A Review of Pragmatics

1. Introduction

In 2007， Huang Yan， the famous linguist and professor at the University of Reading， introduced a new book Pragmatics published by Oxford University Press. The book illustrates some important concepts and theories in pragmatics. It introduces some researches about pragmatics， cognitive linguistics， semantics and syntax. It is an introductory book. The following is a brief review of the book.

2. Content Summary

The book has eight chapters， divided into two parts. The first part is about the common issues of pragmatics. And the second part is about the problems of pragmatics and other disciplines， or rather， about problems of pragmatics and cognition， pragmatics and semantics， pragmatics and syntax. This part is a prominent advantages of the book， which has not been explained in other pragmatics books.

3. Brief Comment

The book has following several distinctive features.

（1）With new content and embodying the development trend of pragmatics.

On the basis of pragmatics classic issues， the book tries to reflect the development trend of pragmatics in recent years. For example， in the first part， many parts introduces the scholars new view about classic problems. Many scholars try to put the conventional implicature into other concepts， such as semantic implicature， conversational implicature， presupposition etc. Some scholars tried to put conversational implicature theory of Grice and neo-Grice into other linguistic theories， such as accommodation theory， decision theory， game theory， bidirectional optimality theory， and speech act theory.There are new methods for presupposition studies， too. In addition， the research of pragmatics with semantics and pragmatics with syntax also reflected the development of pragmatics research.

（2）With direct and clear opinion and thorough reasoning.

The authors main purpose is to introduce pragmatics， but he did not blindly listed concepts and theories. For some problems， the author gives appropriate analysis and statement， besides， puts forward his own opinions. For example， in the second chapter “implicature”， in addition to distinguishing between the generalized conversational implicature and particularized conversational implicature， the author also distinguishes the conversational implicature （O） and the conversational implicature （F）.

（3）With rich and detail corpus

Corpus is strong evidence to test linguistic theory and occupies an important position in the linguistics research. The corpus of the book comes from a variety of language which embodies the cross-linguistic pragmatic research perspectives. Through the analysis and contraction of cross language corpora， not only is the readers vision widened， but also it helps readers better understand theory. While discussing the relationship between speech acts and culture， through the cross language corpus the author explains that many speech acts have the cultural specific. For example， speech acts from people with different cultures background in similar situations may have a certain differences. For example， in British and American， if people receive gifts， people tend to thank， while in Japanese people would apologize.

（4）with easy understanding and strong practicability.

The book is easy to be understood but it is not a lack of theoretical depth. Interpretation on the concept and theory is simple and clear， avoiding to use uncommon words and complex sentence. The beginning of each chapter is content abstract and the end again gives the summary， so the book has clear clue， which can give readers deep impression. Because space is limited， for not discussed the secondary theory and view， the author provides the related references for readers interested in further reading.

Of course， there are some shortcomings in the book. For example， it doesn't mention some important branches of pragmatics， such as socio-pragmatics， cultural pragmatics， contrastive pragmatics， experimental pragmatics， ethnopragmatics， neuropragmatics and so on. （Xiang Mingyou， 2007）

Reference：

[1]何自然，冉永平.语用学概论[M].长沙：湖南教育出版社，2001.

[2]Green，G.1996.Pragmatics and Natural Language Cnderstanding [M].N.J.Erlbaum.

[3]Verschueren，J.1999.Understanding Pragmatics[M].Lomdon： Edward Arrnold.

[4]Mey，J.2001.Pragmatics：An Introduction[M].Oxford：Blackwell.

[5]姜望琪.当代语用学[M].北京：北京人学出版社，2003.

[6]向明友.语用学研究的新发展[J].中国外语，2007.

作者简介：沈晓宇（1987.1- ），女，汉族，河南洛阳人，硕士研究生，外国语言文学专业。