Expressions, Speech Acts and Discourse

Willis Edmondson was Professor of Applied Linguistics at Hamburg University. His research interests included language teaching and learning, English studies and pragmatics. He was Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Applied Linguistics (Wiley).

First published in 1981, Let's Talk and Talk About It is regarded as a cornerstone of research in pragmatics, which laid new and lasting foundations for the teaching of English. Forty years on, this extensively updated version is fully tailored for the 21st century. It provides a pedagogic interactional grammar of English, designed for learners and teachers of English and textbook writers, as well as experts of pragmatics and applied linguistics. The book includes a rigorous pragmatic system through which interaction in English and other languages can be captured in a replicable way, covering pragmatically important expressions, types of talk and other interactional phenomena, as well as a ground-breaking interactional typology of speech acts. The book is also illustrated with a legion of interactional and entertaining examples, showing how the framework can be put to use. It will remain a seminal work in the field for years to come.

1. Introduction, 2. Communicative Interaction in the Foreign Language Classroom, 3. Basis for the Description of Discourse as Interactive Process, 4. On Keeping Talking Without Saying Anything (Much): The Use of Gambits in Interaction, 5. Using Words to Make Meaning: Ritual Frame Indicating Expressions in Everyday Talk, 6. On Saying What You Mean: Illocutions in Different Interactional Slots, 7. Building Up Interactional Episodes, 8. Types of Talk in The Global Classroom, 9. The Interactional Practice of Grammatical Items, 10. Conclusion.