Second Language Pragmatics

Abstract

This Element introduces the areas that second language (L2) pragmatics research has investigated. It begins with a theme-based review of the field with respect to L2 pragmatics learning, teaching, and assessing. The section on pragmatics learning examines studies on learners' pragmatic production and perception, and analyzes research modalities in this field. The section on pragmatics teaching examines the effects of and different approaches to L2 pragmatics instruction; and the section on pragmatics assessing examines the aspects involved in testing learners' pragmatic competence, and studies on issues related to validity and rating in pragmatics assessing. The Element then analyzes studies exploring learners' cognitive processes during pragmatic performance, and case studies are provided to showcase two ongoing projects, one investigating advanced learners' self-praise on social media and the other investigating lingua franca pragmatics among children. Finally, the Element offers some topics and questions for future research in L2 pragmatics.

Where there is suffering, there is sympathy: The speech act Sympathize in learning Chinese as a foreign language

“…In summary, the studies reviewed above revealed that the ways people display sympathy vary among languages and that this variation may trigger foreign language learning difficulties. However, the speech act Sympathize has received relatively little attention in foreign language learning compared with other speech acts (Ren, 2022). Although several studies reviewed above have attempted to examine how foreign language learners express sympathy, the target languages focused on were mainly English and Spanish, with little attention devoted to Chinese, so we do not know how difficult or easy it is for learners of Chinese to realize Sympathize.…”

Investigating Second Language Request Strategies by a Chinese Undergraduate Student Majoring in Business English

“…Request is the most widely investigated speech act in literature (Ren, 2022), which may be defined as "attempts on the part of a speaker to get a hearer to perform or to stop performing some kind of action" (Ellis, 2008, p. 172), and falls under a type of directives based on Searle's (1976) classification of speech acts. To put it tersely, making a request is asking the hearer to do something for the speaker.…”

Pragmatic Analysis of the US Ambassadress’s Political Discourse to the United Nations General Assembly

“…Crystal (2008) claims that different acts like to make a request, to greet, to advise, to complain and to warn are performed by the speech act uttered by the speakers. Likewise, Ren (2022) is of the view that the purpose of pragmatics is to employ language appropriately and to comprehend the intended meanings uttered by the speakers in various communicative context. Ekoro and Gunn (2021) proposed that speech act theory says that the purpose of people's communication is to influence their listeners so that their listener behaves in a certain way.…”