Pragmatics, a branch of linguistics which studies communicative actions in their sociocultural context, has been the focus of attention of a number of scholars over the last few decades (Rose & Kasper, 2001). Given the importance of this area of research to develop competent users of a given language, the present chapter first outlines its main defining characteristics. Then, among the different subareas included within this field, a detailed description of speech act theory is provided. The reminder of the chapter addresses the theoretical conditions needed for the learning of particular speech acts in instructed settings, namely exposure to pertinent input, opportunities for communicative practice and feedback.
Many factors affect the realisation of speech acts, including sociocultural norms, being a native or nonnative speaker, situational parameters of the exchange, and individual differences in personal characteristics. This chapter focuses on findings related to the last set of factors and specifically on personality (extraversion), aptitude (and its related construct, proficiency), and motivation. These multicomponent traits are distinct constructs but are not entirely discreet from each other. In a review of literature that incorporates second language acquisition and interlanguage pragmatics, their dynamic relationship and their effects on speech acts are described, with an eye toward discerning the relative contributions of these variables to the expression (and interpretation) of second-language speech acts and to offering suggestions for future research.
This chapter takes a speech-act perspective and examines the degree of validity and reliability of three data collection methods used in speech act research: discourse completion tasks, role plays, and verbal reports. Various formats of these instruments and the type of data they produce under experimental conditions are reviewed and illustrated with examples taken from learners and native speakers. In addition, ways for refining the instrument by focusing on the contextual information of the situation are discussed. This chapter shows how role-play data can be analysed sequentially and across multiple turns in controlled settings. It also highlights the significance of using verbal reports as a means of validating experimental data by gaining access to the learners’ cognitive and sociocultural perceptions during speech act performance. It concludes with practical recommendations for refining the instruments used in speech-act research.
Conversation analysis offers the potential for useful contribution to the study of speech act performance by microanalysing the sequential organisation of natural data of participants carrying out social action through talk. This paper outlines some of the similarities and main differences between speech act theory and conversation analysis, focusing mainly on the concept of speakers’ intent, the importance of the sequential organisation of data, and the value of naturally occurring data. The chapter presents previous research which has studied speech act sequences form a conversation analysis perspective in a variety of settings and contexts, including the second/foreign language classroom. Finally, the chapter proposes lines of investigation of speech act performance that could benefit from a conversation analysis approach.
The premise that underlying cultural values and beliefs play an important role in speech act performance as mediated by perceptions of context forms the foundation of this chapter. The relationship between culture, context, and speech act performance is explained. Where there is less overlap between interactants’ underlying cultural values and beliefs, misunderstandings are more apt to arise. In order to identify cross-cultural differences that have the potential to cause such misunderstandings, relevant speech act studies are presented and their findings examined in terms of cultural dimensions and orientations used as heuristic tools. It is argued that an awareness of underlying cultural variables and their potential influence on speech act performance will contribute to more effective negotiation of meaning and identity.
Although the effect of the study abroad environment on foreign language learners’ speech act performance had been underexplored for many years, a number of studies have been published in the last decade that help to shed light on the impact of study abroad sojourns on language learners’ pragmatic competence. In this chapter, I will review and discuss investigations examining the effect of study abroad on language learners in a variety of study abroad contexts (e.g. Canada, United States of America, Latin America, France, Germany, Great Britain) and involving a variety of native and target language combinations (e.g. Chinese – English, English – French, English – German, English – Spanish, German – English, German – French, Japanese- English). The speech acts investigated are: advice, apologies, leave-taking, offers, refusals, requests and suggestions.
This chapter explores how research on speech act performance can inform language teaching for workplace communication. It argues for an approach to instruction that draws on empirical evidence from a range of perspectives so that non-native speakers can understand patterns of language use, how these relate to cultural values and how individuals actually draw on them in context. Using directives and disagreements as examples, it is argued that while quantitative interlanguage and cross-cultural speech act research studies give valuable insight into how acts are performed in routine situations, speech act studies broadly conceived are needed to provide learners with insight into the rich repertoire of devices and strategies native speakers have at their disposal and how these might be used to negotiate identities at work.
This chapter reviews previous research on pragmatic intervention by exploring the extent to which the teachability of second-language speech acts is constrained by the nature of intervention and learner-attributable factors. The superiority of explicit pragmatic intervention over implicit treatment is confirmed overall, particularly in the teaching of the sociopragmatic features of speech acts. However, evidence suggests that such positive effects of explicit intervention are not always assured; moreover, some forms of implicit intervention are equally effective. Such variations in the findings are best explained in terms of an explicit/implicit continuum rather than a dichotomous explicit versus implicit framework. The current review also suggests that higher levels of linguistic proficiency and learner motivation may be prerequisites for maximally enhancing pragmatic teachability.
The present paper focuses on teaching the speech act of apologising based on previous research findings on the use, acquisition, and teaching of this particular speech act. The paper provides practical suggestions as to how pragmatic awareness can be raised by first presenting apology strategies and then showing how learners can be engaged in analysing their own performance, and comparing it with that of speakers of the target language. Suggestions will also be made about ways of providing learners with authentic input, a variety of pragmatic options and with ample opportunity to practice in various apology situations. Such training will allow learners to develop their own interlanguage through optimal convergence to target language norms rather than total convergence (Kasper, 1997).
The speech act of complaint actually consists of two very different types of speech behaviours. While direct complaints are usually face threatening acts, indirect complaints typically serve to establish solidarity in social interaction. Little attention has been paid in the literature to indirect complaints, despite the fact that they are ubiquitous in ordinary social conversation in many English-speaking communities. This chapter focuses on the teaching of indirect complaints and outlines methodological issues in amassing data on complaining that can be put into use for effective language teaching. To date, few teaching materials have been based on ethnographic, empirical data. Based on this data, new ways of teaching complaints and their responses are suggested in a sample lesson plan.
This chapter focuses on the speech acts of giving and responding to compliments, including its multiple functions and discourses that expand beyond single-statement compliments. First, specific linguistic realisations of these speech acts are summarised, in addition to a discussion of cross-linguistic differences in pragmatic norms. Interlanguage pragmatics research is also reviewed in which compliments were taught in English as a second/foreign language and Japanese as a foreign language. The majority of the chapter is devoted to a pedagogical proposal that shows how these speech acts in English can be taught and how learners’ pragmatic development may be assessed in the classroom. Because learners’ subjectivities are closely intertwined with their pragmatic use, the instruction and assessment procedures facilitate learners’ negotiation of identities through giving and responding to compliments.
This chapter will consider research findings related to the speech act of disagreement with the aim of supporting students in developing effective strategies to improve both receptive and productive skills in this area. Although some communicative behaviours may be effective in both the first language and the second language, students who carry over an inappropriate strategy run the risk of an unexpected reaction, including situations in which their intention to disagree will not be noted (Beebe & Takahashi, 1989a). This section will focus upon practical ways to raise students’ awareness of strategies for disagreement in English, and provide support for the use of mitigating expressions appropriate in various communicative situations.
Refusal can be a difficult speech act to perform. As a disprefered response, it is complicated in form and it usually involves various strategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutor. For second language learners with linguistic limitations, performing refusals successfully may require a higher level of pragmatic competence than other target language speech acts. Thus there is a need for pragmatic instruction in order to help learners interpret and realise this speech act successfully. Based on previous research on the speech act of refusal and studies in instructional pragmatics, this chapter proposes a teaching approach that includes both awareness raising and production activities. The instructional strategies involve learners in translation, data collection, data analysis, reflection, and role-play activities.
This chapter focuses on the speech act of requesting, which has been considered to be a face-threatening act, since its performance requires the hearer to carry out an act for the requester’s sake (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Research on the use of requests suggests that many learners have problems in performing this speech act in sociopragmatically appropriate ways. In order to avoid social misunderstandings therefore, learners’ exposure to the way requests are routinised in real contexts is of utmost importance in second language instructional contexts. Based on research on interlanguage pragmatics, this chapter presents a learner-based instructional method designed to develop learners’ sociopragmatic ability to make requests and soften their impositive tone in English as the target language. This framework provides learners with ample opportunities to be exposed to as well as practise requests in a variety of communicative situations.
Suggestions are acts in which the speaker asks the hearer to perform an action that will potentially benefit the hearer (Rintell, 1979). Despite this fact, they have been regarded as face-threatening acts, since the speaker is in some way intruding into the hearer’s world by performing an act that concerns what the latter should do (Brown & Levinson, 1987). For this reason, formulating pragmatically appropriate suggestions that do not result in impolite or rude behaviour may be especially difficult for second language learners whose contact with the target language is very limited. With that aim in mind, and based on previous studies on this speech act, this chapter proposes a pedagogical approach that ranges from awareness-raising to production activities.
Pragmatics, a branch of linguistics which studies communicative actions in their sociocultural context, has been the focus of attention of a number of scholars over the last few decades (Rose & Kasper, 2001). Given the importance of this area of research to develop competent users of a given language, the present chapter first outlines its main defining characteristics. Then, among the different subareas included within this field, a detailed description of speech act theory is provided. The reminder of the chapter addresses the theoretical conditions needed for the learning of particular speech acts in instructed settings, namely exposure to pertinent input, opportunities for communicative practice and feedback.
Many factors affect the realisation of speech acts, including sociocultural norms, being a native or nonnative speaker, situational parameters of the exchange, and individual differences in personal characteristics. This chapter focuses on findings related to the last set of factors and specifically on personality (extraversion), aptitude (and its related construct, proficiency), and motivation. These multicomponent traits are distinct constructs but are not entirely discreet from each other. In a review of literature that incorporates second language acquisition and interlanguage pragmatics, their dynamic relationship and their effects on speech acts are described, with an eye toward discerning the relative contributions of these variables to the expression (and interpretation) of second-language speech acts and to offering suggestions for future research.
This chapter takes a speech-act perspective and examines the degree of validity and reliability of three data collection methods used in speech act research: discourse completion tasks, role plays, and verbal reports. Various formats of these instruments and the type of data they produce under experimental conditions are reviewed and illustrated with examples taken from learners and native speakers. In addition, ways for refining the instrument by focusing on the contextual information of the situation are discussed. This chapter shows how role-play data can be analysed sequentially and across multiple turns in controlled settings. It also highlights the significance of using verbal reports as a means of validating experimental data by gaining access to the learners’ cognitive and sociocultural perceptions during speech act performance. It concludes with practical recommendations for refining the instruments used in speech-act research.
Conversation analysis offers the potential for useful contribution to the study of speech act performance by microanalysing the sequential organisation of natural data of participants carrying out social action through talk. This paper outlines some of the similarities and main differences between speech act theory and conversation analysis, focusing mainly on the concept of speakers’ intent, the importance of the sequential organisation of data, and the value of naturally occurring data. The chapter presents previous research which has studied speech act sequences form a conversation analysis perspective in a variety of settings and contexts, including the second/foreign language classroom. Finally, the chapter proposes lines of investigation of speech act performance that could benefit from a conversation analysis approach.
The premise that underlying cultural values and beliefs play an important role in speech act performance as mediated by perceptions of context forms the foundation of this chapter. The relationship between culture, context, and speech act performance is explained. Where there is less overlap between interactants’ underlying cultural values and beliefs, misunderstandings are more apt to arise. In order to identify cross-cultural differences that have the potential to cause such misunderstandings, relevant speech act studies are presented and their findings examined in terms of cultural dimensions and orientations used as heuristic tools. It is argued that an awareness of underlying cultural variables and their potential influence on speech act performance will contribute to more effective negotiation of meaning and identity.
Although the effect of the study abroad environment on foreign language learners’ speech act performance had been underexplored for many years, a number of studies have been published in the last decade that help to shed light on the impact of study abroad sojourns on language learners’ pragmatic competence. In this chapter, I will review and discuss investigations examining the effect of study abroad on language learners in a variety of study abroad contexts (e.g. Canada, United States of America, Latin America, France, Germany, Great Britain) and involving a variety of native and target language combinations (e.g. Chinese – English, English – French, English – German, English – Spanish, German – English, German – French, Japanese- English). The speech acts investigated are: advice, apologies, leave-taking, offers, refusals, requests and suggestions.
This chapter explores how research on speech act performance can inform language teaching for workplace communication. It argues for an approach to instruction that draws on empirical evidence from a range of perspectives so that non-native speakers can understand patterns of language use, how these relate to cultural values and how individuals actually draw on them in context. Using directives and disagreements as examples, it is argued that while quantitative interlanguage and cross-cultural speech act research studies give valuable insight into how acts are performed in routine situations, speech act studies broadly conceived are needed to provide learners with insight into the rich repertoire of devices and strategies native speakers have at their disposal and how these might be used to negotiate identities at work.
This chapter reviews previous research on pragmatic intervention by exploring the extent to which the teachability of second-language speech acts is constrained by the nature of intervention and learner-attributable factors. The superiority of explicit pragmatic intervention over implicit treatment is confirmed overall, particularly in the teaching of the sociopragmatic features of speech acts. However, evidence suggests that such positive effects of explicit intervention are not always assured; moreover, some forms of implicit intervention are equally effective. Such variations in the findings are best explained in terms of an explicit/implicit continuum rather than a dichotomous explicit versus implicit framework. The current review also suggests that higher levels of linguistic proficiency and learner motivation may be prerequisites for maximally enhancing pragmatic teachability.
The present paper focuses on teaching the speech act of apologising based on previous research findings on the use, acquisition, and teaching of this particular speech act. The paper provides practical suggestions as to how pragmatic awareness can be raised by first presenting apology strategies and then showing how learners can be engaged in analysing their own performance, and comparing it with that of speakers of the target language. Suggestions will also be made about ways of providing learners with authentic input, a variety of pragmatic options and with ample opportunity to practice in various apology situations. Such training will allow learners to develop their own interlanguage through optimal convergence to target language norms rather than total convergence (Kasper, 1997).
The speech act of complaint actually consists of two very different types of speech behaviours. While direct complaints are usually face threatening acts, indirect complaints typically serve to establish solidarity in social interaction. Little attention has been paid in the literature to indirect complaints, despite the fact that they are ubiquitous in ordinary social conversation in many English-speaking communities. This chapter focuses on the teaching of indirect complaints and outlines methodological issues in amassing data on complaining that can be put into use for effective language teaching. To date, few teaching materials have been based on ethnographic, empirical data. Based on this data, new ways of teaching complaints and their responses are suggested in a sample lesson plan.
This chapter focuses on the speech acts of giving and responding to compliments, including its multiple functions and discourses that expand beyond single-statement compliments. First, specific linguistic realisations of these speech acts are summarised, in addition to a discussion of cross-linguistic differences in pragmatic norms. Interlanguage pragmatics research is also reviewed in which compliments were taught in English as a second/foreign language and Japanese as a foreign language. The majority of the chapter is devoted to a pedagogical proposal that shows how these speech acts in English can be taught and how learners’ pragmatic development may be assessed in the classroom. Because learners’ subjectivities are closely intertwined with their pragmatic use, the instruction and assessment procedures facilitate learners’ negotiation of identities through giving and responding to compliments.
This chapter will consider research findings related to the speech act of disagreement with the aim of supporting students in developing effective strategies to improve both receptive and productive skills in this area. Although some communicative behaviours may be effective in both the first language and the second language, students who carry over an inappropriate strategy run the risk of an unexpected reaction, including situations in which their intention to disagree will not be noted (Beebe & Takahashi, 1989a). This section will focus upon practical ways to raise students’ awareness of strategies for disagreement in English, and provide support for the use of mitigating expressions appropriate in various communicative situations.
Refusal can be a difficult speech act to perform. As a disprefered response, it is complicated in form and it usually involves various strategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutor. For second language learners with linguistic limitations, performing refusals successfully may require a higher level of pragmatic competence than other target language speech acts. Thus there is a need for pragmatic instruction in order to help learners interpret and realise this speech act successfully. Based on previous research on the speech act of refusal and studies in instructional pragmatics, this chapter proposes a teaching approach that includes both awareness raising and production activities. The instructional strategies involve learners in translation, data collection, data analysis, reflection, and role-play activities.
This chapter focuses on the speech act of requesting, which has been considered to be a face-threatening act, since its performance requires the hearer to carry out an act for the requester’s sake (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Research on the use of requests suggests that many learners have problems in performing this speech act in sociopragmatically appropriate ways. In order to avoid social misunderstandings therefore, learners’ exposure to the way requests are routinised in real contexts is of utmost importance in second language instructional contexts. Based on research on interlanguage pragmatics, this chapter presents a learner-based instructional method designed to develop learners’ sociopragmatic ability to make requests and soften their impositive tone in English as the target language. This framework provides learners with ample opportunities to be exposed to as well as practise requests in a variety of communicative situations.
Suggestions are acts in which the speaker asks the hearer to perform an action that will potentially benefit the hearer (Rintell, 1979). Despite this fact, they have been regarded as face-threatening acts, since the speaker is in some way intruding into the hearer’s world by performing an act that concerns what the latter should do (Brown & Levinson, 1987). For this reason, formulating pragmatically appropriate suggestions that do not result in impolite or rude behaviour may be especially difficult for second language learners whose contact with the target language is very limited. With that aim in mind, and based on previous studies on this speech act, this chapter proposes a pedagogical approach that ranges from awareness-raising to production activities.
Pragmatics, a branch of linguistics which studies communicative actions in their sociocultural context, has been the focus of attention of a number of scholars over the last few decades (Rose & Kasper, 2001). Given the importance of this area of research to develop competent users of a given language, the present chapter first outlines its main defining characteristics. Then, among the different subareas included within this field, a detailed description of speech act theory is provided. The reminder of the chapter addresses the theoretical conditions needed for the learning of particular speech acts in instructed settings, namely exposure to pertinent input, opportunities for communicative practice and feedback.
Many factors affect the realisation of speech acts, including sociocultural norms, being a native or nonnative speaker, situational parameters of the exchange, and individual differences in personal characteristics. This chapter focuses on findings related to the last set of factors and specifically on personality (extraversion), aptitude (and its related construct, proficiency), and motivation. These multicomponent traits are distinct constructs but are not entirely discreet from each other. In a review of literature that incorporates second language acquisition and interlanguage pragmatics, their dynamic relationship and their effects on speech acts are described, with an eye toward discerning the relative contributions of these variables to the expression (and interpretation) of second-language speech acts and to offering suggestions for future research.
This chapter takes a speech-act perspective and examines the degree of validity and reliability of three data collection methods used in speech act research: discourse completion tasks, role plays, and verbal reports. Various formats of these instruments and the type of data they produce under experimental conditions are reviewed and illustrated with examples taken from learners and native speakers. In addition, ways for refining the instrument by focusing on the contextual information of the situation are discussed. This chapter shows how role-play data can be analysed sequentially and across multiple turns in controlled settings. It also highlights the significance of using verbal reports as a means of validating experimental data by gaining access to the learners’ cognitive and sociocultural perceptions during speech act performance. It concludes with practical recommendations for refining the instruments used in speech-act research.
Conversation analysis offers the potential for useful contribution to the study of speech act performance by microanalysing the sequential organisation of natural data of participants carrying out social action through talk. This paper outlines some of the similarities and main differences between speech act theory and conversation analysis, focusing mainly on the concept of speakers’ intent, the importance of the sequential organisation of data, and the value of naturally occurring data. The chapter presents previous research which has studied speech act sequences form a conversation analysis perspective in a variety of settings and contexts, including the second/foreign language classroom. Finally, the chapter proposes lines of investigation of speech act performance that could benefit from a conversation analysis approach.
The premise that underlying cultural values and beliefs play an important role in speech act performance as mediated by perceptions of context forms the foundation of this chapter. The relationship between culture, context, and speech act performance is explained. Where there is less overlap between interactants’ underlying cultural values and beliefs, misunderstandings are more apt to arise. In order to identify cross-cultural differences that have the potential to cause such misunderstandings, relevant speech act studies are presented and their findings examined in terms of cultural dimensions and orientations used as heuristic tools. It is argued that an awareness of underlying cultural variables and their potential influence on speech act performance will contribute to more effective negotiation of meaning and identity.
Although the effect of the study abroad environment on foreign language learners’ speech act performance had been underexplored for many years, a number of studies have been published in the last decade that help to shed light on the impact of study abroad sojourns on language learners’ pragmatic competence. In this chapter, I will review and discuss investigations examining the effect of study abroad on language learners in a variety of study abroad contexts (e.g. Canada, United States of America, Latin America, France, Germany, Great Britain) and involving a variety of native and target language combinations (e.g. Chinese – English, English – French, English – German, English – Spanish, German – English, German – French, Japanese- English). The speech acts investigated are: advice, apologies, leave-taking, offers, refusals, requests and suggestions.
This chapter explores how research on speech act performance can inform language teaching for workplace communication. It argues for an approach to instruction that draws on empirical evidence from a range of perspectives so that non-native speakers can understand patterns of language use, how these relate to cultural values and how individuals actually draw on them in context. Using directives and disagreements as examples, it is argued that while quantitative interlanguage and cross-cultural speech act research studies give valuable insight into how acts are performed in routine situations, speech act studies broadly conceived are needed to provide learners with insight into the rich repertoire of devices and strategies native speakers have at their disposal and how these might be used to negotiate identities at work.
This chapter reviews previous research on pragmatic intervention by exploring the extent to which the teachability of second-language speech acts is constrained by the nature of intervention and learner-attributable factors. The superiority of explicit pragmatic intervention over implicit treatment is confirmed overall, particularly in the teaching of the sociopragmatic features of speech acts. However, evidence suggests that such positive effects of explicit intervention are not always assured; moreover, some forms of implicit intervention are equally effective. Such variations in the findings are best explained in terms of an explicit/implicit continuum rather than a dichotomous explicit versus implicit framework. The current review also suggests that higher levels of linguistic proficiency and learner motivation may be prerequisites for maximally enhancing pragmatic teachability.
The present paper focuses on teaching the speech act of apologising based on previous research findings on the use, acquisition, and teaching of this particular speech act. The paper provides practical suggestions as to how pragmatic awareness can be raised by first presenting apology strategies and then showing how learners can be engaged in analysing their own performance, and comparing it with that of speakers of the target language. Suggestions will also be made about ways of providing learners with authentic input, a variety of pragmatic options and with ample opportunity to practice in various apology situations. Such training will allow learners to develop their own interlanguage through optimal convergence to target language norms rather than total convergence (Kasper, 1997).
The speech act of complaint actually consists of two very different types of speech behaviours. While direct complaints are usually face threatening acts, indirect complaints typically serve to establish solidarity in social interaction. Little attention has been paid in the literature to indirect complaints, despite the fact that they are ubiquitous in ordinary social conversation in many English-speaking communities. This chapter focuses on the teaching of indirect complaints and outlines methodological issues in amassing data on complaining that can be put into use for effective language teaching. To date, few teaching materials have been based on ethnographic, empirical data. Based on this data, new ways of teaching complaints and their responses are suggested in a sample lesson plan.
This chapter focuses on the speech acts of giving and responding to compliments, including its multiple functions and discourses that expand beyond single-statement compliments. First, specific linguistic realisations of these speech acts are summarised, in addition to a discussion of cross-linguistic differences in pragmatic norms. Interlanguage pragmatics research is also reviewed in which compliments were taught in English as a second/foreign language and Japanese as a foreign language. The majority of the chapter is devoted to a pedagogical proposal that shows how these speech acts in English can be taught and how learners’ pragmatic development may be assessed in the classroom. Because learners’ subjectivities are closely intertwined with their pragmatic use, the instruction and assessment procedures facilitate learners’ negotiation of identities through giving and responding to compliments.
This chapter will consider research findings related to the speech act of disagreement with the aim of supporting students in developing effective strategies to improve both receptive and productive skills in this area. Although some communicative behaviours may be effective in both the first language and the second language, students who carry over an inappropriate strategy run the risk of an unexpected reaction, including situations in which their intention to disagree will not be noted (Beebe & Takahashi, 1989a). This section will focus upon practical ways to raise students’ awareness of strategies for disagreement in English, and provide support for the use of mitigating expressions appropriate in various communicative situations.
Refusal can be a difficult speech act to perform. As a disprefered response, it is complicated in form and it usually involves various strategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutor. For second language learners with linguistic limitations, performing refusals successfully may require a higher level of pragmatic competence than other target language speech acts. Thus there is a need for pragmatic instruction in order to help learners interpret and realise this speech act successfully. Based on previous research on the speech act of refusal and studies in instructional pragmatics, this chapter proposes a teaching approach that includes both awareness raising and production activities. The instructional strategies involve learners in translation, data collection, data analysis, reflection, and role-play activities.
This chapter focuses on the speech act of requesting, which has been considered to be a face-threatening act, since its performance requires the hearer to carry out an act for the requester’s sake (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Research on the use of requests suggests that many learners have problems in performing this speech act in sociopragmatically appropriate ways. In order to avoid social misunderstandings therefore, learners’ exposure to the way requests are routinised in real contexts is of utmost importance in second language instructional contexts. Based on research on interlanguage pragmatics, this chapter presents a learner-based instructional method designed to develop learners’ sociopragmatic ability to make requests and soften their impositive tone in English as the target language. This framework provides learners with ample opportunities to be exposed to as well as practise requests in a variety of communicative situations.
Suggestions are acts in which the speaker asks the hearer to perform an action that will potentially benefit the hearer (Rintell, 1979). Despite this fact, they have been regarded as face-threatening acts, since the speaker is in some way intruding into the hearer’s world by performing an act that concerns what the latter should do (Brown & Levinson, 1987). For this reason, formulating pragmatically appropriate suggestions that do not result in impolite or rude behaviour may be especially difficult for second language learners whose contact with the target language is very limited. With that aim in mind, and based on previous studies on this speech act, this chapter proposes a pedagogical approach that ranges from awareness-raising to production activities.