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Article published In: Applied Pragmatics
Vol. 7:1 (2025) ► pp.82–108

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Pragmatic research in English as an Asian lingua franca

A systematic review

ORCiD logo with link | Monash University
Published online: 5 August 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ap.22018.fan
Abstract
In this globalization era, English plays an important role as a regional lingua franca in Asia. Recent years have seen a rapid development in pragmatic research in the field of English as an Asian lingua franca (Asian ELF). This study provides a systematic review of pragmatic research in Asian ELF, examining the focal research topics, main data-collection methods, and geographical areas of foci in previous literature. Twenty-two studies were systematically collected from multiple avenues for research synthesis. The results show that current ELF pragmatic research in the Asian context mainly has three research categories: communicative strategies, rapport management, and regional comparison. Verbal speech was the main research focus in Asian ELF pragmatics and only a few studies adopted a multimodal approach. The Asian Corpus of English and self-collected naturalistic data are two major data-collection methods in Asian ELF pragmatics. Additionally, research in Asian ELF pragmatics has an imbalanced geographical distribution with most studies focusing on speakers from East and Southeast Asia. These findings enrich our knowledge of current Asian ELF pragmatics and can inform our future research in the field, such as using multimodal approaches, deploying role-plays, and researching other Asian regions.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Pragmatic research in ELF
  • 3.Methods for research synthesis
    • 3.1Step 1: Problem formulation
    • 3.2Step 2: Data collection
    • 3.3Step 3: Evaluation of data points
    • 3.4Step 4: Data analysis and interpretation
    • 3.5Step 5: Presentation of results
  • 4.Findings: What, how, and where of Asian ELF pragmatics research
    • 4.1Focal topics
      • 4.1.1Communicative strategies
      • 4.1.2Rapport management
      • 4.1.3Regional comparison
      • 4.1.4Others
    • 4.2Main data-collection methods
    • 4.3Geographical coverage
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Note
  • References
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