Notably, the pragmatic aspects of language can be actualized by utilizing real life, authentic language tasks whereby the relations between language and the context of use are accentuated. As such, the application of interactive tasks such as discourse completion, consciousness raising, and role play activities can foster problem solving strategies which in turn facilitate critical thinking and collaborative skills. Besides, exposure to literary narratives such as novel and drama can similarly have a great bearing on the development of pragmatic skills.

One of the strategies is to teach them pragmatic aspects of language through contexts.

I agree with Hazim about the contexts.

Very specifically, I designed a game in Dutch that has the same game interface as 'cards against humanity' but then without the profanities. It takes every day situations and very typical responses that fit into almost any situation. However, according to the situation the student is replying to, the meaning of the response changes due to implicit meanings.

It also gets them accustomed to dialect forms and conjugations (which is the case in Dutch).

Just a suggestion, but there are many ways to take on this specific topic, depending on the objective you have in mind as a language trainer and who your audience is.

Hazim is right!

I fully agree. It's important to show them that the question is not whether a sentence is right or not but whether it is adequate! A good task is to pick a sentence and show it in different contexts. It may be right in one context but strange or impolite in another.

Hazim makes an excellent point. When I teach pragmatic language to adolescents with social challenges, the first thing I teach them to do is to look at the context of the situation. A simple example would be that shouting out, getting out of your seat, and speaking loudly are behaviors that are not appropriate in the classroom, but would be appropriate and expected at a football game. The situational context dictates the majority of what is expected.

I would also stress the importance of explicitly teaching some of the common idioms we use in Standard American English. In my experience, the amount of non-literal idiomatic language we use is one of the most challenging things to overcome to reach native-like proficiency.

I agree Mostafa. I would love to see this topic expanded in research, especially for populations that may have pragmatic difficulties in addition to English as an L2.

please read this research :

chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://mohamedrabeea.net/library/pdf/1525de9a-15bd-42f1-a9df-ae54821036d9.pdf

I agree, context is everything when dealing with pragmatics. This article could be of help: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1069320. The authors propose an approach to teaching pragmatics, specifically, speech acts.

Notably, the pragmatic aspects of language can be actualized by utilizing real life, authentic language tasks whereby the relations between language and the context of use are accentuated. As such, the application of interactive tasks such as discourse completion, consciousness raising, and role play activities can foster problem solving strategies which in turn facilitate critical thinking and collaborative skills. Besides, exposure to literary narratives such as novel and drama can similarly have a great bearing on the development of pragmatic skills.

Reza- Thank you for providing us good examples. It is interesting that you mentioned novels and drama as potential ways to improve pragmatic skill. I strongly believe that this would be a very good topic for research.

Das ist dem lokutiven und illokutiven Akt abhängig. Der lokutiven Akt ist

die Äußerung in einer bestimmten Form, mit einer bestimmten Bedeutung und mit

einem Bezug auf Sachverhalte. Der illokutive Akt ist der kommunikative Sinn dieser Äußerung, die von der Sprechhandlung abhängig ist. Beispiele können Sie an Seite 178 in der im Anhang Forschung

Asma- Thank you for your message, though I couldn't understand a word of it (I just understand English :))

This depends on the locative and illocutionary act. The locative act is

the statement in a certain form, with a certain meaning and with

a reference to facts. The illocutionary act is the communicative meaning of this utterance, which depends on the speech act. Examples can be found on page 178 in the appendix research.

I agree with Reza Biria,

The authentic language input, being extracts from drama, novel, film/movie scenes, conversation, newspaper articles, letters...etc., is of great help for learners to see how language is ACTUALLY used in real-life situation since the theory of speech acts is about what is done /to be done by using language. Two things are really needed to teach pragmatics inside classroom, the first one is to raise the learners' awareness about this important aspect of language competency, and the second is to explicitly teach learning strategies oriented to pragmatics development.

Last, luckly enough ,some current EFL textbooks have specific sections within the units or chapters for pragmatic skills/strategies and speech acts integrated with other language basic skills such as speaking or writing.

I just came across a very good book in this regard:

Investigating Pragmatics in Foreign Language Learning, Teaching and Testing

edited by Eva Alcón Soler, Alicia Martínez Flor

There is a difference between linguistics and language use. Pragmatics is language use which mainly deals with culture and stylistics. We need to acculturate our students not just teach them pragmatics. We can teach students linguistics but we have to acquaint them with second language culture and stylistics through real life situations.

Following

There is an excellent book on the topic by Ishihara and Cohen (2013): Teaching and learning pragmatics: Where language and culture meet

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285051866_Teaching_and_learning_pragmatics_Where_language_and_culture_meet

Andrew D. Cohen has done quite a bit of research on pragmatics and written extensively on pragmatics instruction.

This might also be very useful to you:

Teaching, Learning and Investigating Pragmatics: Principles, Methods and Practices , published by Cambridge Scholars, 2015. Good luck!

Interesting question. I do not teach English but in my Communication Theory classes, I find that we often use language pragmatically without taking notice of it. Real life examples always drive home the point. For instance, how do you know that, that specific whistle behind your window or a particular way of knocking at the door signifies a unique person (say your boyfriend or daddy)? pragmatics should not be separated from context (signs and symbols).

Students are always anxious to learn new items of language especially in context which facilitates the process of learning a second language. Pragmatics is a new window that enables them to look for how language is used by its producers, and how it is interpreted by its heares as it depends on how it might be delivered.

I have also written a book closely linked to this topic. The focus here though is on developing learners' ability to interpret and reflect on pragmatics rather than simply acquire L2 norms, as is the dominant perspective in interlanguage pragmatics.

http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?K=9781783099320

I've also recently argued for a broader conceptualisation of L2 pragmatics learning here: Article L2 pragmatics as 'intercultural pragmatics': Probing sociopr...

Dear Troy,

Thank you, and I am corious to know more about your work.

Coming at this as a teacher with ESL experience, I get my Chinese students to reflect on issues such as context, inference and register in relation to their first language (Putonghua/Mandarin). I get the feeling that some teachers think that pragmatics only exists in relation to the L2 (English) and treat students' L1/C2 as a hindrance or something that interferes with producing English 'authentically' . Or that their L1 pragmatics have no place in the English (second language) classroom. Behind this, of course, is the discursive aspect of English and the Native-Speaker model.

In contrast, I have always taken inspiration from the funds of knowledge identity concepts and Cummins' notion of CUP (Common Underlying Proficiency), both of which emphasize the importance of students' mother-tongue/culture. So, exploration of students' L1 and C1 not only scaffolds L2/C2 learning, but more importantly, for me anyway, it reaffirms existing identities.

The importance of the specific teaching of local pragmatics was emphasised in the findings and conclusions of my recent dissertation on Intercultural Experience and Learning Among EAP International Students.

https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6066/

Participants described situations where they had knowledge gaps of what to say or how to interpret what others say in context-specific situations. These participants, aged 18-24 from Angola, China and Brazil needed local knowledge of the most fundamental interpersonal exchanges, such as greetings and farewells, how to take a bus, and how to order a coffee. I argue that their needs could not possibly be anticipated in an EFL class in the home country, because the informal language used in Southern Ontario, Canada among undergraduate students and persons in the service industries may not apply in other locations of cross-border study.

The interview protocol in this research encouraged the participants to ask the researcher questions about things that were confusing or puzzling about the behaviour or communications of their peers. E.g. "Hi, how are you?" or rather "Hey, how are ya?" is not a question or an invitation to converse among casual acquaintances in the student housing. It functions much like "How do you do?" as taught in British English during the colonial period.

The ubiquitous "have a nice day" in this same part of the world does not sound like a farewell to the ears of L2 speakers who have not been exposed to this before. Thus, I have seen pragmatics for this population of speakers (EAP International Students at English language universities abroad) to correspond to the subject context of ESL in Canada (and elsewhere). Students in study-abroad need to learn both the academic language of their formal lives as well as the local ways people communicate in daily life. Without knowledge of the local expressions the barriers to intercultural tie-formations remain in place.

I agree with Reza Biria.