Pragmatic Comprehension in Learner‐native Speaker Discourse

The paper reports on an exploratory study on FL learners’comprehension of speech acts and discourse functions, referred to as pragmatic comprehension. On the basis of a frame‐theoretical approach, some theoretical assumptions and empirical findings about L1 pragmatic comprehension are discussed. These are used as a framework for analyzing two types of learners’pragmatic misunderstandings: their failure to distinguish between phatic talk and referential talk, and their failure to identify the intended illocutionary force of indirect speech acts. The data analysis indicates that the learners (a) rely too heavily on bottom‐up processing, (b) do not make sufficient use of illocutionary force indicating devices, (c) have problems in activating frames relevant in the given context, and (d) have too little flexibility for frame shift if incoming data are incompatible with a currently active higher‐order frame. Some implications for FL teaching are suggested.