Principles of Pragmatics (Longman Linguistics Library) [Paperback]

Geoffrey Leech (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0582551102 | ISBN-13: 978-0582551107 | Publication Date: January 1989

Over the years, pragmatics - the study of the use and meaning of utterances to their situations - has become a more and more important branch of linguistics, as the inadequacies of a purely formalist, abstract approach to the study of language have become more evident. This book presents a rhetorical model of pragmatics: that is, a model which studies linguistic communication in terms of communicative goals and principles of 'good communicative behaviour'. In this respect, Geoffrey Leech argues for a rapprochement between linguistics and the traditional discipline of rhetoric. He does not reject the Chomskvan revolution of linguistics, but rather maintains that the language system in the abstract - i.e. the 'grammar' broadly in Chomsky's sense - must be studied in relation to a fully developed theory of language use. There is therefore a division of labour between grammar and rhetoric, or (in the study of meaning) between semantics and pragmatics. The book's main focus is thus on the development of a model of pragmatics within an overall functional model of language. In this it builds on the speech avct theory of Austin and Searle, and the theory of conversational implicature of Grice, but at the same time enlarges pragmatics to include politeness, irony, phatic communion, and other social principles of linguistic behaviour.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Longman Group Limited (January 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0582551102
• ISBN-13: 978-0582551107
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,786,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, with provisos, October 9, 2006

By 

P. G. Lech "il Latinista" (Providence, RI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Principles of Pragmatics (Longman Linguistics Library) (Paperback)

This is a very clear and readable account of a principle-driven approach to pragmatics. While I don't think it appropriate for someone who wants an introduction to the field, it has a stimulating account of linguistic politeness, and a first-attempt at a communicative-grammar approach to questions and negative sentences. The overall approach of the book is complementarist: treating pragmatics and semantics as separate, but complementary fields of inquiry. Thus utterances are analyzed according to their sense (semantics) and force (roughly,'illocutionary goals' together with associated implicatures--properly dealt with by pragmatics).
Caveats: the usage of the terms 'implicature', 'force', and 'meaning' are a bit loose in this account, and there is a general tendency to proliferate
maxims (which describe tendencies to my mind, more than rules that speakers follow in conversation)
Overall, a stimulating read if you already have some background in pragmatics.