While there has been insightful research on the commonly used expression "I think" (IT), this study introduces a non-conventional and innovative conception of elasticity (Zhang 2011), bringing together several properties of IT. Drawn on large-scale naturally occurring classroom data with a rare combination of linguistically and…

This article presents the results of an exploratory empirical study into the perception of conventionally indirect requests in British English and Peninsular Spanish, given the high incidence of the pragmatic category over others in its encoding of politeness in both related and unrelated languages (cf. Blum-Kulka et al., 1989). More specifically,…

Reports a study of the relationship between nonverbal forms of communication, principally gestures, and second language (L2) private speech through recall and picture narration task. Results show nonverbal elements illuminate the private speech they accompany, and gestures alone act in a self-regulatory capacity after pauses, implying a connection…