New directions in Instructional Pragmatics Research

Section II   Pragmatics at Tertiary Level

Naoko Taguchi

Teaching Intercultural Competence Through Conflict Mediation Training

Esther Usó-Juan and Alicia Martínez-Flor

How Do Advanced EFL Learners Apply Refusal Strategies? Monitoring Refusal Production and Perceptions of Pragmatic Instruction

Ignacio Martinez-Buffa

Learners’ Deliberations in Collaborative Writing: Text Quality and L1s Usage

Section III   Cyber Pragmatics

Ilka Flöck, Onur Çiçek and Anne Barron

Directives in ELF Peer Feedback

Marta González-Lloret

The Pragmatics of Email Communication: A Synthesis

Victòria Codina-Espurz and Patricia Salazar-Campillo

Appraisal of (Im)Politeness in Student-Professor Email Communication

Eva Alcón Soler’s scholarly influence extends beyond her publications. She founded the Lingüística Aplicada a l’Ensenyament de la Llengua Anglesa (LAELA) research group in 1999, which she led until 2018. Under her guidance, LAELA became a prominent research group, exploring the interface between language instruction and pragmatic development. The members of LAELA, alongside other close academic colleagues of Eva, have contributed to this volume, reflecting the collaborative spirit that she has always fostered. Many of the chapters in this book are the result of academic partnerships with those who have shared Eva’s vision of pragmatics and multilingual education.

Her contributions to the field of pragmatics and language education have been recognized at numerous international and national conferences. Eva has been an active participant and keynote speaker in prestigious forums, such as Pragmatics and Language Learning (PLL), Georgetown University Round Table (GURT) or Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos (AEDEAN) where she presented on topics like intercultural awareness in study abroad contexts and the integration of pragmatic instruction in foreign and multilingual contexts. Her work on pragmatic development during study abroad, such as her study on Spanish teenagers’ request strategies published in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2017), has provided a deeper understanding of how extended exposure to target languages shapes learners’ pragmatic competence.

Eva’s expertise has also been shared in Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada (AESLA), at the Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) or the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL), where she has consistently presented innovative research on the pragmatic dimensions of language learning. Her presentations reflect her ability to blend theory and practice, offering insights that resonate with both researchers and language educators. In addition, she not only is a member of the Consultation Board of the International Association for Teaching Pragmatics (ITAP) but she has also been an advisor for the following journals: Language Learning, A Journal of Research in Language Studies, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Intercultural Pragmatics, Language and Intercultural Communication, Language and Awareness, Issues in Applied Linguistics, and International Journal of Multilingualism.

Special attention has been given to instructional pragmatics, which has evolved to address the need for structured and explicit teaching of pragmatic skills, complementing L2/Interlanguage Pragmatics by embedding pragmatic instruction within curricula. Rather than relying solely on incidental learning, instructional pragmatics focuses on systematically developing learners’ ability to manage communicative tasks (such as making requests, offering advice, or handling disagreements within the classroom). This area of research has gained prominence as it enables learners to practice real-world scenarios, preparing them for intercultural exchanges, by fostering awareness and adaptability (Bardovi-Harlig, 2018; Alcón-Soler, 2018; Ishihara & Cohen, 2021).

While the research mentioned above has centred on second language learners (Taguchi, 2012), foreign language learners (Alcón-Soler & Martínez-Flor, 2008), and learners during a study abroad period (Barron, 2019, 2020; Alcón-Soler, 2017; Alcón-Soler & Sánchez-Hernández, 2019; Sánchez-Hernández & Alcón-Soler, 2019; also see Nightingale & Alcón-Soler, 2023, for a recent methodological overview), the advent of globalization and the pervasive influence of technology has dramatically expanded the scope of pragmatics research. For example, increasing intercultural interactions challenge learners to navigate cross-cultural contexts where implicit norms and values may diverge from familiar frameworks, intensifying the need for flexible, interculturally sensitive pragmatic skills (Alcón-Soler, 2015a; Taguchi, 2014, 2019, 2022). Additionally, digital communication gives rise to new pragmatic concerns, as virtual environments offer unique speech communities, unbound from spatiotemporal restrictions, that adhere to real-life pragmatic conventions to a greater or lesser extent. On these platforms, for instance, learners must be able to interpret message tone without physical cues, manage formality and (im)politeness within instant and asynchronous messaging, and even learn to manipulate the nexus between language and medium in order to best achieve their interactional goals (Alcón-Soler, 2017; Nightingale & Safont, 2019; Codina-Espurz & Salazar-Campillo, 2019; Barón et al., 2024).

Furthermore, accounting for contemporary multilingualism (see Singleton & Aronin, 2019) necessitates new approaches to pragmatic competence. For example, in multilingual settings, learners are often required to navigate multiple linguistic frameworks while maintaining appropriate communicative behaviour. Multilingual proficiency not only involves language skills, but also the pragmatic adaptability to fluidly shift between languages, or translanguage. This understanding has led researchers to explore pragmatic development in multilingual settings and to consider how individuals leverage multiple linguistic resources to communicate effectively across varying cultural and linguistic spheres (Alcón-Soler, 2015b; Portolés, 2015; Safont & Portolés, 2016; Martín-Laguna & Alcón-Soler, 2018; Kecskes, 2019; Safont, 2005, 2013, 2022, 2023; Taguchi, 2022; Cenoz & Gorter, 2021; Leonet & Saragueta, 2023; Martín-Laguna, 2023; Guzmán-Alcón, 2023; Portolés & Gayete, 2024).