Introduction

The introductory chapter outlines how foreign-language users can be helped to develop and access the necessary relational knowledge, resources and strategies so that they can engage in more productive, expressive and even celebratory social relationships. By building on previous relational research and emphasising the importance of existing language user knowledge and experiences, I argue that positive relational work is an often-neglected area of L2 pragmatics. Furthermore, I contend that the concept of practical pragmatics and an asset-based pedagogy can provide insights into establishing and maintaining meaningful, achievable and viable interpersonal relations. Practical pragmatics goes beyond giving foreign-language users choices regarding how they want to interact in the target-language. It highlights a non-deficit pedagogy which underscores language users’ successes and achievements and stands in opposition to a pedagogy that limits its aims to developing fluency and accuracy and overcoming language difficulties. I also briefly describe the Mexican participants who provided examples of real-life incidents and experiences of actual TL use. Their reflections, experiences and successes form the basis for developing a non-deficit pedagogy which builds up relational knowledge and assets, exploits existing pragmatic resources and overcomes the challenges of legitimacy, intelligibility and interactional balance.