Speaking a language involves more than just knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation: It also requires the abilities to interpret what your interlocutor is saying, to formulate a relevant response, and to deliver it in a timely manner. In addition, it entails skills such as dealing with trouble in talk when it arises and being able to identify an appropriate moment to start speaking. In short, it requires interactional competence (IC).

As this applies to speaking a language other than one's first, this volume of Pragmatics & Interaction examines specific interactional competences {ICs) that speakers of Japanese as an additional language display publically and how those competences develop over time. The volume consists of empirical studies of IC in situations where Japanese is an additional language, representatively a "second" language (L2), of one or more of the speakers.