As a field of inquiry, interlanguage pragmatics reflects the growing interest in recent years in understanding the social and pragmatic aspects of second language acquisition. A collection of previously unpublished essays by sixteen distinguished linguists, Interlanguage Pragmatics offers an up-to-date synthesis of current research in the field, discussing from diverse perspectives the development, comprehension, and production of pragmatic knowledge in a second language.

The book is divided into three sections, each prefaced by an introduction by the editors that provides relevant theoretical and methodological background. The first section concerns cognitive approaches to interlanguage pragmatic development. The second addresses interlanguage speech act realization of a variety of speech acts. The final section is devoted to discoursal perspectives on interlanguage.

With an editors' general introduction that offers a critical overview of the issues currently being debated, this book is the first to exclusively address the pragmatic dimension in second language acquisition, presenting a state-of-the-art view of the field and outlining directions for future research.