Interlanguage Pragmatics: An Introduction

Abstract Interlanguage pragmatics (!LP) is a second-generation hybrid. As its name betrays, ILP belongs to two different disciplines, both of which are interdisciplinary. As a branch of Second Language Acquisition Research, ILP is one of several specializations in interlanguage studies, contrasting with interlanguage phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. As a subset of pragmatics, ILP figures as a socio-linguistic, psycholinguistic, or simply linguistic enterprise, depending on how one defines the scope of “pragmatics.” For thorough discussion of definitional issues, see Leech (1983) and Levinson (1983). The perspective on pragmatics we adopt is an action-theoretical one, viewing pragmatics as the study of people’s comprehension and production of linguistic action in context. lnterlanguage pragmatics has consequently been defined as the study of nonnative speakers’ use and acquisition of linguistic action patterns in a second language (L2) (e.g., Kasper, 1989b). Yet tying interlanguage pragmatics to nonnative speakers, or language learners, may narrow its scope too restrictively. As Blum-Kulka (1991; Blum-Kulka & Sheffer, Chapter 10) demonstrates through the case of American immigrants to Israel, speakers fully competent in two languages may create an intercultural style of speaking that is both related to and distinct from the styles prevalent in the two substrata, a style on which they rely regardless of the language being used. The intercultural style hypothesis is supported by many studies of cross-cultural communication, notably interactional sociolinguistics (e.g., Gumperz, 1982; Tannen, 1985) and research into the pragmatic behavior of immigrant populations across generations (e.g., Clyne, 1979; Clyne, Ball, & Neil, 1991). It also receives strong anecdotal support, worthy of systematic investigation, by highly proficient nonnative speakers whose L2 conversational behavior carries interlanguage-specific traits, and who claim at the same time that they do not abide by native norms any more when conversing in their native language. For instance, one of us was told by several of her Chinese students that in response to invitations and offers they wish to accept, they no longer engage in ritual refusal, as required by traditional Chinese culture. Some of her Japanese students claim that they are much more direct in their interaction in Japanese than they used to be before extended exposure to Western ways. Emerging intercultural styles, so prevalent in the international academic community, deserve interlanguage pragmaticists' close attention. Hence, it appears useful to include under ILP the study of intercultural styles brought about through language contact, the conditions for their emergence and change, the relationship to their substrata, and their communicative effectiveness. A look at the literature on ILP (cf. the overview in Kasper & Dahl, 1991), however, suggests that the populations studied have invariably been nonnative speakers, reflecting the status of ILP as a branch of second language research. While the present collection largely follows this line, Blum-Kulka and Sheffer (Chapter 10) extend the perspective to include native speakers' intercultural styles.