Assessing Second Language Pragmatics

The first book-length collection of studies on the assessment of pragmatic competencies in a second or foreign language. Grounded in theoretical perspectives on communicative and interactional competencies, it examines the reception and production of speech acts through a variety of assessment methods and quantitative and qualitative analyses.

Pragmatic ability is crucial for second language learners to communicate appropriately and effectively; however, pragmatics is underemphasized in language teaching and testing. This book remedies that situation by connecting theory, empirical research, and practical curricular suggestions on pragmatics for learners of different proficiency levels: It surveys the field comprehensively and, with useful tasks and activities, offers rich guidance for teaching and testing L2 pragmatics. Mainly referring to pragmatics of English and with relevant examples from multiple languages, it is an invaluable resource for practicing teachers, graduate students, and researchers in language pedagogy and assessment.

Inside Reading Second Edition is a five-level academic reading series that develops students’ reading skills and teaches key academic vocabulary from the Academic Word List.

New Directions in Second Language Pragmatics brings together varying perspectives in second language (L2) pragmatics to show both historical developments in the field, while also looking towards the future, including theoretical, empirical, and implementation perspectives. This volume is divided in four sections: teaching and learning speech acts, assessing pragmatic competence, analyzing discourses in digital contexts, and current issues in L2 pragmatics. The chapters focus on various aspects related to the learning, teaching, and assessing of L2 pragmatics and cover a range of learning environments. The authors address current topics in L2 pragmatics such as: speech acts from a discursive perspective; pragmatics instruction in the foreign language classroom and during study abroad; assessment of pragmatic competence; research methods used to collect pragmatics data; pragmatics in computer-mediated contexts; the role of implicit and explicit knowledge; discourse markers as a resource for interaction; and the framework of translingual practice. Taken together, the chapters in this volume foreground innovations and new directions in the field of L2 pragmatics while, at the same time, ground their work in the existing literature. Consequently, this volume both highlights where the field of L2 pragmatics has been and offers cutting-edge insights into where it is going in the future.

Second Language Pragmatics: From Theory to Research aims to reinvigorate this field, pointing the way forward to new methodologies that can drive, or be driven by, new theoretical developments. With a unique combination of leading international expertise in general pragmatics, L2 pragmatics, and research methodology, the authors describe in detail the methods, including the most recent techniques, by which pragmatics of all types can be pursued in L2 contexts. This volume argues that L2 pragmatics research needs to expand from its initial base by drawing from a wider range of sources, such as Corpus Linguistics and Psycholinguistics. Clear, accessible, and practical, Second Language Pragmatics will be valuable to novice and seasoned researchers alike in second language pragmatics, general pragmatics, and second language acquisition courses.

This volume is the first book-length attempt to bring together the fields of task-based language teaching (TBLT) and second language pragmatics by exploring how the teaching and assessment of pragmatics can be integrated into TBLT. The TBLT-pragmatics connection is illustrated in a variety of constructs (e.g., speech acts, honorifics, genres, interactional features), methods (e.g., quantitative, quasi-experimental, conversation analysis), and topics (e.g., instructed SLA, heritage language learning, technology-enhanced teaching, assessment, and discursive pragmatics). Chapters in this volume collectively demonstrate how the two fields can together advance the current practice of teaching language for socially-situated, real-world communicative needs.

The first book-length collection of studies on the assessment of pragmatic competencies in a second or foreign language. Grounded in theoretical perspectives on communicative and interactional competencies, it examines the reception and production of speech acts through a variety of assessment methods and quantitative and qualitative analyses.

Second language assessment is ubiquitous. It has found its way from education into questions about access to professions and migration. This volume focuses on the main debates and research advances in second language assessment in the last fifty years or so, showing the influence of linguistics, politics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and psychometrics. There are four parts which, when taken together, address the principles and practices of second language assessment while considering its impact on society. Read separately, each part addresses a different aspect of the field. Part I deals with the conceptual foundations of second language assessment with chapters on the purposes of assessment, and standards and frameworks, as well as matters of scoring, quality assurance, and test validation. Part II addresses the theory and practice of assessing different second language skills including aspects like intercultural competence and fluency. Part III examines the challenges and opportunities of second language assessment in a range of contexts. In addition to chapters on second language assessment on a national scale, there are chapters on learning-oriented assessment, as well as the uses of second language assessment in the workplace and for migration. Part IV examines a selection of important issues in the field that deserve attention. These include the alignment of language examinations to external frameworks, the increasing use of technology to both deliver and score second language tests, the responsibilities associated with assessing test takers with special needs, the concept of 'voice' in second language assessment, and assessment literacy for teachers and other test and score users.