{"id":786,"date":"2010-08-07T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2010-08-07T08:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=786"},"modified":"2010-06-14T13:46:43","modified_gmt":"2010-06-14T11:46:43","slug":"pragmatics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=786","title":{"rendered":"Pragmatics"},"content":{"rendered":"
Pragmatics.<\/strong> By Yan Huang<\/strong>. (Oxford textbooks in linguistics.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp, 366. ISBN 9780199243686<\/a>. $50.<\/div>\n

Reviewed by William Salmon<\/strong><\/a>, Yale University<\/em><\/p>\n

Yan Huang\u2019s Pragmatics<\/em> covers the core areas of Anglo-American pragmatics, such as implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and deixis, as well as the interface between pragmatics and areas such as semantics and syntax. H provides useful overviews of generally-agreed-upon concepts, and in those matters where there is less agreement, he adequately explores the debate. As such, H\u2019s book often imparts the feel of a handbook as well as that of a textbook.<\/p>\n

In the introductory chapter, H provides a history of Anglo-American pragmatics and explains the need for a theory of pragmatics within a larger, integrated linguistic theory. The book is then divided into two parts. Part 1, which contains Chs. 2\u20135, explores the central topics of pragmatics. Ch. 2 begins with conversational implicature, discussing H. P. Grice\u2019s original arrangement of the cooperative principle and maxims as well as two neo-Gricean arrangements: Laurence Horn\u2019s bipartite and Stephen Levinson\u2019s tripartite reductions of Grice. Ch. 3 explores presupposition, the projection problem, and three approaches to the analysis of presupposition. Ch. 4 investigates speech acts, from the taxonomies of J. L. Austin and John Searle through indirect speech acts, politeness, and crosscultural variation. Ch. 5 covers deixis, from the basic categories of person, time, and space, to social and discourse deixis.<\/p>\n

Part 2, which contains Chs. 6\u20138, considers pragmatics and its interfaces. Ch. 6 explores the interface of pragmatics and cognition, surveying relevance theory as well as Jerry Fodor\u2019s theory of cognitive modularity. Ch. 7 discusses pragmatics and semantics; specifically, the idea of pragmatic intrusion into what is said. The comparison of Kent Bach\u2019s implicature, relevance theory\u2019s explicature, and Fran\u00e7ois Recanati\u2019s unarticulated <\/em>constituents is particularly useful. In Ch. 8, H raises issues with Chomskian binding theory, arguing instead for a theory of anaphora in which pragmatics interacts with syntax. The book also contains an index and glossary as well as exercise sets (with solutions).<\/p>\n

The manner in which H places the reader in the middle of the debates is one of the many strengths of this volume. Although this book seems to lack the range and depth of coverage of Stephen Levinson\u2019s Pragmatics<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), the volumes have different aims: Levinson\u2019s book is an early and more comprehensive introduction to the field, covering a wide array of phenomena. Whereas, almost a quarter century later, H\u2019s purpose is to explore the central problems of the field as well as the interface of pragmatics with related areas. This book is both timely and engaging and is well worth reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pragmatics. By Yan Huang. (Oxford textbooks in linguistics.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp, 366. ISBN 9780199243686. $50. Reviewed by William Salmon, Yale University Yan Huang\u2019s Pragmatics covers the core areas of Anglo-American pragmatics, such as implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and deixis, as well as the interface between pragmatics and areas such as semantics and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":787,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}