In studies of non-native varieties of English (hereafter NNVE's), with few exceptions (D'Souza 1987; Kachru 1982, 1983, 1986; Smith 1983), not much attention has been paid to what may be called the pragmatic aspects of language use. By pragmatic aspects, I mean topics such as how certain speech acts, such as informatives, directives, commissives, etc. (cf. Austin 1962; Searle 1969) are performed in these varieties. Since NNVE's differ from native varieties in the performance of speech acts more than in formal properties, it is possible that the pragmatic approach may succeed in capturing the uniqueness of a NNVE where structural analyses fail to do so.

Recent studies have shown that there are important cross-cultural and cross-linguistic differences in the way the ‘same’ speech act is performed in different languages. For example, Olshtain and Cohen (1983) have pointed out that an apology in Hebrew is less likely to include a ‘promise of forebearance’ or ‘an offer of repair’ (for the damage) that is there in English. They also observe that the two languages differ in both the range of offences for which an apology is offered and the intensity of the expression of regret. (For other cross-cultural differences see Apte 1974; Loveday 1982; Sridhar and Sridhar 1986, Sridhar in press; Wolfson and Judd 1983).