers more confident about making appropriate requests. There was also interest in investigating whether respondents would be more comfortable if they provided their own "realistic" situations, rather than having them as a given. Their concern was that students would not know how to be polite in a particular situation, even if they were given instruction in how to be polite in general. So their concern was for sociopragmatics and not for pragmalinguistics. The participants were 206 Japanese university students (156 women and 50 men) in 13 intact English classes taught by Molloy in the 2004-2005 academic year. Most were of intermediate proficiency (70%), with 20% low and 10% high, using a multiple-choice cloze. The speech acts task involved 12 situations for making a request to a friend. The students received between three or four 90-minute lessons on requests in English during a ten-week period. The main teaching points involved: (1) external modification such as adding a justification, (2) the main grammatical structures involved in requests in English, (3) ways to accept and reject a request, and (4) altering requests according to the degree of imposition. It was found that in eight of the twelve situations, participants were more confident of their requesting ability after instruction. The authors concluded that this indicated that instruction in pragmatics was perceived as helpful to some extent but did not ensure an increase in confidence since it depended on the situation.

Pearson, L. (2006). Teaching pragmatics in Spanish L2 courses: What do learners think? In K. Bardovi-Harlig, C. F�lix-Brasdefer, & A. S. Omar (Eds.), Pragmatics & language learning (Vol. 11,pp. 109-134). Honolulu HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

The article looked at attitudes toward the learning of pragmatics in a formal context, a language classroom. In review of literature, the author noted that Olshtain and Cohen (1990) found learners gave high ratings to teacher explanations and informational worksheets, mainly due to the explicit techniques. In this study’s first survey, the learners dealt with four speech acts: gratitude, apologies, commands, and polite requests. Participants that responded to the survey included 94 students in six sections, all in their second semester of Spanish at the University of Texas at Austin. The features covered were not from the regular lessons, though students perceived them as such. The second survey was administered to 65 intermediate Spanish students in their fourth semester at Bowling Green State University, who got suggestions and suggestion responses. Thirty-six of them also completed three measures of pragmatic competence as well. She included 4 treatments: +/- explicit pre-instruction coupled with explicit or implicit feedback. There were no significant differences from these treatments. Results reported that the Spanish videos (used with the first survey group) were difficult to understand and they were not interested to the students due to the lack of authenticity. In addition, several participants were resentful of taking time away from their regular class material. Furthermore, as with survey 1, the students in survey 2 complained that they had already covered the material in their previous or current courses. What they considered it was helpful was learning about directness levels in conversation, how to make suggestions, how to formulate speech acts in different contexts, and expressing formality and politeness. The author concluded that materials should include authentic language sources such as film, TV, and L1 pragmatics research. She also noted the advantages of computer-assisted language learning.

Sano, F., �& JACET SLA SIG (2005). Japanese university students’ receptive pragmatic competence. JACET Bulletin, 40, 117-133.

The article reported on a study examining the receptive pragmatic ability of 2,792 Japanese learners of English as a foreign language. A multiple-choice comprehension questionnaire was constructed, focusing on four face-threatening acts in English: complaints, corrections, refusals, and requests. The study was carried out by the JACET SLA Special Interest Group, chaired by Fujiko Sano. The questionnaire was piloted on 130 students and distracts pulling in from 0-3% of the responses were revised. The four alternatives appeared only in Japanese (with one choice violating the directness rule). It took 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Requests and complaints were found easier to interpret than corrections and refusals. Power-minus situations were easier to interpret than power-plus situations, meaning that the learners understood students’ utterances better than teachers’ utterances. In addition, conventionally indirect situations were easier to interpret than indirect situations. The authors noted caution in interpretation given the limited number of items and the mix of attributes (speech act, degree of indirectness, and power) in each item. It appeared that the direct experience the learners had with the situation played a role in determining which items were easier for them to process correctly. General proficiency was seen as the best predictor. It was noted that the cross-sectional design did not allow for making statements about the developmental process in receptive pragmatic competence.

Andersen, G., & Aijmer, K. (Eds.). (2011). Pragmatics of society. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Pragmatics of society takes a socio-cultural perspective on pragmatics and gives a broad view of how social and cultural factors influence language use. The volume covers a wide range of topics within the field of sociopragmatics. This subfield of pragmatics encompasses sociolinguistic studies that focus on how pragmatic and discourse features vary according to macro-sociological variables such as age, gender, class and region (variational pragmatics), and discourse/conversation analytical studies investigating variation according to the activity engaged in by the participants and the identities displayed as relevant in interaction. The volume also covers studies in linguistic pragmatics with a more general socio-cultural focus, including global and intercultural communication, politeness, critical discourse analysis and linguistic anthropology. Each article presents the state-of-the-art of the topic at hand, as well as new research.

Bouton, L. (1988). A cross-cultural study of ability to interpret implicatures in English. World Englishes, 17(2), 183-196. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1988.tb00230.x

The purpose of this study was to investigate two questions: (1) to what extent does a person's cultural background affect his or her ability to derive the same meanings from conversational implicatures in English as native English-speaking Americans do, and (2) can a specially designed multiple-choice test measure a person's ability to interpret these implicatures? The results show clearly that cultural background is a reliable predictor of nonnative speaker (NNS) ability to interpret implicatures the way native speakers (NSs) do. Not only do NNSs infer different meanings from implicatures than NSs do, but culturally defined subsets of NNSs also perform differently from each other. When variations in English language proficiency are controlled for, the effects of cultural background as measured by a one-way ANOVA were significant at the 0.0001 level [F(6,323 = 23.83, p < 0.0001]. All of these data were gathered using a multiple-choice test, which indicates that the answer to our second question cited above is a definite ‘Yes”.

Haugh, M. (2007). Emic conceptualisations of (im)politeness and face in Japanese: Implications for the discursive negotiation of second language learner identities. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(4), 657-680.

This article studied if learners of Japanese were to learn how to successfully manage and face various dilemmas in relation to their identities in their second language. The author noted that Japanese learners needed to acquire a more emically-grounding understanding of the various dimensions that could influence or be influenced by the second language identities. The emic analysis of ‘(im)politeness’ and ‘face’ aimed to give learners of Japanese the tools to better manage their identities, and to empower them in their attempts to move beyond the model identities that were often implicitly presented to them in language textbooks. The author proposed that the discursive accomplishment of identities was reflexively indexed through ‘place’ (defined as encompassing one’s contextually contingent and discursively enacted social role and position) to the interactional achievement of ‘(im)politeness’ and ‘face’. This approach attempted to represent a tentative analysis in order to lead to more carefully theorize about ‘(im)politeness’ and ‘face’ based on more interactive theories of communication. It also aimed to offer greater clarity in explaining the way in which discursive dispute could impact upon the negotiation of identities in intercultural conversation. The author proposed that this approach may enable learners of second languages to gain a better understanding of these concepts that will help them negotiate the kind of identities they want to have in their second language performance.

Ishihara, N. (2003). Identity and pragmatic performance of second language learners. Paper Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics.

Few studies in interlanguage pragmatics have investigated the important link between L2 speaker’s cultural identity and pragmatic performance.� Current methodologies compare L2 speakers’ performance with L1 speaker baseline data serving as a model for L2 learners.� An underlying assumption of these studies is that native speakers provide the sole communication model for nonnative speakers, whose linguistic performance is viewed as deficient.� L2 speakers are often expected to adopt and conform to the local pragmatic practices and assimilate into the target culture.� However, awareness of pragmatic norms is acquired via socialization into L1 culture norms and L2 speakers’ pragmatic choice often remains primarily first-culture based even for those with high L2 proficiency (Hinkel, 2001).� This is complicated by the fact that such cultural identities can shift across time and space depending on the social interaction in which the speaker is situated (Norton, 1995, 2000).�

This interpretive study investigates the role of learner identity on the pragmatic use of the target language.� Seven advanced learners of Japanese first performed speech acts of requesting, refusing, and responding to compliments through speech elicitation tasks (oral discourse completion and role play tasks) both in their L2 Japanese and L1 English.� Subsequent individual retrospective interviews and e-mail correspondence identified specific instances in which the participants emulated perceived target language norms.� Furthermore, evidence of their resistance to such norms were scrutinized in order to explore to what extent the participants resisted emulating native speakers of the target language, not because of linguistic deficiency but due to a desire to maintain their sense of self.� The participants’ convergence with or divergence from the norms seemed to have been in flux, and often depended on the complex negotiation between the pressure and expectations from the target speech community on one hand and the learners’ subjectivity on the other.� In deciding whether to accommodate to or resist L2 pragmatic norms, the participants seemed to be constantly exercising agency, their capacity to operate with volition and power to make their own pragmatic choices.� Implications of the study call for reconsideration and sensitivity toward issues of learner agency among second/foreign language educators.� Also, the study poses a question as to the ways in which unique aspects of the language and culture (such as culturally specific pragmatic routines in speech act realizations) can be taught and evaluated in formal instruction so that learners can arrive at an emic understanding of the target language and culture.�

Okumura, K., & Wei, L. (2000). The concept of self and apology strategies in two cultures. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 10(1), 1-24. doi:10.1075/japc.10.1.02oku

The speech act of apologising aims at maintaining, restoring and enhancing interpersonal relationships. Most of the existing studies of apology in different languages and cultures follow the Brown and Levinson (1987) approach and describe apology as a `negative politeness' strategy. In this paper, we study the use of apology by two groups of women from Japanese and British cultural backgrounds, in conjunction with an examination of the cultural conception of `self'. Using both standard test (Twenty Statements Test, TST) and questionnaire data, we demonstrate that important differences exist in the self concept of the two groups, and these differences are reflected in and impact on the women's use of apologies in social interaction.

Sarangi, S., & Slembrouck, S. (1991). Non cooperation in communication: a reassessment of Gricean Pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics, 17(2), 117-54. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(92)90037-C

Our main claim in this paper is that, although Grice's theory is apparently about conversation, it has a potential to account for and explain discourse in institutional contexts. However, in order to achieve this, due attention has to be paid to factors of a societal kind. For us, this should mean examining the correlations between participants' socioeconomic interests, their social identities, the social and situational powers they (do not) possess, their expectations about activities, etc. on the one hand, and principled forms of language use, on the other. We proceed as follows: first, we outline how the Cooperative Principle has been defined by Grice himself. Next we draw attention to how his theory has been received within various strands of linguistic enquiry. On the basis of our analysis of instances of institutional discourse (both spoken and written), we then formulate a number of proposals to meet some of the apparent shortcomings in the original Gricean scheme. These proposals are contained within an appeal for a social pragmatics which goes beyond meaning on a speak-hearer basis and the immediate discourse situation.

Siegal, M. (1996). The role of learner subjectivity in second language sociolinguistic competency: Western women learning Japanese. Applied Linguistics, 17(3), 356-382. doi:10.1093/applin/17.3.356

In this paper, I examine the role of language learner subjectivity in the acquisition of sociohnguistic competency in a second language. To look at the intersection of learner identity, social position, and L2 acquisition, the paper focuses on a case study of a white woman learning Japanese in Japan. A conversation between the learner and her professor is presented to show the dynamic co-construction of identity and sociolinguistic proficiency within conversational interactions. The discussion of the interaction and implications for L2 acquisition are contextualized within a social, cultural, and historical framework

Taguchi, N. (2011). Pragmatic development as a dynamic, complex process: General patterns and case histories. Modern Language Journal, 95(4), 605�627. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2011.01246.x

This longitudinal study asks 2 questions. The first one is: What patterns of pragmatic development can we observe among different pragmatic functions and attributes in a second language (L2)? The second question is: In what ways do individual differences and learning context affect the course of pragmatic development? Forty-eight Japanese college students studying English in an immersion setting in Japan participated in the study. They completed a pragmatic speaking task ( k= 12) that measured their ability to produce 2 speech acts, requests and opinions, in 2 situation types: low-imposition and high-imposition. The task was administered 3 times over 1 academic year. Gains in the appropriateness of the speech acts and fluency of production were analyzed. In addition, a subset of the participants was interviewed to seek the relationship between pragmatic gains and types of sociocultural experiences available on campus. Results revealed that appropriateness showed a profound increase for the low-imposition speech acts, but the production of high-imposition speech acts was slow developing. There was a large increase in speech rate at the initial stage for both situation types, but it showed stagnation at the later stage. Qualitative data revealed an interesting portrayal of the learners' history of participation and socialization related to pragmatic development.

Taguchi, N. (2012). Context, individual differences and pragmatic competence. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

Pragmatic competence plays a key role in the era of globalization where communication across cultural boundaries is an everyday phenomenon. The ability to use language in a socially appropriate manner is critical, as lack of it may lead to cross-cultural miscommunication or cultural stereotyping. This book describes second language learners’ development of pragmatic competence. It proposes an original theoretical framework combining a pragmatics and psycholinguistics approach, and uses a variety of research instruments, both quantitative and qualitative, to describe pragmatic development over one year. Situated in a bilingual university in Japan, the study reveals patterns of change across different pragmatic abilities among Japanese learners of English. The book offers implications for SLA theories, the teaching and assessment of pragmatic competence, and intercultural communication.

Tannen, D. (1981). Indirectness in discourse: Ethnicity as conversational style. Discourse Processes, 4(3), 221-238. doi:10.1080/01638538109544517

This paper focuses on indirectness in discourse as a feature of conversational style. Reported research emphasizes social differences in expectations of indirectness in the context of conversation between married partners.

To discover patterns of interpretation, findings are drawn from (1) interviews with Greeks and Americans about their interactional experience and (2) a pilot study consisting of a questionnaire based on a conversation reported in (1) and including (a) paraphrase choices (b) short answers and (c) open-ended interview/discussions with respondents. Results suggest that Greeks are more likely to expect indirectness in the context presented, and that Greek-Americans who may not speak Greek have retained the influence of Greek communicative strategies.

Discussion of differences in interpretive strategies focuses on 1) the discourse function of questions and 2) the significance of ellipsis, yielding a brevity effect, associated for Greeks with an enthusiasm constraint.

Theoretical implications include an alternative to Bernstein's hypothesis about restricted and elaborated codes, such that restriction and elaboration are not monolithic. Rather, groups differ with respect to which contexts, channels, and cues require elaboration.

Wierzbicka, A. (1985). Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 9(2-3), 145-178. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(85)90023-2

This paper discusses a number of differences between English and Polish in the area of speech acts, and links them with different cultural norms and cultural assumptions. It is shown that English, as compared with Polish, places heavy restrictions on the use of the imperative and makes extensive use of interrogative and conditional forms. Features of English which have been claimed to be due to universal principles of politeness are shown to be language-specific and culture-specific. Moreover, even with respect to English, they are shown to be due to aspects of culture much deeper than mere norms of politeness. Linguistic differences are shown to be associated with cultural differences such as spontaneity, directness, intimacy and affection vs. indirectness, distance, tolerance and anti-dogmaticism. Certain characteristic features of Australian English are discussed and are shown to reflect some aspects of the Australian ethos. Implications for a theory of speech acts and for interethnic communication are discussed. In particular, certain influential theories of speech acts (based largely on English) are shown to be ethnocentric and dangerous in their potential social effects.