Introduction to Pragmatics (Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics)

By Betty J. Birner

Book Overview

"Pragmatics is the linguistic study of the ways in which contexts contribute meaning to language usage. For those students who wonder why Yeah, right' really means No', linguistic pragmatics offers fascinating methods for investigating why the study of the parts of our speech does not tell the whole story of communication.ãA Betty Birner's Introduction to Pragmatics is an essential textbook for undergraduate students and has been unsurpassed as the go-to teaching text in this area. The fully updated new edition includes revisions and new material in every chapter on topics such as politeness, presupposition theory, lexical pragmatics, information structure, the nature of linguistic constructions, and neo-Gricean and Relevance theories. The new edition also features a wholly new chapter on Pragmatics in Society,' replacing the original chapter on dynamic semantics from the prior edition. This new chapter tackles exciting questions for a new generation of students, covering speech communities and linguistic diversity; forbidden language; politics and propaganda; and pragmatics, machines, and AI"-- Provided by publishe

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 139419675X
• ISBN13: 9781394196753
• Release Date: September 2025
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 0.9" x 6.9"