The volume under review presents by far the most comprehensive and up-to-date overview of current theories and research traditions in pragmatics.Footnote ^[1] It consists of twenty-nine specially commissioned chapters with an introduction which discusses contemporary pragmatics and presents a summary of each study. The volume is thematically organized into five parts. Specifically, Part I (Chapters 2–7) consists of six chapters discussing ‘Schools of thoughts, foundations, and theories’ in the field of pragmatics. Part II (Chapters 8–13) provides critical surveys of ‘Central topics’ in pragmatics, such as implicature and speech acts. The next two parts move on to macro-pragmatics: Part III (Chapters 14–19), on ‘Macro-pragmatics and cognition’, and Part IV (Chapters 20–23), on ‘Macro-pragmatics and society/culture’. Finally, Part V (Chapters 24–30), ‘Interfaces’, examines the interfaces between pragmatics and related disciplines and phenomena. In the following we present a detailed discussion and evaluation of the volume, which should be clear to indicate that, in our view, the volume is an invaluable contribution to the ongoing development of pragmatics.

Part I starts with Anne Bezuidenhout’s ‘Contextualism and semantic minimalism’ (Chapter 2), which provides an insightful survey of the current progress in the long-standing debate between contextualism and semantic minimalism from the perspectives of cognitive architecture, formal semantics, and conceptual analysis. Bezuidenhout argues that consideration should be given to the differences in aim and method between these camps so as to avoid inappropriate criticism. Yan Huang’s contribution (Chapter 3), ‘Neo-Gricean pragmatics’, offers a substantial simplification of the lexicon, semantics, and syntax based on neo-Gricean pragmatics (in particular, the Hornian and Levinsonian models). The topic of Chapter 4 is ‘Relevance Theory’, in which Deirdre Wilson clarifies some common misconceptions about the fundamental assumptions of the theory, and then highlights recent developments and possible new areas of research in the field (e.g. the interaction of mindreading, communication, and epistemic vigilance). Reinhard Blutner’s ‘Formal pragmatics’ (Chapter 5) presents a comprehensive summary of three formal pragmatic frameworks: Optimality-theoretic, game-theoretic, and decision-theoretical pragmatics. Jef Verschueren’s contribution, ‘Continental European perspective view’, rejects the distinction between an Anglo-American and a Continental European pragmatics (Levinson Reference Levinson1983, Huang Reference Huang2007). Assuming that the opposition between Western and non-Western conceptions of language use is more real and more accurate, Verschueren calls for the application of ‘non-Western notions of language use in theory building and empirical research’ (131). In Chapter 7, ‘The sociological foundations of pragmatics’, Jacob L. Mey discusses not only the social foundations of pragmatics but also the sociological ends of pragmatics and further argues that ‘the aim of our societal concern with language, its end, should be to bring about the end of linguistic and other bondage, by promoting the emancipation of the language user’ (151; italics in the original).

Part II comprises six chapters dealing with the core areas of pragmatic research. In Chapter 8, Yan Huang takes up ‘Implicature’ – one of the cornerstones of pragmatics – presenting a wide-ranging overview of theoretical accounts of implicatures, which is helpful for readers not already acquainted with the topic. In ‘Presupposition and givenness’ (Chapter 9), Bart Geurts scrutinizes insightfully the givenness of, and the projection problem for, presupposition. Geurts concludes that existing theories of presupposition (satisfaction and binding) fail to give a fully adequate account of the projection problem. Chapter 10 addresses ‘Speech acts’, in which Stephen C. Levinson presents an informative survey replete with incisive analyses of some fundamental issues relating to the identification, classification, and realization of speech acts and the role of inference in speech act recognition and attribution. Levinson stresses the centrality of speech acts in linguistic enquiry and calls for studies of speech acts and their use in dialogue. Next come two closely related chapters. Chapter 11, ‘Deixis and the interactional foundations of reference’, by Jack Sidnell & Nicholas J. Enfield, gives detailed arguments for the idea that directing the attention of others constitutes the interactional foundation of deixis (and reference in general). The topic of Chapter 12 is ‘Reference’, in which Barbara Abbott informatively discusses issues concerning the linguistic expression, production, and interpretation of reference, presenting a fine-grained analysis from both the speaker’s and the hearer’s perspectives. Chapter 13, ‘Context’, is the final contribution in this part, in which Anita Fetzer contributes to a theory of context as a dynamic construct, proposing to anchor it to the fundamental pragmatic premises of contextualization, indexicality, and intentionality.

Part III moves on to ‘Macro-pragmatics and cognition’. Chapter 14, ‘Cognitive pragmatics’, by Bruno G. Bara, discusses some fundamental concepts of cognitive pragmatics (cooperation, sharedness, and communicative intention), and then presents a game-based Cognitive Pragmatics theory. Next comes ‘Developmental pragmatics’ (Chapter 15), in which Pamela R. Rollins provides a lucid overview of young children’s developmental pathway of pragmatic skills which has both pedagogical and clinical applications. It shows that the gradual qualitative changes that children typically undergo include ‘sharing emotions’, ‘sharing perceptions and pursuing goals’, ‘sharing attention and intention’, and ‘conversational and narrative skills’ (301, 309). Chapter 16, by Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr, ‘Experimental pragmatics’, shows that experimental studies report great regularities and significant variation in people’s pragmatic behaviors. The author suggests a dynamic, self-organizing approach to pragmatics, which explains these regularities and variation as ‘emergent from the human system overall and not the output of some specialized “pragmatics” parts of mind’ (324). In Chapter 17, ‘Computational pragmatics’, Harry Bunt surveys the field of pragmatics in the context of computational linguistics, which is ‘evidently beneficial for developing pragmatic theories with better coverage and validity’ (327). However, if computational pragmatics is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the interaction between inference, context, and the interpretation and generation of language, more powerful context models and pragmatically-annotated corpora using widely agreed annotation schemes are needed. In Chapter 18, ‘Clinical pragmatics’, Louise Cummings offers an insightful critical overview of the state of art in the domain, showing the need for well-established theoretical frameworks (e.g. Relevance Theory and theory of mind) in the assessment, explanation, and treatment of pragmatic disorders. Chapter 19, ‘Neuropragmatics’, by Brigitte Stemmer, presents a clearly written summary of research on the brain correlates and processes associated with pragmatic behaviors.

Part IV is devoted to ‘Macro-pragmatics and society/culture’. In Chapter 20, ‘Politeness and impoliteness’, Penelope Brown gives an instructive survey of the work in this area. She argues convincingly that the focus of research has been largely on cross-cultural differences, with the cross-linguistic/cross-cultural parallels being relatively underexplored. Since the wider significance of politeness lies in the fact that ‘through their regular patterns of language choice humans interactively construct their social relationships’ (398), it is suggested that the study of politeness should be anchored in a theory of social interaction that takes into account both our common human nature and cultural differences. The topic of Chapter 21 is ‘Cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatics’, in which Istvan Kecskes usefully distinguishes between cross-cultural pragmatics and intercultural pragmatics, which are distinct but the terms are often used interchangeably. Chapters 22 and 23 are concerned with ‘Interlanguage pragmatics’, by J. César Félix-Brasdefer, and ‘Conversation analysis’, by Emanuel A. Schegloff, respectively, suggesting directions for future research and as such they are particularly useful for novice researchers in the fields.

Part V, ‘Interfaces’, comprises seven excellent and highly enlightening chapters on pragmatics and its interfaces. It begins with Robyn Carston’s contribution on ‘Pragmatics and semantics’ (Chapter 24), which approaches the pragmatics–semantics relationship from communicative, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives, arguing for the logical and temporal priority of pragmatics. This is followed by Mira Ariel’s ‘Pragmatics and grammar: More pragmatics or more grammar’, which convincingly proposes that the code-versus-inference distinction is the only viable definition for the grammar/pragmatics division of labor. Yet, Ariel warns that decisions on what should be analyzed as inference and what as code must be based on a case-by-case analysis. Next comes Chapter 26, ‘Pragmatics and morphology: Morphopragmatics’, in which Wolfgang U. Dressler & Lavinia Merlini-Barbaresi provide an account of the interaction between pragmatics and morphology in a cogent and clear manner. Chapter 27, Laurence R. Horn’s ‘Pragmatics and the lexicon’ examines the role played by his Q[uantity]-principle and R[elation]-principle (Horn Reference Horn, Horn and Ward2004) in word formation, meaning change in a variety of constructions, and in the division of pragmatic labor and the avoidance of synonymy and homonymy, outlining a neo-Gricean lexical pragmatic theory. In Chapter 28, ‘Pragmatics and prosody’, Julia Hirschberg provides an updated review of recent research on the correlations between prosodic variation and the interpretation of ‘syntactic, semantic and discourse phenomena’ (532), along with a suggestion for new possible directions of investigation, such as the pragmatic influence of prosody on perceived politeness, charisma, speaker style, and emotional state. Chapter 29, by Andreas H. Jucker, ‘Pragmatics and language change: Historical pragmatics’, develops an insightful pragmatic account of language change. It centers on the processes of grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, and provides a nice illustration of the development of communicative practices (greetings, complements, and the dissemination of news). In the final chapter, ‘Pragmatics and information structure’, Gregory Ward, Betty J. Birner & Elsi Kaiser argue that information structure is a pragmatic phenomenon since ‘information structuring is inextricably tied to matters of context – in particular, the prior linguistic context’ (568). The contributors provide an analytical survey of recent research on information structure, including the categorization of information status, inference in information structure, as well as informational constraints on the use and comprehension of non-canonical constructions.

The Handbook presents excellent studies dealing with various pragmatic phenomena. It has three notable characteristics. First, the volume covers a wide range of topics in pragmatics, thereby having the feature of comprehensiveness. Second, it brings together a group of leading experts from around the world, providing a collection of thorough, insightful, and yet accessible critical overviews of the central areas of pragmatics. Third, contributions in this volume are made from both the Anglo-American and the European Continental camps, suggesting a broad coverage has been achieved.

The volume, however, has some shortcomings. In the introductory chapter, the editor makes two distinctions in pragmatics: the Anglo-American versus European Continental traditions and micro- versus macro-pragmatics. However, the distinctions do not appear to have been adequately discussed. Since there seem to be intersections and overlaps between Anglo-American pragmatics and micro-pragmatics, and between European Continental pragmatics and macro-pragmatics, it would have been helpful if the relationship between the two dimensions of pragmatic studies had been discussed more explicitly.

For contributions to a book of this kind, what readers might expect are critical overviews of central aspects of the theories and/or methodologies, and findings relating to the specific area(s) or topics(s) addressed. However, some contributions appear to be less than fully representative: for example, the focus of Chapter 14 (‘Cognitive pragmatics’) is only on Bara’s (Reference Bara2010) Cognitive Pragmatics theory (leaving others such as Relevance Theory underexplored), Chapter 15 (‘Developmental pragmatics’) limits itself almost entirely to Western caregiver–infant interactions rather than other types of communicative practice (e.g. school-age children interactions with teachers and peers), and Chapter 30 (‘Pragmatics and information structure’) is concerned primarily with the information structure of non-canonical (i.e. marked, non-default) constructions such as preposing and postposing, paying little attention to canonical/default sentence structures. Furthermore, the volume would be more comprehensive if it covered more sub-branches of pragmatics, such as cultural pragmatics and corpus pragmatics. In addition, there are some editing errors; for example, ‘developmentof’ (309) should be ‘development of’, and ‘Larry R. Horn’ (641) should be ‘Laurence R. Horn’. These of course are only minor issues which can in no way undermine the overall value of the volume.

Despite the above quibbles, the Handbook is a timely contribution to pragmatics in terms of its theoretical depth, breadth of coverage, and the expertise of the contributors. As such it is highly recommended.