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This qualitative study investigates how Greek university students navigate the complex dynamics of their hierarchical student–faculty L2 email interactions. In doing so, it examines students’ perceptions and metapragmatic judgments of politeness and appropriateness byanalysing authentic emails exchanged in academic contexts. It uses interviews with Greek undergraduate students (advanced learners of English), and, through thematic analysis, it explores the extent and the way in which cultural values and sociopragmatic norms might impact the learners’ metapragmatic judgments regarding email writing. Thematic analysis revealed that the students draw on their own culturally embedded frameworks, shaped by Greek norms of politeness, respect and deference, to guide their email evaluations. They prioritise formality as an essential component of email politeness, linking it to professionalism, clarity and respect. Politeness and respect emerged as intertwined concepts, with students emphasising the importance of acknowledging power dynamics and expressing deference to authority figures through formal framing moves, email mechanics and email structure. Cultural values, particularly the Greek norm of heightened respect for authority and older individuals, deeply influenced learners’ perceptions regarding formal greetings, email mechanics and careful phrasing. Additionally, learners demonstrated a desire to tailor their communication style based on the recipient’s status, age and familiarity, attesting to their sociopragmatic awareness. The findings overall underscored the interplay between cultural values and learners’ pragmatic awareness, offering valuable implications for the teaching of email pragmatics and intercultural communication in academic contexts.

Whilst study abroad (SA) periods hold much promise for foreign language development, increasing research suggests sojourners’ experiences are unique, and language development does not always follow a linear trajectory. For some learners, SA has little impact on their language performance despite the affordances of L2 immersion (the Survivors). Other learners maximise the potential of SA, and this has a positive impact on their language development (the Thrivers). This paper examines the selected cases of four Japanese learners of English and their request language performance during a 10-month SA in the UK. Changes in pragmatic knowledge (based on appropriateness ratings) were documented at three equidistant time points. Language contact profile data also provided quantitative insights into the learners’ extracurricular language use and qualitative personal reflections. The selected cases illustrate two learners surviving the SA experience, showing minimal change in their request performance. The other two learners thrived during SA, showing accelerated performance in terms of lexical variation at the production level. This paper reports on the case histories of these learners to better understand these unique experiences and pragmatic discrepancies. Suggestions for how learners might be more pragmatically successful during SA are also offered.

This is the first edited collection focusing exclusively on how second language users interpret and engage with the processes of email writing. With chapters written by an international array of scholars, the present volume is dedicated to furthering the study of the growing field of L2 email pragmatics and addresses a range of interesting topics that have so far received comparatively scant attention. Utilising both elicited and naturally-occurring data, the research in this volume takes the reader from a consideration of learners' pragmatic development as reflected in email writing, and their perceptions of the email medium, to relational practices in various email functions and in a variety of academic contexts. As a whole, the contributions incorporate research with learners from a range of proficiency levels, language and cultural backgrounds, and employ varied research designs in order to examine different email speech acts. The book provides valuable new insights into the dynamic and complex interplay between cultural, interlanguage, pedagogical, and medium-specific factors shaping L2 email discourse, and it is undoubtedly an important reference and resource for researchers, graduate students and experienced language teachers.

Research on interlanguage pragmatics dealing with request modifiers in EFL contexts has largely ignored the multilingual context in which this language is learnt. Previous studies comparing the use of request modifiers by monolingual and bilingual learners of English point to differences in the number and type of modifiers employed (Safont-Jordà 2005a). However, as reported by Alcón-Soler (2009), the relationship between teachability and the effects of bilingualism needs to be further explored. On that account, the present study examines the effect of bilingualism and instruction in third language learners' use of request modifiers. Findings from our study seem to indicate that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in the number of internal and external modifiers employed both before and after having received instruction.

Teachers’ backgrounds, knowledge, experiences and beliefs play a decisive role in what and how they teach, and research on teacher cognition indicates that teachers’ knowledge plays an important part in guiding their classroom teaching (Basturkmen, 2012). At the same time, the inclusion of pragmatics in teacher development and training courses and the integration of language and culture in the foreign language learning curriculum have been seen as a necessity by a number of authors (e.g., Basturkmen & Nguyen, 2017; Byram, 2014; Ishihara, 2011, 2014). Yet, the knowledge and skills necessary to teach the L2 pragmatics and cultural awareness may not come automatically to all L2 teachers, and without adequate teacher education and/or sufficient exposure to the target L2 culture, it is not surprising that some language teachers feel uncomfortable about being a source for target language pragmatics (Cohen, 2016). Through the use of semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study aims to explore how Greek-speaking, non-native speaker teachers handle the teaching of target language pragmatics and culture, and, more specifically, to investigate their professional knowledge, beliefs, and reported practices in relation to the teaching of pragmatics and culture in their EFL classroom.