Technology in Interlanguage Pragmatics Research and Teaching

Book excerpt: Technology-informed approaches to L2 research and teaching have prompted great interest by both researchers and practitioners alike. This book highlights the relationship between digitally-meditated technologies and second language pragmatics by presenting exemplary applications of technology for both research and pedagogy. Part I presents technology-informed research practices that range from measuring response times when processing conversational implicature to studies examining systematic pragmatic learning via online activities and multiuser virtual environments, as well as analyzing features of pragmatic language use in social networking and longitudinal learner corpora. Part II surveys a variety of technology-assisted tools for teaching pragmatics, including: place-based mobile games, blogging, web-based testing, and automated text analysis software. The volume will be of interest for those interested in technological tools to expand the scope of traditional methods of data collection, analysis, and teaching and critically examining how technology can best be leveraged as a solution to existing barriers to pragmatics research and instruction.