Commentary

Ariadna Sánchez-Hernández presents five articles that showcase current trends of study abroad research in second language (L2) pragmatics. The study abroad context has attracted a large number of empirical investigations in L2 pragmatics (for a review, see Pérez Vidal & Shively, 2019Pérez Vidal, C., & Shively, R. L. (2019). L2 pragmatic development in study abroad settings. In N. Taguchi (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and pragmatics (pp. 355–371). Routledge.). The popularity of the study abroad context in pragmatics is understandable when we consider the nature of pragmatic competence. Pragmatic competence involves linguistic knowledge, sociocultural knowledge, and the ability to interact with others appropriately using these knowledge bases (Taguchi, 2017Taguchi, N. (2017). Contexts and pragmatics learning: Findings and implications of study abroad research. Language Teaching, 511, 124–137. ). As such, the study abroad context, which offers opportunities to observe cultural norms and to practice contextually appropriate language use, is a prime site for pragmatic development. In this commentary, I focus on three innovative aspects of study abroad pragmatics research that run across the five studies in this volume: (1) longitudinal research design, (2) technology-enhanced data collection methods, and (3) pre-departure instruction focusing on pragmatics. For each aspect, I present critical reflections and recommendations for future research.