The Pragmatics Reader

The Pragmatics Reader is the indispensable set of readings for all students studying Pragmatics at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Combining key classic texts with newer extracts covering current developments in contemporary Pragmatics, each reading has been carefully selected to both showcase the best thinking and latest research and also to reflect the international nature of the field.

The 30 varied readings, including four specially commissioned papers, have been organised into eight themed sections: Linguistic Pragmatics; Post-Gricean Pragmatics; Indexicality; Historical Pragmatics; Politeness, Face and Impoliteness; Cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatics; Pragmatics and Conversation - Development and Impairment; and Pragmaticians on Pragmatics. Each of these sections is supported and enhanced by substantial editorial commentaries, pre-reading, in-reading and post-reading activities and suggestions for further reading, both in print and online. The book also features a general introduction, a glossary of key terms, and a conclusion that explores the relationship between pragmatic theory and practice before anticipating the future directions of the subject.

Readings: Dawn Archer and Peter Grundy - J. L. Austin - John R. Searle - H. P. Grice - Pieter A. M. Seuren - Robert C. Stalnaker - Stephen C. Levinson - Reinhard Blutner - Diane Blakemore - Billy Clark - Robyn Carston - Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson - Stephen C. Levinson - Jo Rubba - Jef Verschueren - Elizabeth Close Traugott - Laurel J. Brinton - Andreas H. Jucker and Irma Taavitsainen - Erving Goffman - Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson - Miriam A. Locher and Richard J. Watts - Jonathan Culpeper - Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Julianne House and Gabriele Kasper - Haruko Minegishi Cook - Istvan Kecskes - Anat Ninio and Catherine E. Snow - Emanuel A. Schegloff - Heidi Ehrenberger Hamilton - Roman Kopytko - Jon F. Pressman - Charles L. Briggs

Dawn Archer is a Reader in Corpus Linguistics and Research Lead for Linguistics at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston.  She is the author of Historical sociopragmatics: questions and answers in the English courtroom (1640-1760) and editor of What’s in a word-list? Investigating word frequency and keyword extraction.

Peter Grundy is an Honorary Fellow in the English Language Centre at Durham University, having been a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Deputy Dean of Arts prior to his retirement. He is author of Doing Pragmatics, now in its third edition, and is on the editorial boards of Intercultural Pragmatics and ELTJournal, and is a past President of IATEFL.