Bridging the gap in Spanish instructional pragmatics: from theory to practice/Acortando distancias en la enseñanza de la pragmática del español: de la teoría a la práctica

1. Instructional pragmatics: a growing field

The development of learners’ pragmatic competence is considered one of several components of communicative competence (Hymes 1971) and represents an important goal in Spanish language teaching and learning (Ruthstaller and Berguillos 2004). The rubrics of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR, Council of Europe 2001), the Plan Curricular del Instituto Cervantes (PCIC, Instituto Cervantes 2006), and the Proficiency Guidelines of the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL 2012) recognize the importance of the development of second language (L2) pragmatic competence and include it in their objectives for teaching and learning, albeit not always explicitly. The publication of these curricular guidelines stimulated a renewed interest in the development of L2 pragmatic competence in Spanish, which resulted in the publication of research-oriented and teaching-oriented materials, but not without some limitations.

Research-oriented studies that combine pragmatics research with Spanish language teaching and learning are scarce and tend to focus on the use and understanding of speech acts by native speakers and by learners with different levels of linguistic competence, different native languages, and in various communicative contexts (Siebold 2008; Félix-Brasdefer 2008a, 2008b; Shively 2010, 2013; Félix-Brasdefer and Koike 2014). However, other equally important aspects, such as the development, use, and evaluation of pragmatic competence with specific goals (e.g., Spanish for the professions or Spanish for heritage speakers) and for teacher training purposes have traditionally been neglected.

Teaching-oriented publications including ideas, suggestions, or activities aimed at the development of pragmatic competence (e.g., Caballero Díaz 2005; de Andrade 2011; GRIALE Research Group 2011; Betancourt Romero 2012; Ramajo Cuesta 2013) are also rare. Moreover, these materials are usually not well integrated into the curriculum since teachers often lack the preparation to do so. Likewise, these materials rarely provide a methodology that incorporates the teaching of pragmatics into the general L2 curriculum in a systematic manner.

The limitations of the emerging pragmatic focus in the field of Spanish language teaching highlight the need to integrate pragmatics with the learning of other language skills in order to promote the development of Spanish learners’ L2 communicative competence. This need has started to be addressed in books aimed at teachers (Pinto and de Pablos-Ortega 2014; Vera Luján and Blanco Rodríguez 2014), scholarly articles that combine theory and teaching practices (Félix-Brasdefer 2007; Félix-Brasdefer and Cohen 2012), panels at international conferences (e.g., the presentations and panels organized at the American Pragmatics Association, AMPRA, in 2014, or the “Pragmatics and Language Teaching” workshop at the AMPRA conference in 2016), and meetings devoted to teacher training (e.g., the program of the XXIII Encuentro Práctico de Profesores ELE held in Barcelona in 2014). Yet, the latest monographic works on this topic, Vázquez Orta and Guillén Galve (1998) and Álvarez et al. (2006), were published ten or more years ago. The growing attention to pragmatics within the Spanish language teaching context on both sides of the Atlantic requires a collaborative venue in which teachers and researchers can dialogue and share concrete examples of theoretical and practical studies centered on the Spanish language. Thus, the aim of the present issue, “Bridging the gap in Spanish instructional pragmatics: from theory to practice/Acortando distancias en la enseñanza de la pragmática del español: de la teoría a la práctica,” is twofold: first, to contribute to the growing field of Spanish L2 pragmatic development with original research on underrepresented targets and contexts and, second, to translate the results of these and other recent studies into effective teaching materials and practices for the benefit of students, teachers, and the research community. This second goal is achieved by bridging the gap between theoretical developments and teaching practices in Spanish L2 pragmatics in two ways. First, the articles in this issue incorporate the latest perspectives in the discipline to offer an updated theoretical framework for Spanish L2 pragmatic development, teaching, and teacher training. Second, the authors of each article develop research-informed pedagogical resources and models for teaching a variety of pragmatic targets in different Spanish L2 teaching contexts.

In the remainder of this introduction, we offer a short literature review of theoretical and practical advances in pragmatics and Spanish language teaching, followed by an overview of the specific contributions to the field made by each article and, finally, a comment on the significance of the authors’ work taken as a whole.

2. Teaching pragmatics

2.1. Teachers’ resources

When faced with the complex task of teaching Spanish pragmatics, instructors have access to books, articles, and websites that purport to provide the information and resources necessary to accomplish this task. Unfortunately, the majority of these materials adopt a highly theoretical approach to pragmatics, failing to equip teachers with pedagogical tools needed to integrate pragmatics in the Spanish language classroom. Two examples of such a theoretically-oriented approach are the volumes by Pons Bordería (2005) and Gómez Morón et al. (2009). In the first, Pons Bordería provides a solid theoretical foundation to allow teachers to go beyond a non-systematic teaching of pragmatics. However, his analysis does not focus on practical applications for the classroom. In the second, Gómez Morón et al. (2009) stress the importance of pragmatic instruction for L2/FL speakers. While the authors outline implications and future applications of the studies for classroom instruction, they do not offer practical advice for teaching pragmatics. More recent volumes advance a step further. LoCastro (2013) provides some concrete advice on what should or should not be done to teach pragmatics in the classroom, as well as what variables can intervene. Ishihara and Cohen (2014) combine theoretical explanations of pragmatics phenomena directed to teachers and students of the language with activities to practice in class or independently. Pinto and de Pablos-Ortega (2014) guide practitioners and teachers in training through a step-by-step overview of some of the most important pragmatic phenomena, including pragmatic variation and teaching pragmatics, complete with exercises and suggestions for reflection.

However, while the most experienced instructors may be able to create their own teaching materials based on their knowledge or on theory-oriented publications such as those mentioned above, novice teachers or those without any specific training in pragmatics have a limited selection of teaching resources to use. Among these, the CARLA website (http://carla.umn.edu/) has made a noteworthy contribution to Spanish pragmatics instruction and teacher training, by offering a selection of lesson plans and interactive exercises to teach, learn, and research different speech acts. Individual lesson plans based on different teaching methods and approaches can also be found (Betancourt Romero 2012), as well as sets of activities on specific pragmatic phenomena (GRIALE Research Group 2011) and critiques of textbooks for the omission of pragmatics in their content (Caballero Díaz 2005; Sánchez-Sarmiento 2006; de Andrade 2011; Bernardo Vila 2013; de Matos Lundström 2013; Ramajo Cuesta 2013). Despite these efforts, pragmatics continues to be excluded from textbooks and course curricula, and its treatment is often limited to pragmalinguistic information regarding the most readily-categorized pragmatics phenomena, such as speech acts, deictic expressions, and discourse markers, with little to no mention of sociopragmatic contexts and variables that affect their use.

There is currently a need, therefore, for materials for teaching pragmatics (both pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics) that are research-informed, readily applicable to classroom instruction, and easily integrated into the language curriculum. On the other hand, there is also a need for teaching-oriented research to test these materials, investigate best practices to teach pragmatics in the Spanish language classroom, and promote teacher training in pragmatics.

2.2. Contexts for teaching and learning

As mentioned earlier, while researchers and practitioners now have access to numerous studies focusing on pragmatics instruction, the teaching of Spanish pragmatics in a study abroad context, in courses for heritage speakers, or in courses for professional purposes, has not received much attention.

Of the three instructional contexts mentioned above, Study Abroad (SA) has received the most attention. It is often assumed that SA will benefit students’ ability to acquire and use appropriate pragmalinguistic forms with the relevant sociopragmatic conventions; however, only a few studies have focused on developing research-informed pedagogical models, or examined the effect of this instruction and the factors that intervene in Spanish language learning. Among those who have tried to promote systematic pragmatics teaching in SA, Sessarego (2007, 2009) outlined principles for developing a pedagogical approach to Spanish pragmatics instruction at the novice level and within an English-speaking environment, and showed positive outcomes in students’ performance using such an approach. Shively (2010) suggested a model for a more systematic approach to pragmatic instruction in SA, complete with a detailed description of the goals and steps to implement it, as well as sample activities. Cohen and Shively (2007) assessed the impact of instructional intervention on SA students’ acquisition of request and apologies in Spanish and French. Their investigation revealed that SA had an impact on students’ pragmatic development and that there was a difference, although not significant, in speech act performance between students who received a strategies-based intervention and those who did not.

Meanwhile, among scholars who focused on the factors that intervene in pragmatics teaching and learning in SA and their effects, Shively (2011) documented the effect of language socialization and explicit instruction on the development of requests in Spanish service encounters in a natural setting. Félix-Brasdefer (2013) demonstrated the importance of the intensity of interaction, rather than length of stay, on students’ production of refusals. Finally, in a recent article, Shively (2015) explored an understudied dimension of L2 pragmatics, listeners’ response behavior in a SA context, and documented how exposure and interaction with native speakers contributed to expanding students’ interactional competence beyond the use of the adverb sí as the preferred response behavior. The author also highlighted areas for specific pragmatic instruction, and proposed a model of pragmatic instruction that would combine explicit instruction and exposure to natural language use in interaction.

The second teaching context in which pragmatic research is emerging is that of Spanish as a Heritage Language (henceforth SHL). Research in the field of SHL is still in its infancy, and pragmatics is one area where substantial work is needed. Little to no attention has been paid to how pragmatics works, or is best learned and taught in this particular context, with the exception of very few studies that are mostly descriptive in nature and not specifically teaching-oriented (e.g., Pinto and Raschio 2007; Bachelor and Hernández 2012; Pinto 2012). Part of the problem regarding the teaching of pragmatics in the SHL classroom is reflected in a still-unanswered question posed by both Pinto (2012) and Bachelor and Hernández (2012): Should we attempt to teach heritage language learners monolingual Spanish pragmatics? And if so, which monolingual pragmatic norms are preferred? There is no clear answer to this question, although there seems to be a generalized agreement among scholars and practitioners regarding the possible advantages for teaching pragmatics to SHL. They include expanding learners’ communicative opportunities and reducing the risk of pragmatic inappropriateness when interacting with native Spanish speakers. It is important to remember that with pragmatic errors, as opposed to grammatical errors, the stakes are higher, since the speaker will not necessarily be judged as linguistically incompetent, but will be considered as rude or impolite (Urbina Vargas 2006).

Finally, the third understudied context for Spanish pragmatic instruction is Spanish for professional purposes, which includes a wide range of courses such as academic Spanish (see the work of the ACQUA research group http://dfelg.ua.es/acqua/) or Spanish for the health professionals (see Martínez 2015). In this particular context, emphasis tends to be placed on the development of students’ lexical competence in their professional field. However, some authors (Pastor Cesteros 2014; Chatterjee et al. 2015) have recently highlighted the importance and need to examine also sociopragmatic and sociocultural aspects in order to allow students to successfully interact with other Spanish speakers in each of these professional contexts.

2.3. Integrating pragmatics in the curriculum

In addition to developing materials aimed at teaching a specific pragmatic phenomenon or to a specific student population, some recent pedagogical proposals also focus on integrating the teaching of pragmatics in the language curriculum, a need already outlined in Pastor Cesteros (1999), in order to promote a systematic treatment of pragmatics in the L2 classroom.

Félix-Brasdefer and Cohen (2012) proposed integrating pragmatics with grammar instruction starting at the beginners level (for example, with formulaic expressions, such as greetings or the use of the conditional to express politeness; e.g., debería or podría). In this way, one could teach grammar as a communicative resource, allowing students to increase their grammatical competence and also improve their functional knowledge of how to negotiate communicative actions. The proposed model, exemplified by some sample teaching materials (an open resource available at http://www.indiana.edu/~discprag/teachrefusal.html), comprises four steps: an initial phase to raise students’ awareness followed by input recognition, explicit instruction, and a final phase in which students produce the target phenomena in different communicative situations using online simulated activities.

A similar proposal for integrating pragmatics and grammar teaching was also offered by Rose (2012), who argued in favor of explicit pragmatics teaching, as opposed to mere exposure. The author illustrated the pedagogical implementation of her approach by specifically focusing on the two grammar topics of the imperative and the conditional, and the pragmatic functions of formulating requests and suggestions. Rose’s goal is to highlight pragmatics in order to “bring grammar and the real world together” (2012, 670).

Both Félix-Brasdefer and Cohen (2012) and Rose (2012) argue against the common approach of developing a lesson plan separate from the “normal” course content to focus on a specific pragmatic phenomenon, usually a speech act, and offer suggestions to avoid isolating and separating pragmatic instruction from the content of the language curriculum. The inclusion of pragmatics in the language curriculum, then, should move beyond single topics or lesson plans, toward developing a flexible and encompassing method that is integrated with the growth of skills and other linguistic components.

Finally, partly because we still seek an effective way to integrate pragmatics in the language curriculum and to include the development of pragmatic competence explicitly among the goals of a language course, pragmatic assessment is also a much understudied area. Both Cohen (2008) and Ishihara and Cohen (2014), among others, dedicate some discussion to the assessment of pragmatic competence, and offer a series of possible instruments that teachers may use, such as DCTs, role-plays, or students’ online portfolios. A promising avenue explored by researchers and practitioners involves the use of computer-assisted language learning to create Synthetic Immersive Environments (SIE) or Multiuser Virtual Environments (MVE) (Sykes, Oskoz, and Thorne 2008; Sykes 2010; Sykes and Cohen 2013; Taguchi and Sykes 2013), which provide meaningful contexts for L2 pragmatic development and assessment.

However, despite an access to an array of assessment instruments, teachers still have to decide what to assess (e.g., pragmalinguistic norms, sociopragmatics norms, or both; oral or written texts) and how to assess it (e.g., using native speakers’ pragmatics as the target; developing ad hoc rubrics for each group of students). Finally, another important issue that teachers must face is how to distinguish when L2 speakers make a pragmatic mistake or are deliberately choosing not to adhere to the target language norm in order to express their own subjectivity (LoCastro 2003; Ishihara 2006; Cohen 2008). Should the speakers be corrected? Should their behavior count as a pragmatic error? As we have attempted to show here, there is much to be done in order to integrate pragmatics into the language curriculum successfully and systematically, and the lack of assessment guidelines is an important part of this gap.

3. Present and future steps

In this section, we discuss why pragmatics has traditionally been excluded from L2 instruction and we highlight areas of L2 pragmatics pedagogy that could benefit from more work. We conclude the section by presenting the articles included in this special issue and how they contribute to advancing the field and filling the gap between research and pedagogy of Spanish L2 pragmatics.

3.1. The challenge of what to teach

Our review of the existing literature has revealed several aspects that might explain the current limitations in instructional pragmatics research and teaching and learning applications. Part of the reason why specific proposals for teaching Spanish pragmatics are lacking may lie in the very nature of pragmatics, which is not structure-based but context- and meaning-based. When researchers attempt to operationalize a pragmatic target for study, or when instructors try to establish pragmatic categories for students to learn, they often turn to the most readily categorizable forms of speech acts, deictic expressions, and discourse markers. As a result, on the one hand, there has been a plethora of speech act studies, for example looking at requests, apologies, compliments, and refusals, as well as studies of deictic expressions, such as spatial deixis (e.g., aquí/acá), and discourse markers (e.g., bueno), while other more complex pragmatic targets like implicatures have been disregarded. On the other hand, in the context of Spanish language teaching, much research has focused on face-threatening acts (FTAs, Brown and Levinson 1987)—speech acts that may threaten either the speaker’s or the hearer’s face (e.g., requests and apologies)—since the use of inappropriate pragmalinguistic expressions in interaction with native speakers could have unfortunate consequences. However, although learners may know a complete set of request forms (the pragmalinguistics) used in a given community, the underlying social norms that govern their usage must also be studied. And although a learner may be familiar with a set of social norms (the sociopragmatics) regarding the usage of these forms in a community, there is still the question of individual variation, as these forms and their usage also vary according to the speaker’s own background, personality, expectations, etc. Disregarding either of the sets of norms offers students an incomplete picture, while teaching them both sets complicates instruction even further, especially when the factor of individual variation is added.

Despite the research and teaching tradition that we have just described, we must consider that pragmatics is much more than speech acts and deictic categories. Implicatures and presupposition lie at the heart of pragmatics; they are tied to background knowledge and experience, and are related not to forms as much as to context. That is, in order to be taught and understood or produced by L2 students, they require knowledge and experience with the target language and cultural norms, and attention to how all these factors interact with individual personalities. Implicatures and presuppositions are difficult to operationalize and teach. They demand inductive and/or experiential learning and take time to develop. These requirements pose challenges for pragmatics pedagogy. This may be one of the strongest reasons why there has not been a concrete curriculum proposed for teaching pragmatics in the language classroom, but rather suggestions for teaching certain speech acts or other pragmatic elements in specific contexts. However, even when researchers suggest, for example, raising students’ awareness of a certain speech act in Spanish—including how it is used and how it differs from another language like English—due to the many variables that intervene, that awareness can only be limited to certain pragmalinguistic forms and the exemplification of some uses. In some cases, teachers also engage learners in a metapragmatic discussion. This discussion, however, would probably have to be realized in the students’ L1, unless they are fairly advanced, and thus may conflict with the “Spanish-only” goal of a given instructor, course, or institution. Therefore, the instructor has to confront not only the issue of what pragmatics information to teach, but also how to teach it.

3.2. The challenge of how to teach

The question of how to teach pragmatics is not limited only to choices regarding the use of students’ L1, but is also related to the issue of whether to use explicit versus implicit, or deductive versus inductive, approaches to teaching and learning. If one opts to teach inductively, students are exposed to pragmatically rich and varied input over a length of time in order for their pragmatic knowledge to emerge. However, some questions still need to be resolved: what should the forms included in the input look like? For how much time should students be exposed to them, given the curriculum restrictions? On the other hand, if a deductive approach is used, what explanations would be provided and how? What activities would students complete?

Along with these practical questions regarding how to teach pragmatics, instructors are also faced with the choice of the best modality of pragmatics instruction. If the most effective mode of instruction is found to be mostly experiential and via self-discovery, is an online platform the best means of presentation? While some pragmatic expressions and information are best learned this way, others may require more explicit explanations and metatalk (see Koike and Pearson 2005; Taguchi 2015; Koike and Pearson in press). In other words, it is unlikely that there is any one type or level of teacher intervention that would fit the teaching of all pragmatic expressions and interpretation, or that would be appropriate for all kinds of student populations. Rather, a range of interventions is needed, according to the type of pragmatics targeted.

All these different aspects, of course, cannot be taught in one semester or one year of L2 study. An entire curriculum of Spanish L2/HL pragmatics spanning several semesters and addressing each proficiency level should be defined. In light of these complications and issues, it is not surprising that it has taken so long to address any pragmatics pedagogy at all, especially for teaching Spanish. However, that is not to say that pragmatics cannot be taught in the L2 curriculum. On the contrary, the work represented in this issue indicates a need for such efforts and offers new ideas and insights for teaching and learning pragmatics.

3.3. Filling the gap

The selection of articles included in this special issue represents some recent advances in the area of pragmatics regarding the development of L2 pragmatic competence and the teaching and acquisition of pragmatic aspects by Spanish learners. The articles cover the following topics as they relate to instructional pragmatics and the teaching and learning of Spanish: (im)politeness, sociopragmatics, medical Spanish, transcultural practices, speaker’s assessment, and teacher training. The first two articles by Félix-Brasdefer and McKinnon, and Bernal and Hernández Flores, respectively, address the development of students’ pragmatic competence with regards to specific pragmatic targets, such as impolite behaviors, advising, and criticizing, and take into account both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic variation. The following two articles by Belpoliti and Pérez, and Showstack focus on two understudied teaching contexts in instructional pragmatics, Spanish for health professionals and for heritage speakers. The fifth article, by Shively, explores students’ development of assessment during study abroad. Finally, this special issue closes with an article by de Pablos-Ortega, who considers the limitations of current Spanish L2 teacher training programs with respect to pragmatics.

The first article, “Perceptions of impolite behavior in study abroad contexts and the teaching of impoliteness in L2 Spanish,” focuses on impolite behaviors and their place in the Spanish language classroom. César Félix-Brasdefer and Sean McKinnon analyze students’ perceptions of impolite behavior during study abroad, and then use the results to develop pedagogical recommendations for approaching the question of impoliteness in the Spanish L2 classroom. Suggested pedagogical practices include raising sociopragmatic awareness of impolite behavior, contrasting impolite behaviors cross-culturally, and identifying verbal and non-verbal features of impolite behavior.

In the second article, titled “Variación sociopragmática en la enseñanza del español: aplicación didáctica de un cuestionario de hábitos sociales,” María Bernal and Nieves Hernández Flores analyze pragmatic variation in the context of L2 Spanish teaching in Scandinavia, focusing on the pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics of giving advice and criticizing in L2 Spanish. The data were collected by means of a questionnaire administered to Danish and Swedish learners of Spanish. Based on the results, the authors propose four types of activities to teach L2 pragmatics that integrate explicit instruction, case studies, role-plays, discussion, and sociopragmatic analysis of authentic conversations in Spanish.

The next two articles deal with the teaching of pragmatic targets within two specific teaching contexts: teaching Spanish to health professionals and to heritage speakers. The third article, “Giving advice in medical Spanish: pragmatic and intercultural competence in the Spanish for the health professions curriculum” by María Pérez and Flavia Belpoliti, focuses on the speech act of giving advice in the context of teaching Spanish for the health professions. The analysis of how Spanish L2 and HL speakers realize this speech act in different health care scenarios points to the need for pragmatics instruction in L2 and HL courses. The results of the study are then used by the authors to develop pedagogical interventions for integrating pragmatics instruction in Spanish for the professions courses. The proposed approach fosters critical reflection on the use of Spanish within the health care context, and understanding cultural parameters that guide doctor-patient interactions through service learning encounters with the target Hispanic population.

The fourth article, “La pragmática transcultural de los hablantes de herencia de español: análisis e implicaciones pedagógicas” by Rachel Showstack, focuses on heritage speakers of Spanish, a much understudied student population in the field of L2 pragmatics. An analysis of apologies produced by Spanish heritage learners (SHL) is the starting point for a discussion of SHL pragmatics research, highlighting similarities and differences in the pragmatics competence of Spanish L2 students and SHL, as well as suggestions for approaching pragmatics teaching for SHL learners.

The fifth article, “Development of assessments in L2 Spanish during study abroad,” investigates how students develop their pragmatic competence in Spanish L2 during study abroad. The author, Rachel Shively, explores students’ development of assessments (e.g., ¡Qué bueno!) by examining data collected from six students at different times during a four-month stay in Spain. Dividing the data by “listener” and “speaker” assessments, the author shows that learners increased their use of listener assessments, as well as their use of specific structures and lexical items in speaker assessments. The results are then integrated with existing models for teaching pragmatics to offer concrete suggestions for teaching assessments in the L2 Spanish classroom.

Finally, in the last article, “Pragmática en la formación de profesores de español como segunda lengua,” Carlos de Pablos-Ortega focuses on teacher training and analyzes the treatment of pragmatics in a range of MA programs as well as teachers’ and students’ views on teacher training of pragmatics. In order to be able to successfully integrate pragmatic teaching in the Spanish L2 curriculum we need to ensure that future teachers are grounded on a solid theoretical foundation in pragmatics, as well as a wide range of pedagogical resources to teach L2 pragmatics effectively. By combining data from both analyses, de Pablos-Ortega highlights the gaps in such training and the mismatch between teaching practices and teachers’ opinions, with an eye towards improving teacher training programs by including at least one module dedicated to pragmatics.

Each of these contributions presents new data in its respective area and offers pedagogical suggestions for the contexts and topics with which it works. The topics have been selected to offer a broad perspective on pragmatics instruction that includes different student populations, teaching contexts, pragmatic phenomena, perspectives, and teaching materials. Moreover, by bringing together scholars from both sides of the Atlantic, working at different institutions in the US, Denmark, Sweden, the UK, and Australia, and with differing concerns and foci of attention, we hope to foster a dialogue among teachers and researchers about pragmatics and Spanish language teaching and to promote the integration of pragmatics in the L2 Spanish language curriculum. It is our hope that these articles will spur new developments in Spanish pragmatics pedagogy and learning in the near future.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.