An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

A pragmatically friendly textbook might involve pragmatic awareness raising activities, 
extralinguistic contextual information for all language samples, provision of a variety of 
language forms to accomplish a certain speech act to enable pragmalinguistic choices, 
and rich cultural information to enable sociopragmatic choices.
Both Bardovi-Harlig (2001) and Vellenga (2004) acknowledge that more recent 
textbooks may be more suitable, and Vellenga calls for more research into 
the pragmatic information that is available in textbooks. Kasper (1997) also 
emphasizes the importance of research: ‘Because native speaker intuition is a 
notoriously unreliable source of information about the communicative practices 
of their own community, it is vital that teaching materials on L2 pragmatics are 
research-based.’

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85
Pragmatics
One major project that lives up to this requirement is the Language in the 
Workplace Project (LWP) at Victoria University of Wellington. Holmes et al. 
(forthcoming) report on how they have used their LWP corpus of interactions (which 
were collected in professional workplaces) as a resource for developing teaching 
and learning materials to help migrant workers become more pragmatically/
interculturally proficient. Marra, Holmes and Riddiford (in preparation) explain 
their general design principles as follows:
The diversity in the class, coupled with reasonably high levels of English proficiency, 
means that instruction cannot and should not be focused on specific tasks for specific 
positions. Instead our focus is sociopragmatic skills which serve as resources in a 
range of situations. Learners need to be able to manage on-going, dynamic social 
interaction in a wide range of settings, and this entails the ability to accurately 
analyse the relative weight of different social dimensions. Hence we explicitly 
encourage and teach tools for self-reflection and analysis of relevant contextual 
information. ... A particular challenge in the design of the course thus involves giving 
adequate weight to ways of empowering the migrant employees to undertake their 
own analyses of what is going on in workplace interactions [...] (Newton 2007). Or, 
as Clark and Ivanic (1997: 217) express it, ‘providing them with a critical analytical 
framework to help them reflect on their own language experiences and practices and 
on the language practices of others in the institutions of which they are a part and in 
the wider society in which they live’.
Details of how this is carried out in practice can be found in Newton (2007), 
Marra, Holmes and Riddiford (in preparation), Holmes et al. (forthcoming) and 
Riddiford (2007).
Another potential source of pragmatic information for learners is dictionaries, 
and Kawamura (2006) argues that pragmatic information in dictionaries, both 
monolingual and bilingual, needs to be significantly improved. He maintains that 
lexicographers need to pay greater attention to pragmatic information, and suggests 
that more lexical items and expressions should be considered from a pragmatic 
perspective. For example, he recommends including relatively infrequent words 
and phrases if they tend to be misused frequently by foreign learners and lead to 
serious pragmatic failure. However, he also warns that dictionaries are typically 
expected to be prescriptive, and that users may thus wrongly interpret pragmatic 
dictionary information in this light.
Pragmatic Performance and Learner Identity
As we noted above, it is impossible to prepare students for every communicative 
context and need that they will face in real life, and it is thus impractical to 
provide them with pre-determined strategies for dealing with such contexts and 
needs. But even if we were able to do so, it would be inappropriate to make this 
our goal. People’s use of language is closely interconnected with their senses of 
identity, and people need to be able to present themselves in ways that they 
feel comfortable with. As Kachru and Nelson (1996: 89) maintain, ‘If a typical 
American has no wish to speak like or be labelled as a British user of English, why 
should a Nigerian, an Indian, or a Singaporean user feel any differently?’. In fact, 
some learners may wish to speak like members of the target language/culture – 
they may wish to identify with the other social group; on the other hand, others 
may not wish to do so. The key point is that learners need to be able to make that 

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86 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
choice for themselves. They need to have a range of strategies at their disposal, 
and to select meaningfully among them to present themselves as they personally 
wish.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Kelly-Jay Marshall for providing us with the 
dialogue that we discuss.
Further Reading
Introductions to Pragmatics
Thomas, J. (1995) Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: 
Longman.
Yule, G. (1996) Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP.
Both of these books provide concise and extremely accessible introductions to 
pragmatics. Thomas (1995) is particularly rich in interesting examples. 
Cutting, Joan (2007) Pragmatics and Discourse. A Resource Book for Students (second
edition). London: Routledge.
In addition to explaining key concepts in pragmatics, this book also includes extensive 
examples, classic readings and activities.
Mey, Jacob (2000) Pragmatics. An Introduction (second edition). Oxford: Blackwell.
This book takes a strong social perspective, and explores pragmatics in much greater 
depth than either Thomas (1995) or Yule (1996) but is very accessible.
Pragmatics and Culture
Kasper, G. and Blum-Kulka, S. (eds.) (1993) Interlanguage Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press.
This book comprises empirical studies of interlanguage pragmatics, with a focus on 
speech acts.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (ed.) (2008) Culturally Speaking. Communication, Culture and