Contents
Preface
vii
1
1
4
10
13
Introduction
1.1 Types of pragmatics
1.2 Pragmatics and linguistics
1.3 Structure of the book
2 Semantics and Pragmatics
2.1 The borderline
2.2 Sentences and utterances
2.3 Language and logic
2.4 Mood
2.5 The explicit and the implicit
2.6 Presupposition
2.7 Deixis
19
19
21
23
27
29
32
39
3
History of Pragmatics
3.1 Structuralism
3.2 Logical positivism
3.3 Ordinary language philosophy
3.4 The beginnings of pragmatics
44
44
47
49
52
4
‘Classical’ Pragmatics
4.1 Speech act theory
4.2 Implicature
56
57
68
5 Modern Pragmatics
5.1 Neo-Gricean pragmatics
5.2 Relevance theory
5.3 Semantic autonomy and pragmatic intrusion
89
90
102
117
6 Applications of Pragmatics
6.1 Politeness
6.2 Literature
6.3 Language acquisition
6.4 Clinical linguistics
6.5 Experimental pragmatics
131
132
141
149
157
164
7 Pragmatics and Language in Context
7.1 Conversation analysis
7.2 Discourse analysis
176
177
181 v PROOF vi CONTENTS
7.3 Sociolinguistics
7.4 Corpus linguistics
184
187
Glossary
191
Bibliography
197
Index
211
PROOF
Introduction
1
Some statements about pragmatics are easy to make and are not likely to prove too controversial. Pragmatics is one component of the study of human language, and can therefore be described as a branch of the academic discipline of linguistics. It has emerged relatively recently, certainly within the last half century, but is now an important and thriving area that continues to expand and develop. Concepts, theories and approaches developed within pragmatics are being used by those working in many other areas: both in other branches of linguistics, such as sociolinguistics, stylistics and psycholinguistics, and in different disciplines, such as artificial intelligence, clinical psychology and even law.
Once we get beyond such general statements, however, we