This  paper  focuses  on  some  pragmatic  expressions  that  are  characteristic  of  informal  spoken English, their possible equivalents in some other languages, and their use by EFL learners from different  backgrounds.  These  expressions,  called  general  extenders  (e.g.  and  stuff,  or something), are shown to be different from discourse markers and to exhibit variation in form, funct...

The elaboration of the theoretical notion of communicative competence reflects a growing awareness of the importance of pragmatic knowledge in achieving mastery of a second language. Such awareness includes the recognition that teaching language effectively includes teaching culture in the most fundamental sense. Using the framework of interactional sociolinguistics to link theoretical work on ...

This study investigated the impact of individual differences like language proficiency, gender and age on the Iranian EFL learners interlanguage pragmatics in institutional discourse especially, their capacity to recognize and to rate pragmatic and grammatical infelicities in speech act situations of request and apology.  To this end, one hundred and eighty-seven EFL university students at thre...

onveying a strong message within a language stems from not only a linguistically appropriate utterance but also a pragmatically appropriate discourse. Broadly considering various facets of pragmatics, pragmatic assessment has not been potentially brought into perspective. To address this discourse gap, this study, guided by the principles of mixed-method design, pursued three purposes: ...

Despite the general findings that address the positive contribution of teaching pragmatic features to interlanguage pragmatic development, the question as to the most effective method is far from being resolved. Moreover, the potential of literature as a means of introducing learners into the social practices and norms of the target culture, which underlie the pragmatic competence, has not been...