Pragmatic aspect of second language (L2) as a component of communicative competence has recently received more attention. Many research studies have investigated the gap between native and nonnative speakers’ command of L2 pragmatics. However, development of L2 pragmatics has been the focus of few studies. In this study, how coursebooks can help both nonnative teachers and learners develop L2 p...

The article has three main concerns: (i) it gives a concise introduction into optimality-theoretic pragmatics; (ii) it discusses the relation to alternative accounts (relevance theory and Levinson's theory of presumptive meanings); (iii) it reviews recent findings concerning the psychological reality of optimality-theoretic pragmatics and its central part concept – bidirectional optimization. A...

the present investigation was designed to study the production and comprehension of specific means for information highlighted by advanced iranian learners of english as a foreign language. the study focused on the discourse-pragmatically motivated variations of the basic word order such as inversion, pre-posing, it- and wh-clefts. after taking the nelson test, a homogeneous group was settled. ...