The Teaching of Pragmatics in L2

Abstract The teaching of pragmatics in L2 would be useless, if we consider pragmatics such as the study of the language in use, because this is what is done in the teaching of L2. In reality, apart from the routines, pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that is learned later, especially if we think of facts such as courtesy strategies, which require a rather advanced level of language. Despite numerous studies on the acquisition/learning of languages and on pragmatics, the two factors were not very often studied together. The learning of grammar and pragmatics are not synchronous. Even in a strictly communicative model, apart from greetings, “thanks” and "please", we tend to learn the most common and useful forms of communication. Questionnaires related to a linguistics survey at the University of Palermo showed that L2 learners encounter difficulties in choosing the courtesy strategies most appropriate to the situation and to the interlocutor. This is because the variants are multiple and it is not always possible to evaluate the best choice. In addition, the boundary between pragmatics and lexicon-semantics is weak and those nuances in the use of the language pertain to a high level of competence. How could we help students ? Taking into account the asynchrony of learning grammar and pragmatics, the teaching of language at different levels should be developed, in order to approach different interlocutors in a different manner. Probably, this ends up colliding with the so-called youth language and with the fact that there is a certain levelling of hierarchical relations. Even the social media contribute to this levelling: in general, social media writer does not consider the type of person to which he addresses. The teaching of pragmatics constitutes an expansion not only of linguistic knowledge but also of our cultural way of relating to “Otherness”.