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Machiko Achiba, Learning to request in a second language: A study of child interlanguage pragmatics. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2003. Pp. xii, 223. HB £42.95/US $69.95/Can $99.95.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2006

Akiko Kato-Yoshioka
Akiko Kato-Yoshioka
Affiliation:
Gifu, Japan, [email protected]
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Extract

The question of “how second languages are learned” (Gass & Selinker 1994:1) is central to second language acquisition (SLA) research; however, although a number of longitudinal studies have been carried out examining second language (L2) grammatical development, very little attention has been devoted to L2 learners' development of pragmatic competence over time. As Achiba points out, the majority of previous studies on L2 (or interlanguage) pragmatics have observed the single-moment pragmatic realization of a group of L2 learners with similar proficiency levels and compared it with that of native speakers or L2 learners with different proficiency levels or first language (L1) backgrounds. The current paucity of knowledge regarding the developmental aspect of L2 pragmatic competence has led to calls for detailed longitudinal interlanguage pragmatic studies (cf. Kasper & Schmidt 1996, Kasper & Rose 1999). Achiba's study, which carefully observes the pragmatic development in English requestive realization of a seven-year-old Japanese girl over a period of 17 months, certainly meets these essential needs.

Type
BOOK REVIEW
Information
Language in Society , Volume 33 , Issue 5 , November 2004 , pp. 780 - 783
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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References

REFERENCES

Ervin-Tripp, Susan (1977). Wait for me, roller skate! In Susan Ervin-Tripp & Claudia Mitchell-Kernan (eds.), Child discourse, 165–88. New York: Academic Press.
Gass, Susan M., & Selinker, Larry (1994). Second language acquisition: An introductory course. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kasper, Gabriele, & Rose, Kenneth R. (1999). Pragmatics and SLA. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 19:81–104.Google Scholar
Kasper, Gabriele, & Schmidt, Richard (1996). Developmental issues in interlanguage pragmatics. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18:149–69.Google Scholar