Abstract

This book deals with intercultural pragmatics and how both nonnative teachers (NNTs) and native teachers (NTs) may enhance their classroom instruction regarding target language (TL) pragmatics. It focuses primarily on the experiences of instructors as they teach their learners about the pragmatics of the TL, both in second and foreign language learning settings. It makes clear that there are aspects of teaching pragmatics where it may help to be an NT and other areas where it may help to be an NNT and proposes creative ideas that both sets of teachers may draw on to compensate for gaps in their knowledge. Further themes in the book include ideas for motivating students who want to learn about pragmatics, the role of technology in teaching and learning pragmatics, the role of learning strategies, the assessment of pragmatics and ways to research pragmatics. The book will be of interest to teachers, teacher educators and students interested in researching and improving the teaching of pragmatics.

This book is a timely addition to the field, helping us move from the native-nonnative distinction to native-nonnative collaboration when teaching pragmatics in a language classroom. A variety of personal experiences and episodes used to illustrate theories, research, and practice make the content of pragmatics fully accessible to teachers and students. This book is the ideal companion for practitioners and researchers who wish to gain a thorough understanding of issues related to pragmatics learning in a global context.

This book is a significant and timely contribution to the area of teaching pragmatics. Being aware that it is difficult to define what native and nonnative speaker means, Cohen’s book takes a close look at teaching and learning pragmatics, providing material in a number of different languages and cultures. It will be read with interest by any teacher educator and researcher.

Andrew D. Cohen is Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota, USA. He has published extensively in the areas of pragmatics, language assessment, and language learner strategies, and frequently presents his research at international conferences. He was the recipient of the 2006 Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award from the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL). He is also a hyperpolyglot, currently learning his 13th language, Mandarin.

This innovative book takes a fresh perspective on learning, teaching and assessing pragmatics. It manages to be both scholarly and highly practical, and its coverage of pragmatics instruction by non-native speaker teachers makes a unique and much needed contribution to the field.

The discussion of the findings of the current theoretical and empirical research on teaching and learning pragmatics and the impressive reference list make the book attractive for researchers interested in pragmatics and for teacher educators who are...critically aware of the NS-NNS dichotomy used in the book.