Researching Sociopragmatic Variability ― Perspectives from Variational, Interlanguage and Contrastive Pragmatics

Researching Sociopragmatic Variability showcases a range of research approaches to the study of speech acts which bring together new findings from three key areas: variational pragmatics, interlanguage pragmatics and contrastive pragmatics. The volume investigates sociopragmatic variability across a range of discourse contexts and cultures and through the prism of different research frameworks and methodologies, with a particular focus on the implementation of particular speech acts and the use of pragmatic markers.

Individual chapters focus on variation across different languages and varieties of a language, investigating native and non-native usages and how different language forms are used depending on the gender and age of the speaker, on the situation and on the person addressed. This book will be of great interest to researchers of sociopragmatic variability and L2 pedagogy as well as those involved in teaching a range of second languages.

Kate Beeching is Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Her publications include Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French and Pragmatic Markers in British English. She has also published a number of textbooks for the teaching of French.

Helen Woodfield is Senior Lecturer in TESOL/Applied Linguistics at the University of Bristol Graduate School of Education, UK. Her publications include articles in Journal of Pragmatics, Multilingua, and Evaluation and Research in Education. She has also co-edited (with Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis) Interlanguage Request Modification.