Abstract : The development of pragmatic competence is fundamental for language learners since it will determine their ability to use language appropriately in specific circumstances in order to reach a series of communicative purposes. In addition, since communication involves the interplay of various semiotic modes, both students – as learners and subsequent presenters and lecturers – as teachers also in charge of assessment – should explore and consider pragmatic competence from a multimodal perspective. This chapter draws on a genre-based approach implemented in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) subject of a Business Administration degree taught in an Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education (ICLHE) setting. In this degree, students are trained to create product pitches (PPs) taking into account their multimodal essence/makeup and with a particular focus on multimodal pragmatics. The objective of this paper is to find out the effect the joint deconstruction of the genre (a PP model) following a multimodal pragmatics perspective has on the independent construction and assessment of students’ final PP. The proposed approach goes beyond the traditional language-based one to incorporate a multimodal pragmatic perspective which explores the potential of meaningfully and comprehensively describing, analysing and assessing the way speakers co-construct and deconstruct persuasive meaning during their presentations, relying on the effective use of different semiotic resources.
