ABSTRACT
Interlanguage pragmatics research investigates the acquisition of pragmatic knowledge in second languages, deriving its research methods from comparative cross-cultural studies and second language acquisition research. Both disciplines place a high value on the control of variables that facilitate comparison across speakers, whether across cultures and languages, between native and nonnative speakers, or among learners at different stages of acquisition. The orientation of these disciplines exerts a strong pull toward experimental data collection procedures. However, the fundamental nature of the very object of study–language use–argues for the study of situated authentic discourse. This tension between the controlled and the authentic has been pointed out in a number of discussions of research methods in interlanguage pragmatics research. As Kasper and Dahl (1991) observe:
IL pragmaticists are caught between a rock and a hard place. With the exception of highly routinized and standardized speech events, sufficient instances of cross-linguistically and cross-culturally comparable data are difficult to collect through observation of authentic conversation. Conversely, tightly controlled data elicitation techniques might well preclude access to precisely the kinds of conversational and interpersonal phenomena that might shed light on the pragmatics of IL use and development. Clearly there is a need for more authentic data, collected in full context of the speech event. (p. 245)
