Speech Acts in the EFL Classroom: A Pragmatic Analysis of a Selection of Secondary Level Coursebooks by two Leading Publishers

This study investigates the types of speech acts and their realisation in the materials found in three lower secondary EFL coursebook series developed by Cambridge University Press & Assessment and Pearson Education. The research has three primary objectives. First, it aims to explore the extent to which requests and responses to requests, greetings and leave-takings, expressions of gratitude and responses to expressions of gratitude, suggestions and responses to suggestions are attested across six textbooks: Own It! Level 1 and Own It! Level 2 (Cambridge University Press); Wider World 1 and Wider World 2 (Pearson Education); and GoGetter 3 and GoGetter 4 (Pearson Education). Secondly, the study examines whether there is a progression in the number of speech acts from A1 to A2 language proficiency level. Thirdly, it explores whether there is a significant difference in speech act number and representation between corpus-supported coursebooks and those that do not claim to be corpus-supported. Rooted in practical teaching contexts, this study aims to assist teachers and language instructors in selecting appropriate coursebooks and gaining awareness of the pragmatic input provided by the coursebooks.