Interlanguage Pragmatics

Abstract

Abstract This is a collection of contributed, previously unpublished essays on topics in interlanguage pragmatics. ‘Pragmatics’ refers to speakers’ intended meaning, and ‘interlanguage’ is the term used to describe the linguistic knowledge of how non-native speakers (and listeners) use their deficient communicative competence in order to cope with a variety of communicative tasks. In this volume, sixteen distinguished linguists will focus on these central issues in interlanguage pragmatics: (1) non-native language users’ consciousness of their pragmatic knowledge (metapragmatic awareness), (2) their conversational behaviour in interaction with native speakers, particularly with regard to social appropriateness, topic effects, and responding acts, and (3) interlanguage realization of complaints, apologies, and thanks. The structure of conscious linguistic knowledge has become an important issue in second language acquisition research, but has received almost no attention in pragmatics. This volume will be the first comprehensive study of this important linguistic area.