Doing Pragmatics

by Peter Grundy

Overview

Doing Pragmatics is a popular reader-friendly introduction to pragmatics. Embracing the comprehensive and engaging style which characterized the previous editions, this fifth edition has been fully revised. Doing Pragmatics extends beyond theory to promote an applied understanding of empirical data and provides students with the opportunity to ‘do’ pragmatics themselves. A distinctive feature of this textbook is that virtually all the examples are taken from real world uses of language which reflect the emergent nature of communicative interaction.

Consolidating the strengths of the original version, the text reinforces its unique combination of theory and practice exercises and up-to-date real data and examples. New for the fifth edition are brief in-chapter sections on research showing a wide range of approaches to collecting, analysing and reporting data as well as an all-new chapter on second language pragmatics that proposes an alternative approach to the role of pragmatics in language teaching and learning.

This book provides the ideal foundation for all those studying pragmatics within English language, linguistics and ELT/ TESOL.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040657348
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/17/2026
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	306

About the Author

Peter Grundy taught Pragmatics at Durham University for more than twenty years before his retirement. He currently lectures on the taught masters Applied Linguistics/ TESOL programme at Durham. He is co-editor with Dawn Archer of the Routledge Pragmatics Reader and author of several resource books for language teachers, as well as a past President of IATEFL.

Table of Contents

Preface 1 Using and understanding language 2 Utterances and intentions 3 Inference and utterances 4 Inference and lexical items 5 Indexicality 6 Context and language 7 Second language pragmatics Afterword Checking understanding suggestions Glossary Index

Editorial Reviews

"Unparalleled with its rich collection of real-life examples and discourse data analyses, this textbook does more than opening the door of pragmatics: it persuades the readers that doing pragmatics is a way of life. The extensively revised fourth edition remains a highly entertaining read, just as the previous versions I have used as a main text on various courses in Hong Kong and London."

Yan Jiang, SOAS University of London, UK

From the Publisher