The Role of an Interactive Book Reading Program in the Development of Second Language Pragmatic Competence

Abstract

The development of pragmatic competence in another language is significant to second (L2) and foreign language (FL) learners’ ability to communicate successfully in the target language. Although a great deal of research has focused on defining and comparing the content of pragmatic competence across culture groups, far less attention has been given to examining its development. Our study is a partial response to this gap. The purpose of the study was to investigate the connection between Korean children's participation in an interactive book reading program and their development of pragmatic competence in English. We found that their participation led to significant changes over a 4–month period in the mean number of words, utterances, and talk management features as measured by the changes in children's use of these during role play sessions. The findings suggest that participation in such reading programs provides opportunities for the development of at least some aspects of L2 pragmatic competence.