Acquiring Pragmatics

Acquiring Pragmatics offers a comprehensive synthesis of state-of-the-art research on the acquisition of pragmatics. It introduces the current topics of research in theoretical pragmatics and explores the issues they raise for language acquisition research and the new experimental designs which have been developed to address them.While each chapter covers each topic in depth, it also places a strong emphasis on the underlying methodological aspects of each issue, which will help the reader to develop their own experimental designs. Key topics covered include:The interfaces between pragmatics and language acquisitionThe social aspects of pragmatic competenceThe cognitive aspects of pragmatic competenceThe acquisition of pragmatics in autistic spectrum disorders and second language acquisitionAcquiring Pragmatics is key reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying pragmatics and language acquisition.