Patricia Salazar

In the present era of global online communication, email exchanges are one the most common means of interaction between students and professors (Tseng, 2015). However, emails may convey an impolite tone if students do not take status or power imbalance into account to show politeness (Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2011). The present study explored the informal second person pronoun of address (tú) and the formal one (usted) in first and follow-up requestive emails sent by Spanish students. In addition, some structural elements to show politeness in the emails were also examined.

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.

Nowadays, most interaction between students and professors is carried out by means of emails. According to Crystal (2006), emails include an obligatory element (obviously, the message) and two optional elements: greeting (or opening) and farewell (or closing). Previous research (e.g., Bou-Franch, 2011; Félix-Brasdefer, 2012) has examined openings and closings in emails, but, to our knowledge, research on these two moves in follow-up emails is scarce.

In the university context, much of the communication between students and professors takes place via emails. Despite the fact that there is a power asymmetry in this relationship, on many occasions professors receive requestive emails which may sound too direct or informal. In this study, Codina-Espurz and Salazar-Campillo explore whether there is a relationship between the language in which the emails were written (Spanish, Catalan and English) and the degree of (in)directness by examining the request strategy and the internal modification employed to soften the imposition of the request.

Little exposure and few opportunities for practice are two main drawbacks for learners in instructional contexts. These problems are intensified when dealing with face-threatening acts such as refusals, as learners are not fully capable of expressing their meanings and miscommunication is a likely by-product. The present volume aims at exploring factors and production of refusals in different instructional settings by means of ten original papers which address key questions dealing with the speech act of refusals.

Email communication is pervasive in faculty interaction. As there exists status imbalance between students and professors in this type of context, emails are expected to cater for the uneven power relationships by means of using appropriate polite features. Previous research (e.g., Eslami, 2013; Salazar-Campillo & Codina-Espurz, in press) has pointed out the pragmatically deficient use of openings and closings in requestive emails sent by non-native students in educational contexts, revealing a lack of the expected deference and respect to the professor.

Corrective feedback (CF, henceforth) has been an issue of investigation in second language acquisition for a number of years now. In the English-as-a-foreign-language classroom, students may have different preferences towards how to have their errors corrected. Research has shown that differences in the learning styles of the students will affect the learning environment by either supporting or inhibiting their intentional cognition and active engagement. In the classroom, teachers can use this information as a tool to motivate students and help them improve in their learning process.

The present volume, is a timely contribution to the field of interlanguage pragmatics. The nine chapters presented here expand the scope of research to date by including different contexts (i.e., formal instruction, stay-abroad, and online) and age groups which have received less attention (for example, young learners and adolescents). While the speech act of requesting is the one that has been most explored in the field of interlanguage pragmatics, as attested by several chapters in the present volume, disagreements and directives are also tackled.