The role of instruction in developing pragmatic competence in L2 Chinese

This chapter aims to review the small body of research that investigates the effects of focused instruction and practice on the development of pragmatic competence in L2 Chinese. Following a discussion of the current understanding of pragmatic competence, the recent development of the field of L2 pragmatics instruction is reviewed and several gaps in the literature identified. A series of studies on teaching Chinese pragmatics are then summarized and discussed from the perspective of the skill acquisition theory. This chapter concludes with a discussion of pedagogical implications based on the existing empirical evidences and proposed directions for future research in this area.