ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that a psycholinguistic approach has much to offer to second language (L2) pragmatics, especially as a vehicle for testing theoretically grounded propositions. It provides a relatively broad overview of psycholinguistic research on pragmatics and second language acquisition, describing methodological techniques and theoretical approaches, as well as some of the major findings and their theoretical implications. The chapter reviews research that took a psycholinguistic approach to studying the acquisition of pragmatics in L2. It deals with the comprehension of indirect meaning, followed by implicit speech acts and scalar expressions. Historically, psycholinguistic approaches to L2 pragmatics have been relatively rare. The hallmark of a psycholinguistic approach is the use of a clearly defined experimental procedure that includes both experimental manipulation and control. Psycholinguistic research on L2 pragmatics might also be relevant for active theoretical debates, such as the relative roles played by pragmatics and semantics in language processing.
