ABSTRACT

This introduction makes the case for the need to teach L2 Spanish students not only the phonology, the grammatical structure, and the lexicon of the target language, but also—and most importantly—the pragmatics of said language, in order to enable them to communicate in socio-culturally appropriate ways with its native speakers, and to fully understand all registers of the language in the countries it is spoken. Indeed, studies show that pragmalinguistic and/or sociopragmatic errors in the speech of L2 students are less easily “forgiven” by native speakers, and can lead to misunderstandings and even communication breakdown.

And yet, pragmatics is rarely presented in textbooks, and even when it is, the approach is usually limited to its most easily recognized aspects, such as speech acts and/or forms of address. Moreover, many times teachers are not trained to teach pragmatics properly, or believe it is not teachable until very advanced stages of learning. We claim that pragmatics is teachable even at beginning stages of language learning, and that its scope must be broadened to include less common (but not less important) aspects, such as nonverbal communication, irony, humor, conversation management, politeness, language choice in bilingual environments, and genre conventions.