Pragmatics: The Basics

by Billy Clark

Overview

Pragmatics: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introduction to the study of verbal and nonverbal communication in context.

Including nine chapters on the history of pragmatics, current theories, the application of pragmatics, and possible future developments in the field, this book:

• Offers a comprehensive overview of key ideas in contemporary pragmatics and how these have developed from and beyond the pioneering work of the philosopher Paul Grice;
• Draws on real-world examples such as political campaign posters and song lyrics, to demonstrate how we convey and understand direct and indirect meanings;
• Explains the effects of verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal communication and how the same words or behaviour can mean different things in different contexts, including what makes utterances more or less polite;
• Highlights key terms and concepts throughout and provides chapter-end study questions, further reading suggestions, and a glossary.

Written by an experienced researcher and teacher, this book will be an essential introduction to this topic for all beginning students of English Language and Linguistics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138193864
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/01/2021
Series:	The Basics
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	1,007,512
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x (d)

About the Author

Billy Clark is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Northumbria University, UK.

Table of Contents

1. ‘A man walks into a room’: what does pragmatics aim to explain?

2. ‘You wait 2,000 years. . . ‘: from Greeks to Grice

3. Implications of implicature: first responses to Grice

4. ‘How many maxims would you like with that?’ Neo-Gricean pragmatics

5. ‘What’s the face for?’ Politeness and impoliteness

6. ‘No maxims for me, thanks’. Post-Gricean pragmatics

7. Beyond words: prosody, nonverbal and multimodal communication

8. ‘What’s this for?’ Testing and applying pragmatics

9. ‘Where are you going now?’ The future