Teaching and Learning Pragmatics: Where Language and Culture Meet

by Noriko Ishihara, Andrew D. Cohen

A concise guide to the latest developments in the field of pragmatics, with practical applications for linguists, applied linguists, and language teachers.

An understanding of sociocultural context is crucial in second language learning – yet developing this awareness often poses a real challenge to the typical language learner.

This book is a practical language teachers’ guide that focuses on how to teach socially and culturally appropriate language for effective communication. Moving beyond a purely theoretical approach to pragmatics, the volume offers practical advice to teachers, with hands-on classroom tasks included in every chapter.

Genres: Linguistics, Education

384 pages, Paperback

First published December 9, 2010

About the author

Noriko Ishihara, Ph.D., is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Hosei University in Tokyo and facilitates language teachers' professional development courses in Japan, online, and elsewhere, with a special focus on L2 pragmatics and intercultural communication. She serves as a researcher in applied linguistics, teacher of English as an additional language, and language teacher educator while working to bridge peace linguistics and critical awareness of equity and diversity in language learning/teaching.

Reviews

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although geared towards university level language teaching and beyond, this book is a great how-to guide for teaching pragmatics in the classroom. It gives a solid introduction to linguistic pragmatics and many examples of activities and units actually taught by professionals. Given that Japanese pragmatics do differ greatly from English and that is the authors' field, the examples do tend to overrepresent Japanese. Still worth reading as a language educator, especially if you find yourself thinking, "What's pragmatics?"

[Pamila · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book interesting for the first few chapters. After that, it seemed to recycle the same info over and over. The beginning talked of the different ways we interact, and the example of apologizing was excellent. There just weren't enough of other detailed examples like that one.

Full disclosure: I read this for a class, but it is something I'm interested in personally as well. I hope that future editions have more detailed examples.

The exercises were good.