Acquisition of Pragmatic Rules

This article reports on how selected language textbooks deal with pragmatic rules and how learners acquire such rules. The focus is on the acquisition of rules related to address terms by learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). This article is divided into three parts. In the first, the learners’ errors related to the acquisition of address terms in Japanese are introduced. Next, the presentation of address terms in textbooks is examined. In the final section, possible causes of learners’ problems are discussed and some suggestions are presented to help solve them.