Speech Acts in English : From Research to Instruction and Textbook Development

This book develops a corpus-based, constructional model of speech acts, and shows how it can be implemented in teaching practice. Its critical review of current illocutionary theories and the varied range of practical activities that it offers will be invaluable for both EFL professionals and students or researchers in linguistics.

Speech acts, those actions carried out mainly by means of language, are used in English in a range of complex ways. However, they have rarely been covered in English as a foreign language (EFL) materials and textbooks. Bringing together current theories from pragmatics and cognitive linguistics, this book addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive model of directive speech acts and showing how to teach them to learners of English. It provides a review of the strengths and weaknesses of current theories of illocution and a critical assessment of existing EFL textbooks. Descriptions of the meaning and form of directive speech act constructions are given in the cognitive pedagogical grammar of directive speech acts (included), which offers a wealth of examples to make the information accessible to non-specialist readers. The book also provides a wide range of practical activities, showing how research on illocutionary acts can be implemented in practice.