Introducing Performative Pragmatics

A student-friendly introduction to pragmatics, the study of language in context, with a "performative" approach. This approach involves looking at people "doing things with words", with the emphasis on "doing"; it sees language essentially as drama. Robinson here brings together all the action-oriented approaches to the study of language, including the "pragmatics proper" of Austin and Grice, the sociology and anthropology of communication (Goffman, Gumperz, Brown and Levinson) and critical language study (Fairclough et al) under the umbrella of pragmatics. No other introductory book on pragmatics draws on so many diverse approaches and integrates them into a new performative paradigm. The textbook features will include key points sections, discussions questions and exercises and an on-line teachers' guide.