How can insights from conversation analysis be directly applied to teaching L2 pragmatics?

Abstract

This paper revisits the question of why pragmatics should be taught in the foreign language classroom and demonstrates how this can be achieved effectively with materials informed by conversation analysis (CA). Since findings in CA describe systematic action sequences underlying verbal activities that display cross-cultural variation, they capture pragmatics in its most natural locus: the conversational encounter. It will furthermore be demonstrated that L2 learners may benefit from instruction with CA-based materials with the ability to anticipate, interpret and produce, socio-pragmatically appropriate verbal behaviour in the target language. CA-based materials thus provide a rich resource for language teachers based on solid empirical evidence, and effectively enable L2 learners to engage in cross-culturally variable language behaviour inside and outside of class.