Open publication Opening the 9-volume-series Handbooks of Pragmatics, this handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the foundations of pragmatics. It covers the central theories and approaches as well as key concepts and topics characteristic of mainstream pragmatics, i.e. the traditional and most widespread approach to the ways and means of using language in authentic social contexts. The in-depth articles provide reliable orientational overviews useful to researchers, students, and teachers. They are both state of the art reviews of their topics and critical evaluations in the light of subsequent developments. Topics are thus considered within their scholarly context and also critically evaluated from current perspectives. The five major sections of the handbook are dedicated to the Conceptual and Theoretical Foundations (with a historiographic overview of the establishment and subsequent development of pragmatics), Key Topics (investigating indexicality, reference and other concepts that were the first to make their way from grammar into pragmatics and mainstream notions like speech acts, types of inference), the Place of Pragmatics in the Description of Discourse (delimiting pragmatics from grammar, semantics, prosody, literary criticism), and Methods and Tools.

Opening the 9-volume-series Handbooks of Pragmatics, this handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the foundations of pragmatics. It covers the central theories as well as concepts and topics characteristic of mainstream pragmatics, i.e. the most widespread approach to the ways and means of using language in authentic social contexts. The articles provide both state of the art reviews and critical evaluations of research in pragmatics. Topics are thus not only considered within their scholarly context but are also critically evaluated from current perspectives.

Opening the 9-volume-series Handbooks of Pragmatics, this handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the foundations of pragmatics. It covers the central theories as well as concepts and topics characteristic of mainstream pragmatics, i.e. the most widespread approach to the ways and means of using language in authentic social contexts. The articles provide both state of the art reviews and critical evaluations of research in pragmatics. Topics are thus not only considered within their scholarly context but are also critically evaluated from current perspectives.

The Handbook of Pragmatics is a collection of newly commissioned articles that provide an authoritative and accessible introduction to the field, including an overview of the foundations of pragmatic theory and a detailed examination of the rich and varied theoretical and empirical subdomains of pragmatics. Contains 32 newly commissioned articles that outline the central themes and challenges for current research in the field of linguistic pragmatics. Provides authoritative and accessible introduction to the field and a detailed examination of the varied theoretical and empirical subdomains of pragmatics. Includes extensive bibliography that serves as a research tool for those working in pragmatics and allied fields in linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science. Valuable resource for both students and professional researchers investigating the properties of meaning, reference, and context in natural language.

Rooted in Gricean tradition, this book concentrates on game- and decision-theoretic (GDT) approaches to the foundations of pragmatics. An Introduction to GDT, with an overview of GDT pragmatics research to date and its relation to semantics and to Gricean pragmatics is followed by contributions offering a high-level survey of current GDT pragmatics and the field of its applications, demonstrating that this approach provides a sound basis for synchronic and diachronic explanations of language use.

The papers in this volume reflect current trends in international research in pragmatics over recent years. The unique feature of the book is that the authors coming from ten different countries represent all aspects of pragmatics and address issues that have emerged as the result of recent research in pragmatics proper and neighboring fields such as cognitive psychology, philosophy, and communication. Recent theoretical work on the semantics/pragmatics interface, empirical work within cognitive and developmental psychology, intercultural communication and bilingual pragmatics have directed attention to issues that warrant reexamination and revision of some of the central tenets and claims of the field of pragmatics. In addition, cultural changes originating from globalization have affected the relation of language to the wider world. In particular, the spread of English as a global language has led to the emergence of issues of usage, power, and control that must be dealt with in a comprehensive pragmatics of language. Pragmatic theories have traditionally emphasized the importance of intention, rationality, cooperation, common ground, mutual knowledge, relevance, and commitment in the formation and execution of communicative acts. The new approaches to pragmatic research reflected in this volume, while not questioning the central role of these factors, extend the purview of the discipline to allow for a more comprehensive picture of their functioning and interrelationship within the dynamics of communication. The papers address these issues from a variety of directions. In Part I, Searle and Horn examine language use and pragmatics from a philosophical perspective. In Part II, the cognitive aspect of pragmatics is represented in the papers of Moeschler, Ruiz de Mendoza & Baicchi, and Giora. They focus on well-known domains such as illocutionary constructions, the pragmatics of negation, and the relevance-theoretic concept of explicature. However, each paper sheds new light on the familiar concepts. The papers in Part III by Mey, Kecskes and Grundy discuss the intercultural aspects of pragmatics while Terkourafi explores the explanatory potential of an interpretation of Grice's Cooperative Principle. Margerie's and Geeraert & Kristiansen's articles focus on the application of usage-based methodology in different ways within pragmatics.