Introduction

This chapter looks at the issue of how to enhance L2 speaking skills in independent learning through the use of strategies to promote pragmatic ability. Pragmatics deals with how meaning is conveyed by speakers – and understood by their hearers – in actual conversational contexts. While independent learning may well be provided offline, new technological advances would suggest that the online study of L2 pragmatics could be beneficial to language learners, especially with the prospect of using virtual environments as a place to practise L2 pragmatic skills.

Pragmatic Ability

Within the realm of pragmatic ability, the ways in which people carry out specific social functions in speaking such as apologising, complaining, making requests, refusing things/invitations, or complimenting have been referred to as speech acts. Speech acts have (1) a basic meaning as conceived by the speaker ('Do you have a watch?' = do you possess a watch?), (2) an intended illocutionary meaning (e.g. 'Do you know what time it is?'), and (3) an actual illocutionary force on the hearer, referred to as the uptake (i.e. a request to know the time, and hence, a reply like 'It's 10:30 a.m. right now.'). In this instance, a young kid or a facetious adult might respond, 'Yes, I do.' If so, the uptake would not work for the speaker, who might then need to ask, 'What is the time, then?' While sometimes speech acts are accomplished by a single word like 'thanks,' at other times they involve complex and indirect speech over a series of conversational turns.

Many of these speech acts tend to follow regular and predictable patterns for members of the given speech community. In the case of 'greetings,' for example, an associate at work in the United States might say, 'How're you doing?