Pragmatics: Teaching Speech Acts

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, fieldtested 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, focuses on the role of formulas in performing speech acts and on the characteristics of longersequences.