The present study uses a cross-sectional design in order to systematically investigate interlanguage pragmatic performance and to shed more light on L2 pragmatic development. It analyses and compares learners’ production across three proficiency levels, and examines whether learners who receive classroom instruction in a FL context show pragmalinguistic development in making requests as their English language proficiency improves. The data are collected through interactive role-plays and the analysis focuses on request head acts, internal modification, and request perspective. The results suggest that, although there is some development with increasing proficiency, even the advanced learners’ performance lags far behind native speakers in the pragmatic areas examined. The study identified specific stages in the development of learners’ requests; however, the predominance of directness across all levels and the reversed developmental trend of request perspective pointed towards the influence of the L1 on the learners’ pragmalinguistic performance, particularly in the foreign language context.

My words now come to closure in the hope that they triggered the reader’s inquisitiveness about silence as a verbal means of expression, and that they pave the way for deepening an intriguing and lively scholarly and personal dialogue with silence

Focusing on silence as means of expression, we first weed out other phenomena termed ‘silence’, some of which have nothing to do with language, while others form part of interaction but are not a means of expression. The primary measure serving this distinction is whether the referent so denoted is situated within interaction or external to it. Stillness, being external to interaction, includes numerous states external to the human body, such as the stillness of nature. The chapter includes an examination of silences referring to absence of speech and so falling in the realm of interaction in terms of their place and role within interaction, the matter of choice and the nature of the silence exposes diverse sorts of silences. Somatic and mental symptoms such as muteness are such that silence being its signifier is not the product of the speaker’s choice and does not serve interaction. Paralinguistic pauses constitute the temporal suspension of speech. Some such pauses serve interaction and some not. Moving to the content plane, the unsaid and empty speech are silences in terms of context, chosen by the speaker to conceal rather than communicate. Unlike the above, silencing is silence externally imposed on the potential speaker.

This book is devoted to the linguistic study of verbal silence (hereinafter – vs). The uniqueness of this study lies in its focus on expected and unexpected cases within the normal course of interaction when the addresser chooses to use vs, that is, on silence as a verbal means of expression. The speaker1 skilled in choosing for each communicative exchange between realising or not realising a linguistic component is also habituated, when making use of the latter, to signal to the addressee hes choice of silence as a means of expression.2 It is also part of the listener’s proficiency to identify this silence as a verbal means of expression and to determine its function and meaning. When silence is a means of expression, it stands as figure.

This chapter presents a systematic linguistic classification and analysis of the forms of verbal silences. While verbal silences cover unarticulated verbal signifiers chosen by the addresser (holding the floor) as a verbal means of expression (in place of particular articulated speech) signifying meaningful content, the forms of verbal silence are identified and determined by the speech grounding it. These speech forerunners are grammatical or lexical stumps signalling the location, category and content of the verbal silence in the specific utterance. These ruptured words, grammatical or lexical particles that are articulated without their required complementation, or intertextual spaces are overtly fragmented and so perceived as complete only once the verbal silence component is assumed. Verbal silence as a signifier is studied and presented from the level of a single phoneme to the level of a complete discourse or text, in line with the conventional division of linguistic into phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics-lexicon. Incorporating the study of absence as something (rather than nothing) in linguistic exploration compels us to refine notions such as ‘the zero sign’ and ellipsis, and sheds new light broadening linguistic phenomena such as suppletion and onomatopoeia.

Verbal silence is examined and illustrated in light of the communicative functions it serves and the cooperative maxims it fulfils. Our starting point is Jakobson’s (1960) model. Each of Jakobson’s six functions (the referential function, emotive, conative, phatic, poetic and metalinguistic) is considered here in terms of the manner in which it is served by verbal silence in general, and particularly by iconic depictions of absences and presences (such as trauma or the shortage of words) as well as communicative events in which verbal silence is the unmarked means fulfilling the communicative function (such as in turn switching and the expression of threats). In addition to illuminating the functions served by verbal silence, this examination also contributes to the discovery of the circumstantial function overlooked by Jakobson and to the refinement of broadly studied linguistic issues such as the distinction between questions cooperatively answered in silence and rhetorical questions and the fundamental difference in terms of the function of silence between silence as consent and the right to silence. The unique pragmatic quality of verbal silence to activate the addressee moving hem to the addresser’s position is discussed and illustrated throughout our discussion of the communicative functions played by verbal silence.

This study explores the pragmatics and metapragmatics of elasticity via elastic language in online medical information delivery as a way of avoiding miscommunication. Moreover, an evaluative dimension that extends beyond the viewpoint of the analyst is incorporated into pragmatics, by investigating participants’ feedback on the use of EL, which triangulate the findings of this study. From a cross-cultural (Australia and Taiwan) perspective, this study presents an account of harmony and disharmony between professional medical websites and the potential users of these websites. This study finds that elastic language performed eleven first- and second-order functions. Elastic language was preferred more by the Taiwanese participants than by the Australians. The findings further develop the elasticity theory by adding a metapragmatic dimension, inform and assist the online writer to successfully develop healthcare literacy, and make online medical information credible and suitable for public education.

This chapter investigates whether Taiwanese university students find EL in health information difficult. On average, approximately 90% of them did not have difficulty understanding EL while about 10% of them did. The rates of difficulty appear to increase with the severity of the health condition. Furthermore, the higher the number of different elastic terms intensively used in the excerpt, the more difficulty the participants experience in understanding EL. Based on interviews with approximately 20 participants, we address what may cause the difficulty and identify six reasons (e.g., unfulfilled expectation of specific information, semantic fuzziness combined with insufficient health literacy, unclear instructions that do not match the needs of the patient and family, increased vagueness caused by the intensive use of EL). In order to understand participants’ attitudes towards EL and non-EL, we analysed the participants’ written feedback as to why they preferred EL or non-EL in the health context. Six frames were identified, each with two orientations. Four of the most frequently activated frames are communication, folk–idiosyncratic, trust–scepticism, and voluntary–involuntary action. Two social factors (i.e., gender and age) in relation to Taiwanese participants’ perceptions of and attitudes towards EL are also addressed.