Variational Pragmatics and World Englishes

Abstract Although speakers across World Englishes share many commonalities in their use of language in context, each variety of English is inextricably shaped by and adapted to its own particular socio‐cultural, historical, and linguistic context. Hence, what is regarded as an appropriate convention of language use may differ across varieties. Variational pragmatics is the study of pragmatic variation within one language. At the interface of World Englishes, variational pragmatic scholarship investigates regional pragmatic variation across national (or supranational) varieties of English as well as pragmatic variation within and across these varieties according to such macro‐social factors as region (on a subordinate level), gender, age, ethnic identity, and socioeconomic class, and according to the interaction of these macro‐factors with micro‐social factors. Variational pragmatic research represents an increasingly important perspective in the field of World Englishes. The chapter, taking a broad perspective on World Englishes to include Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circle varieties, sketches the field of variational pragmatics. It introduces the framework of variational pragmatics, including the social variables, levels of pragmatic analysis, and levels of variation and synthesizes the primary patterns of pragmatic variation in World Englishes. The methodological principles of empiricism, contrastivity, and comparability are introduced, and the implications of the need for contextual comparability and comparability of the pragmatic feature across data collection methodologies are discussed. The chapter closes with an outlook on the potential for future developments in the area.