Acquiring Pragmatics introduces the current topics of research in theoretical pragmatics, and explores the issues facing language acquisition research and the new experimental designs which address them. The book also discusses the underlying methodology, which will help the reader to develop their own experimental designs. Key topics covered include the interfaces between pragmatics and language acquisition, the social and cognitive aspects of pragmatic competence, and the acquisition of pragmatics in autistic spectrum disorders and second language acquisition. Acquiring Pragmatics is key reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying pragmatics and language acquisition.

Sandrine Zufferey is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. Her research focuses on the acquisition and processing of discourse connectives. Her work takes a cross-linguistic perspective in order to study the way linguistic encoding affects cognitive processes.

Part I: Introduction

Chapter 1: Interfaces between pragmatics and language acquisition

Chapter 2: Aspects of language acquisition research

Part II: Acquiring social aspects of pragmatic competence

Chapter 3: Learning how to do things with words: Speech acts

Chapter 4: The pragmatics of conversation and discourse structure

Part III: Acquiring cognitive aspects of pragmatic competence

Chapter 5: Understanding communicative intentions: Theory of mind

Chapter 6: Non-literal language use

Chapter 7: Pragmatic enrichment

Chapter 8: Procedural meaning

Part IV: The acquisition of pragmatics under specific constraints

Chapter 9: Pragmatic impairments in autistic spectrum disorders

Chapter 10: Pragmatics and second language acquisition

Conclusion