Compared with phonology, morphology, and syntax, second language pragmatics, like second language vocabulary, was a relatively neglected area of second language acquisition and applied linguistics until about 15 years ago, but it has seen a veritable explosion of work of late. That work has been both theoretical and empirical, and sometimes difficult even for educated outsiders to come to grips with, in part because it has frequently crossed traditional boundaries of second language acquisition and use. Some researchers have concentrated on unearthing what Hymes once referred to as those “rules of use without which rules of grammar would be useless,” some (rather fewer) have focused on how those rules are acquired (or not), and some have attempted to address both aspects. Recently, as this volume demonstrates, the domain has grown to include both the teaching and the testing of second language pragmatics, and has involved additional research cultures and knowledge bases.

Two pioneers and internationally acknowledged experts in this field are Kenneth Rose and Gabriele Kasper. Each has published extensive original empirical research on interlanguage and crosscultural pragmatics, each has written authoritative reviews of the pragmatics literature, each has helped focus the research agenda, each has contributed to our understanding of appropriate qualitative and quantitative research methods for the work at hand, each has taught numerous courses and seminars and supervised graduate student research on pragmatics, and each has lectured on these subjects around the world.