Developmental and Clinical Pragmatics

This handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of a wide range of developmental and clinical issues in pragmatics. The contributions to this volume deal with pragmatic competence in a native language, in a second or foreign language, and in a selection of language disorders. The topics covered explore questions of production and comprehension on the utterance and discourse level. Topics addressed concern the acquisition and learning, teaching and testing, assessment and treatment of various aspects of pragmatic ability, knowledge, and use. These include the acquisition and development of speech acts, implicatures, irony, storytelling, and interactional competence. Phenomena such as pragmatic awareness and pragmatic transfer are also addressed. The disorders considered include clinical conditions pertaining to children and adults.