Applied Pragmatics - Volume 8, Issue 1, 2026

This study investigates the impact of pragmatic instruction and several individual difference variables on pragmatic competence. The examined variables include cultural distance from the target language community, level of target language proficiency, length of residence in the target language country, and level of target language contact. Eighty undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds enrolled at a university in Japan participated in the study. Data collection instruments comprised a Japanese pragmatic test and a background questionnaire assessing participants’ country of origin, Japanese proficiency level, length of residence in Japan, and level of contact with Japanese speakers. Employing a one-group pre-test–post-test experimental design, the study administered the pragmatic test and background questionnaire to all participants at the beginning of the academic year. Throughout the academic year, participants received regular Japanese instruction with an emphasis on pragmatics. Towards the end of the academic year, the same pragmatic test was re-administered to 22 participants. Paired samples t-test analysis revealed a significant improvement in pragmatic competence following pragmatic instruction. Additionally, multiple regression analysis identified language proficiency, cultural distance, and language contact as influential factors in pragmatic competence development, ranked in descending order of importance.

This study investigates the effect of closeness and anonymity between Japanese university students on their degree of discomfort and quality of feedback exchanged during L1 peer feedback in an L2 English classroom. The investigations focus on learners’ praise and critique exchanged in their first language when reviewing each other’s English essays, as well as their reported degree of discomfort during the process. These variables are investigated by pairing each participant with three classmates: a known classmate with whom they are mutually close, a known classmate with whom they are mutually distant, and a classmate whose identity is unknown. These pairs exchange feedback on their writing and rate their level of discomfort when giving and receiving feedback. The investigations find lower degrees of discomfort among learners who share a close relationship. Furthermore, the results indicate that anonymity does not reduce the discomfort experienced by learners during the peer feedback process. The results also show that learners exchange similar feedback, regardless of their closeness or anonymity. The study alleviates concerns that closeness or anonymity influences the quality of peer feedback exchanged in the EFL classroom, with the caveat that learners who are close may experience the least discomfort during the process.

This study examines complex, dynamic interactional sequences in which multilingual students co-construct improvisational humor when encountering miscommunication in an academic writing classroom at an U.S. university. Combining multimodal conversation analysis with ethnographic information, this study captures (a) the dynamic way that humor emerges among multilingual students and their instructor in classroom interactions and (b) the multiple activities besides humor construction that the students and their instructor engage in while the humorous and/or laughable sequences emerge. The analysis suggests that humor construction can be a powerful resource for enacting language learner agency (e.g., Larsen-Freeman, 2019) in adapting diverse linguistic and other multimodal elements in the classroom. Such analyses can project multilingual students as competent English users and demonstrate their interactional competence. Furthermore, this study illustrates the intricate ways that learner agency is constantly affected by diverse elements, including teacher instructional management, in the classroom.

This article examines pragmatic development in L2 online forum discussions. The data was gathered from learners’ text-based discussions of weekly reading materials in a fully online course of L2 English at a Japanese university. Information solicitation acts in thread-opening posts emerged as a trackable pragmatic feature. An examination of 38 thread-opening posts revealed that as a general trend, students who started discussions tended first to solicit knowledge, and later to solicit opinions instead. Investigations into several discussion starters who created a thread multiple times showed more opportunities for increasing linguistic repertoire for opinion solicitation. Some discussion starters showed routinization of solicitation strategies, and they tried new strategies, such as soliciting both opinions and knowledge in one post, but ended up never using such a strategy consistently. Some strategies were also found in a forum-specific element such as the subject line. The current study emphasizes the significance of the use of different epistemological stances of speech-act and interactional approaches to L2 pragmatics based on a holistic view to aim at changing and improving instructional design.