Describing speech acts: linking research and pedagogy

Abstract

This chapter focuses on factors that contribute to whether strategy use is successful, and introduces a proposed taxonomy of learner strategies for acquiring pragmatics, with an emphasis on speech acts. The chapter ends with two activities. The first activity gives us a firsthand opportunity to experience using strategies to collect information about an L2 speech act. The second activity provides an opportunity to observe the strategies that we use in performing a speech act and to learn from others about the strategies that they use for the same speech act. The act of planning and making a request involves a sequence or cluster of different strategies. The chapter looks at a suggested taxonomy of strategies intended specifically for the learning and performance of L2 speech acts. The strategies in this taxonomy are drawn from a larger and more detailed taxonomy appearing in the literature.