Developing Second Language Pragmatic Competence - (Second Language Acquisition) by Erika Marcet (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book explores common challenges that learners of Japanese encounter in spoken interactions. It frames second language pragmatics through Relevance Theory to support and implement pedagogical applications that raise awareness of a wide range of communicative acts that learners need to use and interpret in real-life communication.

Book Synopsis

One of the few books in the field of applied linguistics to use pragmatics theory to support and implement pedagogical applications

This book investigates the most common challenges that learners of Japanese encounter in spoken interactions.

Through qualitative research with university students in Ireland, it highlights learners' difficulties in navigating implicit meaning, sociocultural expectations and interactional norms. The author uses pragmatics theory to support and implement pedagogical applications to raise awareness in teaching environments of a wide range of indispensable communicative acts that learners need to use and interpret in real-life communication.

The book offers a fresh perspective, framing learners' challenges through Relevance Theory, a cognitive approach to communication that has been underexplored in second language pragmatics research.

It will appeal to researchers in pragmatics, SLA, cognitive linguistics and Japanese pedagogy.

Review Quotes

As the Japanese language experiences global popularity, this book is a must-have resource for students, teachers, and scholars studying Japanese. Erika Marcet has done an exceptional job identifying challenging features of Japanese pragmatics and crafting sound pedagogical plans for overcoming these challenges. Students' firsthand accounts convincingly illustrate the importance of pragmatics when communicating with locals in Japan.

-- "Naoko Taguchi, Northern Arizona University, USA"

This groundbreaking volume revolutionizes second language acquisition by bridging the gap between a cognitive pragmatics theory and classroom practice. Adopting Relevance Theory, Erika Marcet brilliantly uncovers the inferential and linguistic challenges that L2 Japanese learners face in oral communication. Complete with a revised definition of pragmatic competence, an innovative pedagogical framework and practical materials, this book is a must-read for language teachers, teacher educators and researchers worldwide.-- "Alicia Martínez-Flor, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain"

About the Author

Erika Marcet is an Assistant Professor in Japanese and Head of the Japanese Section in the School of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research interests include Japanese language education, L2 pragmatics, teacher education and modern foreign language policy.