Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics

by John A. Lucy

Overview

This volume examines the nature and significance of the reflexive capacity of natural language, its ability to represent its own structure and use through reported speech and explicit statements about language use (metapragmatics). Included are theoretical overviews, case studies of the forms and functioning of reflexive language, and explorations of the broad importance of reflexive language for research in the humanities and social sciences. These innovative essays, many by internationally known researchers, effectively critique research in the human disciplines that fails to take language seriously. It should elicit widespread attention and debate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521351645
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/04/1993
Pages:	428
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.38(d)

Table of Contents

Part I. Theoretical Foundations: Part II. The Relation of Form and Function in Reflexive Language: Part III. Text, Context, and the Cultural Functions of Reflexive Language: Part IV. Interpretation, Reported Speech, and Metapragmatics in the Western Tradition.

Editorial Reviews

"...[the] high quality of most of the papers in the volume, and Lucy's excellent job of framing and summarizing them, make it a uselful resource for linguists interested in issues of reported speech, code-switching, genre-identification, indexicality, authority in language, literary voice, or the broader theortical implications of the notion of "metalanguage"." Language

"...the volume offers something for linguists of many tastes; the editor deserves special credit for making the menu clearly visisble, and the whole digestible." Stephen Matthews, WORD

From the Publisher