ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 examines how foreign-language interactants balance communicative individuality with those constraints that may be placed on them by other interactants. In order to be accepted as legitimate and intelligible bona fide interactants, bilingual speakers may have to overcome the perception that they are flawed, unreliable and reduced communicators. This chapter argues that the concepts of pragmatic assessment, pragmatic formulae and routines and pragmatic maintenance provide assets and resources that allow bilingual users to achieve legitimacy, intelligibility and an interactional balance between their own needs and those of other interactants. I explore how foreign language (FL) users can achieve legitimacy in target-language interactions as they tread a delicate communicative path between conformity, conventionality and appropriateness and translanguaging, hybridity, metrolingualism and superdiversity reflect bilingual speakers’ appropriation of foreign language use. To further understand the achievement of legitimacy, intelligibility and interactional balance, Mexican bilingual speakers were asked to respond to questionnaires regarding foreign-language practices. Research also examined the bilingual speaker's use of humour in trying to achieve intelligibility and interactional balance since humour can reduce interactional anxiety and unease and help construct and sustain rapport.
