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practice, along with hands-on activities intended for enhancing teachers’
(and their students’) pragmatic awareness and reflective teaching. Even
though teacher readers of this book may not conduct formal research, we
provide suggestions for how both teachers and their students can conduct
informal investigation by gathering data on pragmatics. Such classroom-
based research can contribute both to students’ language learning and to
teachers’ professional development. We see classroom teachers as primarily
engaged in instruction while at the same time exploring student learning in
the authentic classroom and analyzing language use in and outside of the
classroom. In this sense, practitioners have access to knowledge and insights
about real language classrooms that are not available to researchers. We
would welcome, as a consequence of reading and using this book in their
instruction, teachers’ contribution of their own insights for the teaching
and assessing of pragmatic ability to future volumes of this kind, in order to
further inform theory and research in this domain. For example, many of
the examples provided in this book revolve around material for adult or
adolescent learners; we invite readers’ innovations for enhancing instruc-
tional pragmatics for young learners in particular.
The following is a brief description of the book. In Part One, we provide
some grounding in the teaching and learning of L2 pragmatics. In Chapter 1,
we discuss terminology in L2 pragmatics and related fields, including a 
discussion of what we mean by “culture” and how that interfaces with prag-
matics. In Chapter 2, we consider teachers’ reflections on language learning
and teaching, especially with regard to how they experience pragmatic
development and how that, along with their professional development,
influences their knowledge, beliefs, and practices. Chapter 3 looks at various
methods for obtaining language samples to be used for pragmatics-focused
instruction and at the advantages and disadvantages of each method.
Chapter 4 describes and promotes the development of a link between 
classroom practice and research-established information by introducing an
online database for L2 pragmatics. Chapter 5 identifies potential sources 
of learners’ pragmatic divergence, provides numerous examples, and offers
explanation for the divergence, which can be both unintentional and 
intentional.