This handbook provides a comprehensive overview, as well as breaking new ground, in a versatile and fast growing field. It contains 4 sections: Contrastive, Cross-cultural and Intercultural Pragmatics, Interlanguage Pragmatics, Teaching and Testing of Second/Foreign Language Pragmatics, and Pragmatics in Corporate Culture Communication, covering a wide range of topics, from speech acts and politeness issues to Lingua Franca and Corporate Crises Communication. The approach is theoretical, methodological as well as applied, with a focus on authentic, interactional data. All articles are written by renowned leading specialists, who provide in-depth, up-to-date overviews, and view new directions and visions for future research.

Key features: * covers topics such as international communication, intercultural politeness and impoliteness, intercultural business discourse, theoretical and methodological approaches to interlanguage pragmatics, speech acts in second/foreign languages and corporate culture communication * introduces new and emergent fields, such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Crisis Communication in a cross-cultural perspective * includes more than 20 articles and a helpful subject index