L2 research has shown that instruction in L2 pragmatics is necessary. The current study evaluated the impact of explicit instruction on EFL learner's awareness and production of three speech acts of request, apology, and complaint. It also probed whether learners’ language proficiency plays any role in incorporating pragmatic instruction into the L2 classroom. Iranian undergraduate students maj...

This paper analyses dialogues where understanding and agreement are problematic. We argue that pragmatic theories can account for such dialogues only by models that combine linguistic principles of discourse coherence and cognitive models of practical rationality.

Opportunities for co-produced digital media find users differentially involved within emergent and unfamiliar configurations of technologies, organizations, and complex information flows. Addressing the interaction patterns and rhetorical practices of the most frequent contributors to online discussion forums in comparison to the majority of infrequent contributors, this analysis considers the ...

This paper investigates an alternation found with definite noun phrases in direct object position in Romanian that represents a theoretical puzzle for current theories of Differential Object Marking or pe-marking (Dobrovie-Sorin 1994). When in direct object position and unmodified, definite noun phrases can be accompanied either by the differential object marker pe, or by the simple enclitic de...

Intersentential elliptical utterances occur frequently during information-seeking dialogs in task domains. This paper presents a pragmatics-based framework for interpreting such utterances. Discourse expectations and focusing heuristics are used to facilitate recognition of an information-seeker's intent in uttering an elliptical fragment. The ellipsis is comprehended by identifying both the as...