“That Was a Good One”: Talking About Irony in Study Abroad

Abstract

Recent research on second or additional language (L2) pragmatics instruction in study abroad has incorporated the technique of encouraging students to gather data about pragmatics, for example, by asking members of the host country to complete questionnaires, practice using pragmatic features, or answer questions about pragmatics (e.g., Hernández, 2021; Mir, 2021). Such studies have reported positive learning outcomes of pedagogical interventions involving this technique but have not closely examined the nature of the talk about pragmatics among students and local people. The goal of this study is to examine talk about irony in Spanish elicited through an instructional activity carried out by study‐abroad students in Mexico and their Mexican interlocutors, focusing on the information that the latter provide. The findings revealed that Mexican interlocutors provided examples of irony, metapragmatic explanations, and corrective feedback but that there was considerable individual variation.