Video Resources

These videos are meant to help English language teachers illustrate how pragmatics works in real-life situations. Though fictional, the scenarios presented here are based on authentic interactions documented in the literature and adapted from the available corpora.

Each interactional situation (e.g., apologizing, thanking someone, refusing an invitation), is represented in sets of two or more scenarios depicting at least one non-normative (dispreferred) version of the situation and one normative (preferred) version.

For example, if you’re looking for a video illustrating a student apologizing to a professor, you’ll find two versions of that video, one in which something goes wrong, and one in which the interaction is successful.

Below are the latest videos. The menu on the left allows you to find videos in specific categories. Click on the image to view the video. Transcripts are available for each clip and can also be downloaded.

Sue tells Karen about her first job interview – Scene 06B

Sue tells Karen about her first job interview – Scene 6A

Accepting an Invitation from a Co-worker – Gone wrong - Scene 05

Employee politely refuses manager’s request to work on his day off – Scene 04B

Employee refuses manager’s request to work on his day off: “No!” - Scene 04A

Student Refuses an Invitation from a Classmate - Scene 03