This study investigates the acquisition of genericity in L2 French and L3 English. While some exponents become generic by assembling morphological, syntactic and discursive cues, definite singular nominals additionally require the well-established kind restriction. It is a pragmatic and language-specific constraint. The participants are L1 Arabic…

Negative sentences are hard to process when they are presented out of context. When embedded in a context of plausible denial their processing difficulty decreases or is completely eliminated. We investigated in six behavioral experiments whether the processing of negation is eased in a denial context triggered by discourse markers (e.g.…

Apology may be defined as "a compensatory action for an offense committed by the speaker which has affected the hearer" (Marquez-Reiter, 2000, p. 44), and a compliment is another speech act "which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker... which is positively valued by the speaker and the…

Counterfactuals describe imagined alternatives to reality that people know to be false. Successful counterfactual comprehension therefore requires people to keep in mind both an imagined hypothetical world and the presupposed real world. "Counterfactual transparency," that is, the degree to which a context makes it easy to determine…

For the purpose of achieving a successful communication, issues such as the appropriateness of speech acts and face saving become essential. Therefore, it is very important to achieve a high level of pragmatic competence in speech acts. Bearing this in mind, this study was conducted to investigate the preferred refusal strategies Kurdish and…

This ethnographic case study explores intercultural and ethnographic engagement by undergraduate Hong Kong students enrolled in an Intercultural Communication course at a public research university. Ethnographic projects originated from virtual exchanges with undergraduates in a professional writing course at a private research institution on the…

As the English language continues to evolve through time, many of its structures and functions changed, which made it even realizable that the smallest unit in a discourse can play a crucial role in communication. Hence, this present study is an attempt to investigate the phenomenon and further delve into the discourse-pragmatic functions of…

This paper discusses the design and implementation of a pedagogical intervention aimed at raising sociopragmatic awareness in the context of Spanish as a foreign language in Denmark. The intervention consists of a blended-learning environment where the three main components are synchronous telecollaboration via Skype, reflection sessions in groups…

Learning a foreign language requires students to acquire both grammatical knowledge and socio-pragmatic rules of a language. Pragmatic competence as one of the most difficult aspects of language provides several challenges to L2 learners in the process of learning a foreign language. To overcome this problem, EFL teachers should find the most…

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the teaching of conversation strategies in the EFL classroom. This is reflected in how institutional programs and textbook series regard conversation management as crucial in the learning of the L2. Classrooms, in this sense, have become spaces for active socialization, and have given the study…

Every language has different systems for expressing third party information. While in some languages grammar rules stipulate how to do this, in both Japanese and English the degree of indirection or direction a speaker should use to express information obtained as hearsay is genuinely a pragmatic language issue. English speakers tend to express…

An English discourse completion questionnaire consisting of 60 situations designed to elicit suggestions in English was administered to 28 native speakers of Chinese or Malay and to 12 native speakers of American English. Non-native speakers of English were more direct in their responses. Native and non-native speakers significantly differed in…

Through examination of the discourse markers "ano" and "sono" in Japanese, this paper explores how these linguistic devices function differently in conversation. The focus of this analysis is the mental and social functions through which a speaker attempts to achieve an interpersonal rapport with a listener. In particular, the…

A form is presented for language teacher self-evaluation concerning attitudes and knowledge about learning theories, general linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, teaching methodology, the communicative approach, class activities, class management, instructional support, and evaluation. (MSE)