Pragmatic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics Volume I: Speech Actions in Theory and Applied Studies
Speech Actions in Theory and Applied Studies, the first of the two volumes of Pragmatic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics, brings together twenty essays which critically examine linguistic action and explore ways in which it can be accounted for.
The articles presented in this collection are all focused on “doing things with words”, but in most cases do not subscribe to speech act theory in the tradition of John L. Austin and John R. Searle. The linking thread through the volume is not a theoretical commitment to one of the speech-act theoretical models, but the authors’ perspective on language as a means of action, how linguistic expressions become effective in context and how this effectiveness can be explicated. The papers represent different pragmatic approaches and varied levels of expertise in the research area; among the authors there are eminent linguists and philosophers, well established researchers, and young beginners. The texts include purely theoretical discussions, case studies, reports on research in experimental pragmatics, contrastive and corpus studies, and considerations of the pedagogical implications of pragmatic reflection on the nature of language. Without purporting to cover all relevant topics, this variety reflects the complex character of linguistic pragmatics and integrates studies which cross-cut other research fields.
The book is divided in three parts. The seven papers gathered in the first part of the volume, “Speech Action in Theory”, are concentrated on theoretical issues pertaining to speech as a type of action with emphasis both on linguistic forms (e.g. fragments) and theoretical commitments and particular theories’ explanatory power. Part two, “Case Studies & Experimental Pragmatics”, includes reports on research into irony processing in Polish and in English as a second language, intercultural differences in interactions broadcast in the media, power relations in doctor/patient interaction, and metaphors in media discourse at the time of crisis. Part three, “Pragmatics, Grammar, and Language Pedagogy”, contains five essays, which explore both more “formal” pragmatics through analyses of grammatical forms and the interface which the analysis of these forms share with context-grounded research, and the practical implications of pragmatic knowledge in language didactics. This collection is supplemented by the essays gathered in volume two, entitled Pragmatics of Semantically Restricted Domains.
IWONA WITCZAK-PLISIECKA is Assistant Professor in the Department of Pragmatics, University of Łódź, Poland and vice-president of the Polish Pragmatics Association. Her research interests are primarily in the nature of meaning in natural language, theories of speech action and performativity, and the relation between language and the law. Her publications include “Language, Law and Speech Acts: Pragmatic Meaning in English Legal Texts” (Łódź, 2007). She is editor and co-founder of Lodz Papers in Pragmatics (LPP), an international linguistic journal.
"A wide-ranging collection of papers on linguistic action and agency, with a strong theoretical component and some interesting empirical work, including case studies, experimental work and pedagogical applications. It gives an excellent sense of the range of topics and methodologies in this field."
- Robyn Carston, University College London, UK and Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, Oslo, Norway
"Some of the most important driving forces in current theoretical and more empirical work on language and communication can be found in pragmatics. The new volume on Speech Actions in Theory and Applied Studies is a welcome contribution (the first volume of Pragmatic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics 2009), and an interesting collection of papers; it contains both original theoretical contributions and new empirical studies of pragmatic phenomena in language and communication."
- Jens Allwood, University of Göteborg, Sweden
Buy This Book
