Esther Usó

Refusals are complex face-threatening speech acts whose appropriate performance requires not only lengthy sequences of negotiation and cooperative achievements, but also face-saving strategies to accommodate the disruptive nature of the act (Gass & Houck 1999). Also, since they have a face threatening nature, they are subject to cultural variations. Consequently, care must be taken in the choice of refusal strategies.

This study used a pre-test post-test research design to investigate the role of explicit strategy instruction on Spanish English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ ability to write authentic email requests to faculty. Drawing on Taguchi’s (2018) classification of pragmatics learning strategies, the instructional intervention followed a strategy-based approach to help learners understand the form–function–context mapping of email requests in the academic context.

This study followed a pre-test/post-test/delayed post-test design to investigate the long-term impact of metapragmatic instruction on learners’ ability to modify email requests. Twenty-five Spanish university students with an upper-intermediate proficiency level in English participated in the study. Over a two-week period, they received six hours of instruction on request modifiers by applying a form-function-context mapping framework (Taguchi 2011). Target request modifiers in written Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) were analysed for frequency and variety.

Film-based dialogues have been praised in the current work on pragmatics as a potentially useful source that can enhance learners’ (meta)pragmatic awareness of the pragmatic phenomena in actual communicative events. Following this view, this paper first outlines the concept of (meta)pragmatic awareness and explains, drawing on McConachy and Spencer-Oatey (2020), the different theoretical perspectives examining the role that awareness plays in developing learners’ pragmatic ability.

Nowadays, English has been adopted as an international language that speakers from distinct linguacultural backgrounds use to achieve any communicative goal. An important part of this communicative process is undoubtedly the mastery of pragmatic competence. More specifically, second language pragmatics needs to respond to the challenges of globalization. To that end, it is essential that teachers become aware of the importance of developing their learners’ pragmatic competence so that they can successfully communicate in diverse English as an international language interactions.

Speech acts are one of the most widely examined pragmatic features that second and foreign language (L2/FL) learners need to master in order to communicate appropriately in the target language. Without a proper knowledge of how to use and understand a particular speech act that is appropriate to the contextual and cultural parameters of a specific situation, L2/FL learners may run the risk of being perceived as rude and/or impolite.

Speech acts are an important and integral part of day-to-day life in all languages. In language acquisition, the need to teach speech acts in a target language has been demonstrated in studies conducted in the field of interlanguage pragmatics which indicate that the performance of speech acts may differ considerably from culture to culture, thus creating communication difficulties in cross-cultural encounters.

Current Trends in the Development and Teaching of the four Language Skills builds connections from theory in the four language skills to instructional practices. It comprises twenty-one chapters that are grouped in five sections. The first section includes an introductory chapter which presents a communicative competence framework developed by the editors in order to highlight the key role the four skills play in language learning and teaching.

La importància d’aspectes discursius en l’ensenyament i aprenentatge de segones llengües s’ha fet palesa en les últimes dècades, sobretot a partir de la presència de l’enfocament comunicatiu en l’ensenyament. Com a conseqüència d’aquesta visió, diversos estudis s’han dut a terme tot considerant el desenvolupament i la promoció de la competència comunicativa dels aprenents.