Pragmatic Routines

Abstract Pragmatic routines, a general term for formulaic language in pragmatics, cover both conventional expressions that are linked to specific linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts and pragmatic routines , used narrowly in the literature to describe expressions that are associated with speech acts. Conventional expressions include Nice to meet you , in response to an introduction, and Thanks, you too! as a reciprocal wish in response to Have a good day! or other good wishes; examples of pragmatic routines (in a narrow sense) include That's right, That's true, and You're right and I agree , among others, for agreements. Pragmatic routines (in the broad sense) are a pragmalinguistic resource and generally convey the illocutionary force of the utterance, meaning that they tell the listener what speech act the speaker is performing. Pragmatic routines are shared by speech communities and vary regionally. This entry considers how researchers identify pragmatic routines using observation, elicited production, and corpus searches and discusses the importance of establishing community‐wide use of formulaic language in pragmatics, whether for research or teaching purposes. The entry then reviews research on pragmatic routines in second language acquisition research, discussing the lexical, grammatical, and pragmatic dimensions of pragmatic routines, and ends by considering research on the influence of proficiency, learning context, and instruction.