Pragmatics
Abstract
Those aspects of language use that are crucial to an understanding of language as a system, and especially to an understanding of meaning, are the acknowledged concern of linguistic pragmatics. This textbook provides a lucid and integrative analysis of the central topics in pragmatics - deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and conversational structure. A central concern of the book is the relation between pragmatics and semantics, and Dr Levinson shows clearly how a pragmatic approach can resolve some of the problems semantics have been confronting and simplifying semantic analyses. The exposition is always clear and supported by helpful exemplification. The detailed analyses of selected topics give the student a clear view of the empirical rigour demanded by the study of linguistic pragmatics, but Dr Levinson never loses sight of the rich diversity of the subject. An introduction and conclusion relate pragmatics to other fields in linguistics and other disciplines concerned with language usage - psychology, philosophy, anthropology and literature.
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Meaning may be inferred, implied or contextually determined in a manner that truth-conditional semantics has had difficulty delineating.
“Still, it is relatively clear that meaning may be inferred, implied or contextually determined in a manner that truth-conditional semantics has had difficulty delineating”
From Studies in<i>dhāraṇī</i>literature II: Pragmatics of<i>dhāraṇī</i>s (2014) · cites this paper as Levinson 1983
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- Authors
- Levinson, S. C.
- Corresponding author
- Levinson, Stephen C.
- ORCID
- Levinson, Stephen C.
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 1983-06-09
- OpenAlex
- W4238722546
- Cited by
- 5,137
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 294 · 2025: 257 · 2024: 188 · 2023: 207 · 2022: 231 · 2021: 244 · 2020: 166 · 2019: 308 · 2018: 338 · 2017: 163 · 2016: 258 · 2015: 252 · 2014: 239 · 2013: 111 · 2012: 94
- FWCI
- 143.80
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Linguistics and Language Analysis
- Keywords
- pragmatics, deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, conversation structure, semantics-pragmatics interface, meaning, language use
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