Interlanguage Pragmatics

Catalog description

This course aims to provide an introduction to the theories, research, and teaching on interlanguage pragmatics. Pragmatics is the study of language in context and how the "true" meaning of what we say extends beyond the truth-conditional (literal) aspect of an utterance. Interlanguage, intercultural, or cross-cultural pragmatics investigates how adult learners of an additional language deal with this nuanced aspect of the language they are acquiring and how they develop the pragmatic skills for that language, given that (a) the pragmatics of each language (and the different varieties of each language) are culturally specific, (b) pragmatics are rarely taught in language classrooms, and (c) the pragmatic features of a language are not always transparent or salient.