Pragmatics: The Basics

An accessible and engaging introduction to some of the key ideas in contemporary pragmatics, explaining how they have developed from and beyond the pioneering work of the philosopher Paul Grice, developing ever more sophisticated accounts of how and why the same words or behaviour mean different things in different contexts. It considers how we convey and understand direct and indirect meanings, what makes utterances more or less polite, and the effects of nonverbal and multimodal communication. Pragmatics can help us to understand the communication of fairly straightforward meanings, such as indirectly accepting or refusing an invitation, as well as more subtle and complex ones, including ones which we find hard to put into words. This book will help you to understand key ideas of pragmatics and how they are relevant every time we interact with each other.