Blurb:

In our globalized world where more people establish relations, conduct business, and interact in their daily lives with people from other cultures and languages, sociopragmatic competence is essential. Another product of globalization is the transformation of technology-mediated communication (TMC) in the main form of personal, professional, and business communication today. It is therefore of great importance that we understand the pragmatic rules involved in TMC and whether these are similar for native speakers and learners of a foreign language. This chapter reviews existing research in several areas of pragmatic acquisition and technology, focusing on results of existing research on development of pragmatic competence when mediated by technologies to answer the question “is it possible that technology helps develop pragmatic competence in an L2?” Finally, several examples of technology-mediate pedagogic implementation to promote pragmatic competence are presented as well as suggestions for future research in the field.