Developing pragmatics in Spanish as an additional language

Abstract

This chapter delves into the crucial role of pronunciation, particularly prosody, in shaping meaning and fostering the development of pragmatics in Spanish as an additional language (ELE). Effective communication not only relies on the literal content of verbal messages, but it also heavily depends on the appropriate use of oral and non-verbal cues that enrich it. We first explain how speakers employ multimodal strategies such as speech prosody and body movements to optimise their oral discourse and successfully convey their communicative intentions. Then we propose to focus on the integration of speech prosody and body movements into pronunciation instruction and provide illustrations of how to achieve this when teaching speech acts, discourse and information structure in ELE.