The way we ask for something, or "request," is hardly the same across all contexts. The degree to which we show politeness in these instances is closely related to a number of contextual factors (Brown & Levinson, 1987), manifested in the linguistic features that we employ (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper, 1989; Searle, 1975).…

Testing of second language pragmatic competence is an underexplored but growing area of second language assessment. Tests have focused on assessing learners' sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abilities but the speech act framework informing most current productive testing instruments in interlanguage pragmatics has been criticized for…

A comparison of two well-known test formats for evaluating and characterizing foreign language learners' interlanguages revealed that open-ended production test questions were more difficult than closed-item recognition test questions. (CB)

Despite increasing interest in interlanguage pragmatics research, research on assessment of this crucial area of second language competence still lags behind assessment of other aspects of learners' developing second language (L2) competence. This study describes the development and validation of a 36-item web-based test of ESL pragmalinguistics,…

It is proposed that a major obstacle for intermediate-level learners of English as a Second Language is the transition from thinking in the native language to thinking in English, that this transition must be made before proceeding from the intermediate level, and that it should begin as early as possible in language training. Early in-class…

The speaking ability of 40 Finnish college students of English as a Second Language was assessed in tests of interactional and transactional language function. In the interactional test, the learner introduced a topic of his choice and attempted to converse with two native speakers of English. In the transactional test, the learner watched a video…