Pragmatics

This is an introduction to pragmatics, the study of how people make sense of each other linguistically. The author explains, and illustrates, basic concepts such as the co-operative principle, deixis, and speech acts, providing a clear, concise foundation for further study.

This is an introduction to pragmatics, the study of how people make sense of each other linguistically. The author explains, and illustrates, basic concepts such as the co-operative principle, deixis, and speech acts, providing a clear, concise foundation for further study.

This is an introduction to pragmatics, the study of how people make sense of each other linguistically. The author explains, and illustrates, basic concepts such as the co-operative principle, deixis, and speech acts, providing a clear, concise foundation for further study.

Those aspects of language use that are crucial to an understanding of language as a system, and especially to an understanding of meaning, are the acknowledged concern of linguistic pragmatics. This textbook provides a lucid and integrative analysis of the central topics in pragmatics - deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and conversational structure. A central concern of the book is the relation between pragmatics and semantics, and Dr Levinson shows clearly how a pragmatic approach can resolve some of the problems semantics have been confronting and simplifying semantic analyses. The exposition is always clear and supported by helpful exemplification. The detailed analyses of selected topics give the student a clear view of the empirical rigour demanded by the study of linguistic pragmatics, but Dr Levinson never loses sight of the rich diversity of the subject. An introduction and conclusion relate pragmatics to other fields in linguistics and other disciplines concerned with language usage - psychology, philosophy, anthropology and literature.

This is a succinct introduction to the rapidly developing field of pragmatics - the study of language from the point of view of its users, of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on other participants in communication.

This is a succinct introduction to the rapidly developing field of pragmatics - the study of language from the point of view of its users, of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on other participants in communication.