“Overall, Birner has made an impressive attempt at simplifying the field of pragmatics and connecting it with real-life situations, unprecedentedly foregrounding its great potential in coming to terms with social issues. Thus, the value of Introduction to Pragmatics goes beyond the audience-borders set by the author and the publisher. All pragmaticians, applied linguists, stylisticians, sociolinguists and other scholars who are interested in the way language behaves in society should find the book an asset.” (Discourse Studies, 13 May 2015)
“Birner’s Introduction to Pragmatics recognizes this challenge and offers graduate students and upper-level undergraduates an accessible introduction that addresses the traditional range of topics within pragmatics through real-life examples.” (The Modern Language Journal, 10 November 2014)
“This point aside, the book does indeed make a compelling case for why pragmatists and semanticists alike should give thoughtful consideration to the boundary between their two domains.” (The LINGUIST List, 9 July 2013)
“Indisputably the best pragmatics textbook currently on the market. It covers all the areas that any modern treatment of pragmatics should include, replete with end-of-chapter exercises. My students love it!” – Gregory Ward, Northwestern University
“A remarkably clear and well-paced exposition of linguistic pragmatics, covering the classic areas yet also taking a glance at newer developments, and throughout skillfully infused with the current debates.” – Jonathan Culpeper, Lancaster University
From the Inside Flap
Pragmatics is the study of language use in context. It concerns itself with the relationship between language and the humans who use it, and specifically how their beliefs and intentions affect both the form and the interpretation of their utterances. This introductory textbook presents an up-to-date survey of the field, addressing the traditional range of topics within pragmatics – such as implicature, reference, presupposition, and speech acts – as well as newer areas of research including neo-Gricean theories, Relevance Theory, information structure, inference, and dynamic approaches to meaning.
Throughout the book the relationship between semantics and pragmatics is continually addressed and reassessed. By encompassing both traditional and new approaches, and focusing particularly on phenomena at the semantics/pragmatics boundary, Introduction to Pragmatics sheds light on one of the major issues in the field: the role of context in linguistic communication.
From the Back Cover
Pragmatics is the study of language use in context. It concerns itself with the relationship between language and the humans who use it, and specifically how their beliefs and intentions affect both the form and the interpretation of their utterances. This introductory textbook presents an up-to-date survey of the field, addressing the traditional range of topics within pragmatics &; such as implicature, reference, presupposition, and speech acts &; as well as newer areas of research including neo-Gricean theories, Relevance Theory, information structure, inference, and dynamic approaches to meaning.
Throughout the book the relationship between semantics and pragmatics is continually addressed and reassessed. By encompassing both traditional and new approaches, and focusing particularly on phenomena at the semantics/pragmatics boundary, Introduction to Pragmatics sheds light on one of the major issues in the field: the role of context in linguistic communication.
About the Author
Betty J. Birner is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at Northern Illinois University. She is the author of several books, including The Discourse Function of Inversion in English (1996), Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English (with Gregory Ward, 1998), and Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning: Neo-Gricean Studies in Pragmatics and Semantics in Honor of Laurence R. Horn (with Gregory Ward, 2006).
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