The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition

9 Pragmatics in second language
acquisition

Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig

Historical discussion

Interlanguage pragmatics, unlike other areas treated in this Handbook, can be related to second language acquisition (SLA), but also exists apart from SLA research. This chapter focuses on the intersection of pragmatics and SLA research. To this end, this section considers definitions of pragmatics as practiced in SLA, the development of interlanguage pragmatics and its affiliations with fields of inquiry in applied linguistics, and a brief history of pragmatics in SLA.

Definitions of pragmatics

Interlanguage pragmatics has been defined as “the study of non-native speakers’ use and acquisition of L2 [second language] pragmatic knowledge” (Kasper, 1996, p. 145); however, the definitions of pragmatics used in L2 pragmatics have changed over the years. Levinson (1983) defined pragmatics as deixis, conversational implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and conversational structure. In practice, however, interlanguage pragmatics has focused largely on speech acts, with conversational structure and implicature trailing far behind and studies of deixis and presupposition rarely found. Interlanguage pragmatics has also included conversational management, discourse organization, and choice of address forms (Kasper and Dahl, 1991, p. 216), which are typically associated with sociolinguistics.

In their monograph on L2 pragmatic development, Kasper and Rose (2002) adopt definitions of pragmatics by Mey (1993) and Crystal (1997) which emphasize the social-interactional aspects of pragmatics: “the societally necessary and consciously interactive dimension of the study of language” (Mey, 1993, p. 315) and “the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication” (Crystal, 1997, p. 301).

Affiliation of interlanguage pragmatics within applied linguistics

Although pragmatics is now considered an independent area of investigation in second language studies, it was originally affiliated with sociolinguistics. An early venue for L2 pragmatics papers was the Sociolinguistics and TESOL Colloquium, which began at the TESOL conference in 1980. Several of the papers in Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition, the landmark book edited by Wolfson and Judd (1983), came from the 1981 colloquium. Neither the foreword, preface, nor introduction mention pragmatics, using instead the terms speech act, speech act theory, speech event, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics. Nevertheless, the titles of the papers reveal a distinctly pragmatic content. The papers themselves identify the ability to use speech acts as sociolinguistic competence (e.g., Schmidt, 1983). In 1987 co-organizers Lawrence Bouton and Yamuna Kachru launched the Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The first volume of the selected proceedings, Pragmatics and Language Learning, was published in 1990 and the twelfth is due out in 2010. The early volumes included descriptions of L1 and L2 use, cross-linguistic comparisons, and L2 acquisition.

Comparative interlanguage pragmatics studies have contributed to applied linguistics by providing cross-cultural and cross-linguistic documentation of pragmatics where none existed previously. In addition, the comparisons of a variety of features in a range of languages, although far from comprehensive, provide the basis for acquisitional inquiries and models for pedagogical materials.

Pragmatics in second language acquisition

Along with early alignment of pragmatics with sociolinguistics, pragmatics was also linked with L2 acquisition, reflecting contemporary theories and analyses. A case in point is Schmidt's (1983) study of Wes which includes the first longitudinal study of the L2 pragmatics of an adult second language learner. A test of the acculturation model (Schumann, 1978), this study positioned pragmatics in mainstream SLA. By 1992, there had already been a noticeable bifurcation of the field—perhaps nonintegration of interlanguage pragmatics with SLA is more apt—as noted by Kasper (1992, p. 205) when she described interlanguage pragmatics as having studied “precisely the kinds of issues raised in comparative studies of different communities ... Interlanguage pragmatics has predominantly been the sociolinguistic, and to a much lesser extent a psycholinguistic [or acquisitional] study of NNS’ linguistic action.” Comparative studies typically compare the production of native speakers of the target language (L2), native speakers of the learners’ first language (L1), and L2 learners of the same L1.

Interlanguage pragmatics has become increasingly concerned with SLA, although it is not the dominant orientation in interlanguage pragmatics given continued interest in comparative studies. Nonetheless, significant research agendas have positioned pragmatics acquisitionally. Kasper and Schmidt (1996) reviewed research in L2 pragmatics by posing 14 questions relevant to SLA addressing such issues as measurement, stages of L2 pragmatic development, mechanisms of change, comparison of L1 aquisition and L2 aquisition, comparison of pragmatics to other areas of the linguistic system, and the influence of individual differences, environment, and instruction. Two additional orienting papers appeared in 1999, a research agenda for investigating the interlanguage development that occurs with pragmatic development (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999) and a survey of pragmatics and SLA (Kasper and Rose, 1999). Finally, a book-length treatment of pragmatic development in second language was published in the Language Learning monograph series (Kasper and Rose, 2002), further anchoring pragmatics research in SLA.

Core issues

This section addresses general issues that L2 pragmatics shares with SLA more broadly, namely, environment, instructional influence, L1 transfer, and two areas of special concern to L2 pragmatics, data elicitation, and the relation of grammar to pragmatic development.

Data elicitation

Perhaps because of its hybrid origins in ordinary language philosophy, comparative pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and SLA, interlanguage pragmatics researchers have always investigated and discussed data collection. This is in part due to, on the one hand, conflicting goals and traditions among the contributing fields and audiences, and on the other hand, the lack of a prescribed or inherited method for speech act research (which dominates the field to this day). There is, however, another interpretation: One of the factors that drives the almost constant reflection on data elicitation in L2 pragmatics is that most studies use facsimiles of spontaneous oral conversation, and thus must reflect on whether alternative data collection methods can illuminate characteristics of conversation itself. Data collection is taken up in detail below (see Data and common elicitation measures).

Grammar and pragmatics: The development of pragmalinguistic resources

The development of L2 pragmatic competence involves the development of both L2 socio-pragmatic sensibilities and L2 pragmalinguistic resources. The development of L2 sociopragmatic knowledge, “the link between action-relevant context factors and communicative action (e.g., deciding whether to request an extension, complain about the neighbor's barking dog)” (Kasper, 2001, p. 51) has received more attention in the literature than the development of pragmalinguistic resources which include the various linguistic devices that allow speakers to implement their sociopragmatic knowledge. Investigating how pragmalinguistic resources develop involves investigating the development of L2 grammar and lexicon to understand how they interface with sociopragmatic knowledge; this is often referred to as the interface of grammar and pragmatics (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999). Although the specific concern of L2 pragmatics is pragmalinguistic knowledge, it is important to take into account that grammar (including prosody, morphology, syntax, semantics, and the lexicon) has important functions outside pragmatics. For example, although tense functions pragmatically as a mitigator, its primary function is referring to time; embedding pragmatically encodes conventional indirectness but primarily serves syntactic functions.

The segregation of pragmatic from grammatical inquiry in early work (Thomas, 1983) lent clarity to research in interlanguage pragmatics in its formative years. Nevertheless, even without focal research in the area, researchers observed the relationship between grammar and pragmatics reporting that L2 learners with high grammatical proficiency do not necessarily show equivalently high levels of L2 pragmatic competence (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford, 1993; Olshtain and Blum-Kulka, 1985). Instead L2 learners show a range of L2 pragmatic competence, from divergence to convergence on targetlike norms, suggesting that the conditions that foster L2 pragmatic development are not the same as those that foster L2 grammatical development.

It is important to note that in the case of adult L2 acquisition the agenda of investigating L2 grammatical development in light of L2 pragmatics does not constitute the claim that grammar precedes pragmatics or that pragmatics precedes grammar. Applying the same functionalist framework employed in much tense-aspect research (Bardovi-Harlig, 2007) provides a useful perspective. A basic tenet of the concept-oriented approach to L2 acquisition is that adult learners of second or foreign languages have access to the full range of semantic concepts from their previous linguistic and cognitive experience. Von Stutterheim and Klein argue that “a second language learner—in contrast to a child learning his first language—does not have to acquire the underlying concepts. What he has to acquire is a specific way and a specific means of expressing them” (1987, p. 194). This applies equally to pragmatics where adults come to L2 acquisition with knowledge of what Kasper and Rose (2002, p. 165) characterize as implicit universal pragmatic competence which includes knowledge of and ability to use systems constraints including turn taking, repairs, and sequencing; conversational and institutional talk; main categories of illocutionary acts; specific communicative acts; politeness; indexicality; directness levels; routine formulas; contextual variability; discursive construction of social identity; and accomplishment of activities.

Another basic tenet of pragmatics is that all speakers—native speakers, non-native speakers, and learners—make choices among available linguistic forms to convey social meanings. The choice of an address term (usted versus tú), the use of a request strategy (would you versus I was wondering if you would ...), or the use of an aggravator rather than a mitigator (I just decided that I will take syntax versus I was thinking about taking syntax) all have meaning because there are other possible alternatives.

Examining a learner's grammatical and lexical development reveals what linguistic devices are available to that learner. Because pragmatic value is derived from the choice of available linguistic devices, if a learner has only one form available, then the use of that form lacks pragmatic significance, revealing only the learner's level of interlanguage development. Thus, the study of acquisition within the framework of interlanguage pragmatics is necessary because it is the study of the development of alternatives.

As an illustration of the interface between pragmatics and language development, consider L2 modality and conventional expressions (other areas of grammar are discussed in Bardovi-Harlig, 1999). The general prevalence of the modals “would” and “could” in American English contrasts with their relative absence in learner production at low to intermediate proficiency. A longitudinal investigation of modality in oppositional talk showed that the dearth of would and could was a result of late emergence in interlanguage (Salsbury and Bardovi-Harlig, 2000). Whereas the modal expressions maybe and I think emerged early and were used widely by all learners, would and could emerged at least six months later in the interlanguage of only a few learners and accounted for less that 1 percent of modal expressions. The learners with the greatest range in inventory also showed contextualized use. Moreover, learners showed awareness of the sociopragmatics of oppositional talk by using the linguistic means at their disposal.

A second example is the acquisition of conventional expressions. Pragmaticists have suggested that differences in L1 and L2 production result from learners’ lack of access to or control of conventional expressions (Edmondson and House, 1991; Kasper and Blum-Kulka, 1993). Such hypotheses require direct investigation of both recognition and use of conventional expressions (Bardovi-Harlig, 2009). Comparing learner familiarity with conventional expressions to their production reveals that both knowledge of the conventional expressions (pragmalinguistics) and knowledge of their contexts of use (sociopragmatics) drive the production patterns that have been reported.

Environment: Second, foreign, and study abroad contexts

Once the general question addressed by L2 pragmatics, “Can L2 pragmatics be acquired?,” is answered (if there is any doubt, the answer is “yes”), it is a natural extension to ask “Can L2 pragmatics be acquired better, faster, or more efficiently under different conditions?” Two conditions that have received the most attention in L2 pragmatics are environment and instruction.

The role of learning environment has received noticeable attention in the last decade. At the time of this writing, there have been more pragmatic study-abroad studies published in the seven years since Kasper and Rose's (2002) comprehensive review than the total number cited in their review of nearly 25 years of research. Most pragmatics research has been situated in host environments (countries in which the language is spoken by the population) and include studies of university students learning English in North America, for example. Foreign language contexts (in which learners study languages not spoken in the country) include the acquisition of languages other than English in the USA or English in non-English speaking countries (Cook, 2001, Japanese in Hawaii; Liddicoat and Crozet, 2001, French in Australia; Takahashi, 2005, English in Japan). The addition of study-abroad contexts to the literature began noticeably in the late 1990s and early 2000s with dissertations and later as published articles (see especially the thematic issue of Intercultural pragmatics, 4(2), 2007; DuFon and Churchill, 2006).

Adding the study abroad context brings the investigation of environment in pragmatics full circle (see Chapter 32). Many study-abroad studies focus exclusively on learners in the host environment (for French Warga and Schölmberger, 2007; for German, Barron, 2007; for Indonesian, DuFon, 2010; for Spanish, Félix-Brasdefer, 2007; and for Spanish and French, Cohen and Shively, 2007) whereas others compare learners doing the same tasks in the host and foreign environments (for English, Bardovi-Harlig and Dörnyei, 1998, and the replication studies by Niezgoda and Roever, 2001, and Schauer, 2006, pragmatic awareness; Davis, 2007, attitudes and willingness to communicate; Schauer, 2007, requests; T. Takahashi and Beebe, 1987, refusals; for French, Hoffman-Hicks, 1999, greetings, leave takings, and compliments; for Spanish, Rodriguez, 2001, perception of requests).

Learners in host environments typically show some aspect of pragmatic development that exceeds that of learners in foreign environments. For example, learners in France showed greater sensitivity to sociopragmatics of French compliments, greetings and leave-takings than classmates in the USA (Hoffman-Hicks, 1999) and Taiwanese learners of English in the USA showed greater sociopragmatic gains in using acceptances as compliment responses than classmates in Taiwan who used rejections (Yu, 2004). Pragmalinguistics also shows gains: Study-abroad learners used a boarder repertoire of external request modifiers at the end of their sojourn than the at-home learners (Schauer, 2007). The advantage of comparisons is noted by Hoffman-Hicks who characterizes the study-abroad group's progress as modest, but nevertheless significant in light of the fact that the at-home group showed no development during the same semester. In contrast, when study-abroad and at-home learners were compared only in academic contexts fewer differences were evident (Rodriguez, 2001).

Different results in a series of replications emphasizes the importance of viewing the environment as a set of features rather than as a single variable. Bardovi-Harlig and Dörnyei (1998) and Schauer (2006) reported higher awareness of pragmatic infelicities by English as a second language (ESL) learners in host environments than English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in foreign environments. Bardovi-Harlig and Dörnyei interpreted this as due to the cross-cultural interaction experienced in the host setting. In contrast, using the same task, Niezgoda and Roever (2001) reported that EFL learners in the Czech Republic were better able to identify pragmatic infelicities than ESL learners in Hawaii. The conflicting findings may be due to differences among learners. The Czech learners were the top 5 percent of university students training to be English teachers, and the ESL learners in Hawaii may not have been as academically oriented as learners in other studies. Taken together, these studies emphasize the interaction of the environment with other variables including contact with native speakers, proficiency, aptitude, engagement, proficiency and experience of teachers (in the case of instructed learners), and access to NS other than teachers.

Investigating length of stay is closely linked to studying host environments (Félix-Brasdefer, 2004). Highly salient conversational functions such as greetings and discourse markers appear to respond to relatively short lengths of stay as illustrated by L2 development of American learners of Kiswahili who had visited Tanzania (Omar, 1992) and students of French who lived abroad for a semester (Hoffman-Hicks, 1999). In contrast, other areas take much longer to develop without instruction. The acceptance of positive request strategies and directness by Hebrew NNS increased as length of stay increased, but targetlike judgments developed only after ten years of residence (Olshtain and Blum-Kulka, 1985). Similarly, ESL learners enrolled at an American university without specific training in implicature became increasingly targetlike in their interpretations as length of stay increased, although some resolved only after three–four years (Bouton, 1994).

Influence of instruction

The interest in the effect of instruction on L2 pragmatics reflects the general interest in instructional effects in SLA and the specific demonstration that native and non-native pragmatics systems can vary significantly. The latter have encouraged researcher-teachers to undertake experiments in teaching pragmatics, both to test the efficacy of instruction and to develop means by which to assist learners gain knowledge in L2 pragmatics. (Comprehensive reviews can be found in Kasper and Rose, 2002; Kasper, 2001; Rose, 2005).

Instruction on a range of pragmatic targets has been investigated including discourse markers and pragmatic routines (House, 1996; Tateyama, 2001), speech acts (including compliments and compliment responses, Huth, 2006; Rose and Kwai-fun, 2001; directives, Pearson, 2006; requests, Safont Jordà, 2003; Takahashi, 2005; Takimoto, 2007), greetings (Liddicoat and Crozet, 2001), mitigators (Fukuya and Clark, 2001), lexical phrasal downgraders (Salazar, 2003), workplace speech events (Gibbs, 2005), terms of address including pronouns (Vyatkina and Belz, 2006), and strategies (Cohen and Shively, 2007).

Rose (2005, p. 239) characterizes research on instructional effects on L2 pragmatics as addressing three main questions, each of which have their own design. Studies addressing the first question—“Is the targeted pragmatic feature teachable at all?”—employ pre-test/post-test designs with intervening treatment (e.g., Huth, 2006; Liddicoat and Crozet, 2001; Vyatkina and Belz, 2006). In each of these studies learners responded favorably to instruction. Huth's learners compared authentic examples of American English, and German and received explicit information about, and practice on, compliment-response sequences. Role plays showed modest production gains in German compliment responses but follow-up interviews suggest that learners gained explicit knowledge about German compliment-acceptances. Vyatkina and Belz (2006) report the most robust results, but also had the most extensive intervention over the longest period which combined awareness-raising, explanation, and practice with form-focused instruction on modal particles in German over nine weeks. In seven weeks learners went from using four modal particles to using 89 at 84 percent accuracy.

Studies in the first group show that pragmatic features can be learned from instruction, but they do not test the possibility that learners at the same proficiency could make equivalent progress without instruction, which forms Rose's second question: “Is instruction in the targeted feature more effective than no instruction?” Studies in this group compare a control group that receives no specific pragmatic input to the treatment group. Bouton (1994) showed that implicatures that took up to four years to develop without instruction responded quickly to instruction.

Studies of this type suggest that instruction has an advantage, but leave open the question of whether another type of intervention would have produced different outcomes. Thus, studies addressing the third question—“Are different teaching approaches differentially effective?”— compare two or more interventions (often explicit and implicit conditions) and may include a control group with no pragmatics instruction (Pearson, 2006; Takimoto, 2007).

Takimoto (2007) evaluated the relative effectiveness of three types of input-based approaches for teaching polite request forms in an EFL setting. Performance of learners receiving (a) structured input tasks with explicit information, (b) structured input tasks without explicit information, or (c) problem-solving tasks was compared with control group performance on pre-tests, post-tests eight–nine days after instruction, and post-tests four weeks after instruction. These consisted of a discourse completion test, a role play test, a listening test, and an acceptability judgment test. The three treatment groups performed significantly better than the control group on all the measures, but there were no significant differences among the treatment groups. In contrast, Pearson (2006) reported no difference between two instructional approaches and no advantage for instruction in a study of directives in Spanish as a foreign language. Two second-semester classes received speech act lessons on Spanish expressions of gratitude, apologies, commands, and directives that included video segments from a pedagogical video series and role plays to practice directives and other speech acts. One class received metapragmatic discussions of the speech acts and the other received additional exposure to the speech acts through another viewing of the videos. A third second-semester class received no specialized instruction in Spanish pragmatics. The pre-test, post-test one week following instruction, and two delayed post-tests (at the end of the semester and six months later) showed no quantitative difference in the production of the groups when request forms were evaluated holistically. However, there were qualitative differences between the treatment groups and the control group (such as the use of poder statements), suggesting that the holistic measure (total/some/no variation) was too blunt to capture interlanguage change.

In sum, instruction appears to facilitate the development of L2 pragmatics. In addition, different teaching approaches may be differentially effective, but differences often disappear by the delayed post-test (Rose, 2005). However, the body of research on instruction to date is still quite small and operationalization of instruction is itself one of the variables. Instruction has ranged from learner-driven comparisons of NS-NNS talk-texts, which although provided by the instructor, display many natural features (S. Takahashi, 2005), individualized input showing learners specific features from their own computer-mediated communication (Vyatkina and Belz, 2006), to whole class activities which deliver linguistic resources such as pragmatic routines and rules of use (House, 1996) in lessons that range from as little as two 20-minute sessions (see Rose, 2005) to three interventions over a nine-week interval with continued opportunities for authentic use (Vyatkina and Belz, 2006).

Studies also vary in the target of instruction and thus the type of input: on one end of the continuum, an instructional target such as turn taking minimally requires timing examples, but no new linguistic resources, whereas biclausal request forms (I was wondering if you could or Is it possible for me to) require input on both form and use. Encouraging the use of a speech act in a range of contexts and promoting mitigation of a single speech act or semantic formula are targets of different magnitudes. Whether implicit or explicit conditions are selected for instruction (or both), the specific information about the target has to be determined; this is compounded in explicit conditions where appropriate explanations are given. Building linguistic resources for pragmatics (pragmalinguistics) may be able to draw on instruction in more formal areas of grammar whereas instruction on rules of use (sociopragmatics) has a shorter instructional history. In addition, all pedagogy interacts with a learner's stage of L2 development and is subject to constraints and principles of acquisition. This is an area where much exciting work remains to be done.

The means of evaluation in instructional studies range from written production for the assessment of oral features to conversation analytic assessments of talk to computer mediated communication (Huth, 2006; Vyatkina and Belz, 2006). Whereas implicitness/explicitness has been considered in terms of instructional delivery, it has not been considered widely in terms of pragmatic knowledge. Learners may show development of explicit knowledge, but not increased use (cf., House, 1996; Huth, 2006).

L1 influence

Among the questions identified by Kasper and Schmidt (1996), the most enthusiastically investigated has been the influence of the first language. Pragmatic transfer, “non-native speakers’ use of L1 pragmatic knowledge to understand or carry out linguistic action in the L2” (Kasper, 1997, p. 119) may result in positive transfer leading to successful exchanges or negative transfer leading to non-native use (or avoidance) of speech acts, semantic formulas, content, or linguistic form based on an assumption that L1 and L2 are similar where, in fact, they are not. The main limitation of these studies has been that they are generally comparative, but as Rose (2000) has pointed out, the results from comparative studies on transfer may have to be reassessed when more acquisitional studies have been completed.

Determining the stage of interlanguage development at which L1 influence is most likely to occur has also inspired studies. T. Takahashi and Beebe (1987) posited a positive correlation between proficiency and transfer suggesting that “pragmatic transfer requires more fluency to surface” (p. 153). This echoed earlier observations by Blum-Kulka (1982) that Canadian learners of Hebrew did not transfer request strategies to Hebrew because they lacked the L2 knowledge necessary to implement indirectness. Similarly, Maeshiba et al. (1996) observed that in the case of positive transfer, advanced learners used the same strategies as native speakers in both the L1 and the L2, and they concluded that this “makes sense in light of the assumption that advanced learners are likely to be more acculturated, and have the linguistic facility to transfer pragmatic strategies from the native language” (p. 169). This issue is not settled, however, as instances of transfer have been identified at lower levels of proficiency (Kasper and Rose, 2002).

An important development in this area will be the adoption of designs specific to the investigation of transfer (Jarvis, 2000) in which learners from one L1 group are compared to learners from a typologically distinct group to determine which characteristics of development belong to L2 acquisition in general and which are shared exclusively by learners of distinct L1s. To my knowledge, such designs have not yet been implemented in L2 pragmatics.

Data and common elicitation measures

Reviews of tasks used for data collection have a long history in interlanguage pragmatics, beginning not even a decade after the field was established (Wolfson, 1986). The reviews are fueled by the range of tasks employed in interlanguage pragmatics, frequent innovations in tasks, and use of facsimiles of spontaneous oral conversation which in turn fuels additional reflection on method.

One means of evaluating tasks used in L2 pragmatics is to ask how well they illuminate the features attributed to pragmatics by current definitions (Bardovi-Harlig, 2010). Using the definition of pragmatics by Crystal (1997) (see above, Definitions of pragmatics), the most highly valued forms of data collection should be those that promote the investigation of users, choices, constraints, social interaction, effects on other participants, and acts of communication. A second means of evaluating tasks is to determine the degree to which tasks conform to the general principles of task construction in SLA research, considering mode (whether the oral or written mode of the task matches the stated mode of the object of inquiry), planning (whether the task realistically represents the amount of time a speaker has to plan utterances for communication in advance), and explicit knowledge (whether the task promotes the use of explicit knowledge). A third means is to evaluate authenticity, consequentiality, and comparability (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford, 2005).

Tasks utilized in L2 pragmatics can be divided into production tasks and nonproduction tasks. Data collection that focuses on production, and which accounts for about 60 percent of studies, (Bardovi-Harlig, 2010) observes or generates conversation or simulated conversation for primary analysis. Authentic speech such as informal conversation, institutional talk, or classroom discourse, as well as elicited talk including role plays and oral discourse completion tasks (DCTs) are examples of oral production; letters, computer-mediated communication (CMC), and written DCTs are examples of written production. Nonproduction tasks include judgment tasks of various types, rating and sorting tasks, and interpretation tasks. Figure 9.1 organizes common production tasks from most to least authentic according to the relevant characteristics.

Authentic discourse may be oral or written, monologic, dyadic, or multipartied, and with the advent of computer communication, synchronous or asynchronous. Conversational data constitute the most familiar form of authentic discourse and the one most generally referred to in interlanguage pragmatics; institutional talk is another source of authentic discourse.

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Figure 9.1 Oral tasks and simulations from most to least authentic

Role plays are elicited through the presentation of a context called a scenario which typically includes information about speaker characteristics and setting. Role plays may ask participants to take on new roles or play themselves (the latter are role enactments). Kasper and Dahl (1991) argue that role plays “represent oral production, full operation of the turn-taking mechanism, impromptu planning decisions contingent on interlocutor input, and hence negotiation of global and local goals, including negotiation of meaning” (p. 228). Simulated tasks, in which speakers are brought together in an experimental setting to complete a task such as puzzle-solving or teaching a computer program, also yield experimenter-initiated interactive language samples. In simulated tasks participants speak as themselves. Some simulated tasks have been very successful in blurring the distinction between the authentic and simulated when they are employed in instructional settings where participants have existing social relations: Nguyen (2008), for example, had learners write essays, then meet with peer reviewers which facilitated the study of L2 criticism in context.

Oral DCTs (or closed role plays) provide scenarios to which participants respond. There is no interaction, although there may be an initiated turn provided by a recording. Participants respond orally and the production is recorded.

DCTs, unless otherwisely indicated, are written production questionnaires which provide scenarios to which participants respond (Example 1). DCTs that provide one or more turns are known as dialog completion tasks and those with no turns are called open questionnaires.

It's your friend Anne's birthday party. Anne is one of your colleagues from university but you do not consider her to be a very close friend. In her invitation she asked you to bring something to eat for the buffet. You promised to prepare some Mousse au Chocolat, but you didn't manage to do it. You feel embarrassed. What do you tell her when she opens the door?

You: Hi Anne! Happy birthday!

Anne: Hi! Good to see you!

You: _________________________________

(Warga and Schölmberger, 2007, p. 245, translated from French by the authors.)

In SLA there is a clear divide between oral and written tasks, and yet in interlanguage pragmatics written tasks have been used to represent oral production for three decades. The mismatch of written-for-oral-production increases learners’ opportunity to plan their responses and to draw on explicit knowledge. A recent review of data collection in L2 pragmatics in refereed journals shows that oral production is currently the dominant source of data, although this was not always the case (Bardovi-Harlig, 2010). Because written production generally stands in for oral production in interlanguage pragmatics, 90 percent of written tasks were written-for-oral and only 10 percent investigated authentic written communication. In contrast, written format is prevalent in non-production tasks. Only 29 percent utilize audio or audio-visual data for judgment tasks or rating, whereas 59 percent employ written transcripts. Acknowledging the general mismatch of mode, Cohen and Shively (2007, p. 196) described their written DCT as “an indirect means for assessing spoken language in the form of a written production measure.”

Language samples may also be characterized by comparability, interactivity, and consequentiality (Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford, 2005). Comparability assures that language samples can be reasonably compared. Interactivity addresses speakers’ opportunities to take turns. Consequentiality refers to the fact that there is a real world outcome to naturally occurring talk.

Production questionnaires are highly controlled tasks and yield language samples of high comparability. However, they are neither interactive nor consequential. Role plays retain the experimental control of production questionnaires resulting in language samples that are comparable and interactive, but not consequential. Conversation is both interactive and consequential with a range of outcomes. Like conversation, institutional talk is interactive and consequential, and in addition, the goal-oriented nature of institutional talk and the repetition of exchanges results in comparability.

The advantages of studying conversation and institutional talk for interlanguage pragmatics research derive from the fact that they are natural occurrences: spontaneous authentic language used by speakers who are speaking as themselves, in genuine situations, with socio-affective and real-world consequences. Unmonitored oral production has always been valued in SLA research; from the interlanguage pragmatics perspective, conversational data have been seen as lacking comparability except for the most routine and superficial exchanges, and role plays have been seen as more desirable for pragmatics research (Kasper and Dahl, 1991, p. 229). However, with the increased adoption of conversation analysis, it is expected that these purported disadvantages will be cited less often. Careful selection of interactive tasks (including authentic talk) in the mode that is being investigated, with multiple samples, should meet the multiple criteria for evaluation.

Analysis

The analyses used by particular studies depends on how they operationalize “pragmatics.” Speech act studies may report whether or not a speech act has occurred, analyze the use of semantic formulas (presence, absence, order, and frequency), describe the form of the semantic formulas or head acts, or analyze the content; external and internal modifiers might be analyzed. Coding schemes for some speech acts have become standard, such as the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) coding manual for requests and apologies (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) and refusal-coding of Beebe et al. (1990).

Other studies can be divided into four main groups: turn structure, grammatical and lexical devices including routines, interpretation, and discourse structure, with some remainders. Studies of turn structure investigate sequencing of turns, repair, and alignment. Studies that focus on grammar, lexicon, and routines investigate pragmalinguistic resources that speakers use to realize communication. Analyses include the use of modal particles in L2 German (Vyatkina and Belz, 2006), modals in L2 English (Salsbury and Bardovi-Harlig, 2000) and formulas (House, 1996; Tateyama, 2001). Studies of discourse structure include investigations of speech events, such as workplace calls (Gibbs, 2005), and written events such as letters of recommendation (Bouton, 1995). Studies that focus on interpretation included analyses of speakers’ underlying knowledge including metapragmatic judgments, ranking, rating, comprehension, identification, and implicature.

An ongoing challenge in the analysis of L2 pragmatics is to determine which measures will capture change over time. Any nuanced interlanguage analysis could potentially serve if it is sufficiently sensitive to interlanguage development, but not all analyses were designed to do that. For example, the CCSARP coding manual places the use of “can” and “could” queries in the same category, whereas acquisitional studies show a significant developmental difference between them. Adopting classifications designed for other purposes require significant attention to L2 sequences of development.

Empirical verification

Moving beyond task, L2 pragmatics has a relatively good record of longitudinal studies, ranging from two months (admittedly very short) to four years, with most around an academic year (eight– ten months). Taguchi (2010) provides a synthesis of 21 longitudinal studies of adult learners published up to 2008; Taguchi's review included studies that observed the development of participants over time, examined the development of specific pragmatic features, documented development by collecting data systematically over time (excluding ethnographic studies), did not involve intervention or training, and observed participants from secondary-school age to adult. Bardovi-Harlig (2010) included eight additional published longitudinal studies; Kasper and Rose's (2002) review included unpublished dissertations and studies of children. About 30 distinct longitudinal studies have been published; in total, about 36 have either been published or circulated.

Far fewer cross-sectional studies have been conducted in L2 pragmatics. Rose (2000; Kasper and Rose, 2002) surveys the cross-sectional literature, identifying six cross-sectional studies (including Rose, 2000) that focus on development of pragmatic features across levels, thus extrapolating a sequence of change across time. Like Taguchi, Rose distinguishes acquisitionally focused studies, pointing out that cross-sectional formats in L2 pragmatics often compare learner-knowledge at different levels with that of native speakers, but do not attempt to identify or document sequences of development between levels and thus differ from cross-sectional studies in SLA more broadly (Kasper and Rose, 2002, p. 14).

Although developmentally focused cross-sectional studies could, and probably should, be perfected, the promise of longitudinal studies is so much greater that it seems more profitable to pursue that approach. Longitudinal studies that collect authentic data (at best) or elicited interactive data (at least) are more valuable than studies with controlled written production or multiple choice tasks. Moreover, repeating the same tasks longitudinally runs the risk of introducing task learning.

Applications

Research in interlanguage pragmatics is directly relevant to second and foreign language instruction; moreover, effect of instruction constitutes an area of inquiry in pragmatics (see above, Core issues). Both acquisitional and comparative research offer a needs assessment for instruction (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001). Many researchers have also developed teaching activities, materials, and assessments. Pedagogically relevant publications include reviews of commercial materials (Bardovi-Harlig et al., 1991; Boxer and Pickering, 1995), innovative teaching units (System, 2005, 33 (3); Félix-Brasdefer, 2006), and books on classroom activities (Bardovi-Harlig and Mahan-Taylor, 2003; Tatsuki and Houck, 2010; Houck and Tatsuki, 2011). Other resources include extensive websites (CARLA at University of Minnesota and Indiana University's website by Félix-Brasdefer on the teaching of refusals (http://www.indiana.edu/~discprag/practice_refusals.html), innovative activities found in research reports (use of conversational transcripts of American and Japanese speakers of English, S. Takahashi, 2005), and papers and colloquia at conferences to discuss the teaching of pragmatics.

The key barrier to wider presence of pragmatics in second and foreign language teaching is the general lack of commercially available materials based on authentic interaction. Reviews of published materials report that interactions are often incomplete, fail to show differences among alternatives, or neglect to provide examples of functions or outcomes. Such materials are necessary because as Wolfson (1986) pointed out, in the area of pragmatics native-speaker intuition is an insufficient basis for instruction. Using materials based on authentic interaction provides an opportunity for students and teachers (both native and non-native-speaker teachers!) to learn together, using transcripts, recordings, or audio-visual materials to guide the discovery process.

Future directions

A review of L2 pragmatics research suggests a range of areas for future investigations. A recurrent theme is the need for L2 pragmatics (as opposed to interlanguage pragmatics) to focus on acquisition: identifying and accounting for stages of development, testing various measures of development, and recognizing SLA's concern for task effect. Many of these directions were discussed in the preceding sections. “Be acquisitionally focused” is not an admonition that researchers will take lightly. Part of interlanguage pragmatics will always be comparative. The call to increase the acquisitional orientation is addressed to readers who would like to know more about how L2 pragmatics evolves during the course of adult L2 acquisition and who might find much of the published literature persuasive, but not as acquisitionally focused as other SLA inquiries.

Thus, to assist readers in conceiving of acquisitional approaches I offer the following suggestions:

(1) Explore the underpinnings of the production patterns reported in the literature. Comparative studies report multiple differences between native speakers and learners. What are the underlying causes? Is production limited by linguistic resources? By comprehension? By general proficiency?

(2) Investigate the relationships between the knowledge systems that contribute to pragmatic knowledge. How are sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic knowledge related during different acquisitional stages? How are grammar and pragmatics related?

(3) Test the relation between general communicative success and the development of L2 pragmatics. How is general aural comprehension related to aural comprehension of pragmatics (including interpreting implicature, intended illocutionary force, and sincerity)?

(4) Spend less time investigating how “naturalistic” tasks compare to natural L2 encounters, and more time developing means of collecting natural communication. Develop more understanding of the effects of task, planning, explicit knowledge, and modality in pragmatics (see, for example, Taguchi, 2007).

(5) Expand the investigation: Add more target languages, include untutored learners, and incorporate more non-production tasks while addressing (1)–(4).

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