Introduction to Pragmatics

Citation

Birner, B. J. (2025). Introduction to Pragmatics (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Chapter Summary

The second edition has ten chapters in about 350 pages, plus a list of sources for examples, references and an index, in the Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics series. Every chapter ends with exercises and discussion questions, and Chapters 1 to 8 also with a summary. The publisher presents the book as a student-friendly account of how meaning is created and interpreted in context, assuming no previous background.

Chapter 1: Defining Pragmatics

The opening chapter separates literal meaning (semantics) from the meaning a speaker intends and a hearer infers (pragmatics). It starts with preliminary definitions and places pragmatics within linguistics, comparing methods of gathering evidence: native-speaker intuitions, psycholinguistic experiments and naturally occurring data, and it stresses falsifiable claims. A short survey of the philosophical background follows, on meaning and truth and on language use and context. The largest section sets out the boundary between semantics and pragmatics, covering word and sentence meaning, formal logic and truth conditions (which introduces the notation used later in the book), and then the pragmatic concepts of nonnatural meaning, sense and reference, speaker meaning, possible worlds and discourse models, and mutual belief. It ends by comparing two ways of drawing the boundary, by context-dependence or by truth conditions, and by examining phenomena that strain both, namely anaphoric pronouns and conventional implicature.

Chapters 2–3: Gricean Implicature; Later Approaches to Implicature

Chapter 2 covers Grice's Cooperative Principle, the types of implicature, tests for implicature and the Gricean model of meaning. Chapter 3 turns to later approaches: neo-Gricean theory, relevance theory, a comparison of the two, and lexical pragmatics.

Chapter 4: Reference

The sections are on referring expressions, deixis, definiteness and indefiniteness, anaphora, and the referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions.

Chapters 5–6: Presupposition; Speech Acts

Chapter 5 relates presupposition to negation and entailment and treats presupposition triggers, the projection problem, defeasibility, presupposition as common ground, and accommodation. Chapter 6 covers performative utterances, felicity conditions, locutionary acts, direct and indirect speech acts, and joint acts.

Chapters 7–8: Information Structure; Inferential Relations

Chapter 7 deals with topic and focus, open propositions, discourse-status and hearer-status, and the relation of information structure to constituent order and to constructions, ending with functional compositionality. The publisher notes expanded material on noncanonical syntax and information structure in this edition. Chapter 8 treats inferential relations at the constituent level and at the propositional level.

Chapters 9–10: Social Pragmatics; Pragmatics and AI

Both are new in this edition. Chapter 9 covers face and politeness, honorifics, speech communities, communication and miscommunication, and pragmatics and persuasion. Chapter 10 looks at the human mind, at minds and machines, and returns to the semantics/pragmatics boundary in the light of artificial intelligence.

Key Concepts

Chapter 1: Defining Pragmatics

• Semantics/pragmatics boundary: the question of whether meaning is divided by context-dependence or by truth conditions.
• Speaker meaning versus sentence meaning: what a speaker intends against what the sentence expresses.
• Discourse model and mutual belief: how participants track what is shared in conversation.

Chapters 2–4: Implicature to Reference

• Cooperative Principle and implicature: Grice's account of meaning that goes beyond what is said.
• Neo-Gricean theory and relevance theory: two later accounts of implicature.
• Deixis and anaphora: the expressions that depend on context for their reference.

Chapters 5–8: Presupposition to Inferential Relations

• Presupposition and accommodation: background assumptions and how a hearer adjusts to them.
• Felicity conditions and indirect speech acts: the conditions for an act to succeed, and acts performed through another.
• Topic, focus and information structure: how sentences package information for a hearer.

Chapters 9–10: Social Pragmatics; Pragmatics and AI

• Face and politeness: the social basis of how speakers manage relationships.
• Speech communities: groups sharing ways of using language.
• Pragmatics and artificial intelligence: what machine communication shows about human language use.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Accessible entry point. The publisher says the book assumes no previous background and explains complex concepts such as presupposition, implicature and inference clearly. The opening chapter starts with everyday examples and defines the linguistics it needs along the way, including the logical notation used later.
• Practice built into every chapter. The contents show exercises and discussion questions at the end of every chapter from 1 to 10. Chapter 1's exercises and questions include tasks on falsifiable claims, building a small corpus with a search engine, natural versus nonnatural meaning, and truth conditions.
• Wide range of topics. From implicature and presupposition to speech acts, information structure, social pragmatics and AI, the book covers both foundational concepts and contemporary issues, which the publisher describes as a balance of theoretical foundations and practical applications.
• Updated edition. The publisher lists a revised treatment of politeness, presupposition, the semantics/pragmatics boundary and linguistic diversity, two new chapters (social pragmatics and AI), and new case studies on contemporary issues such as politics and propaganda.

Limitations

• A long first chapter. Chapter 1 runs to about 38 pages and spends many of them on semantics, logic and truth conditions before the main pragmatic topics begin. Readers keen to reach Grice may find it slow, though it supplies the notation used later.
• Uneven pedagogical apparatus. By the contents, Chapters 9 and 10 have no end-of-chapter summary, which Chapters 1 to 8 have.
• Breadth limits depth. Ten chapters in about 350 pages leave each topic at introductory depth; neo-Gricean theory, relevance theory and lexical pragmatics, for instance, share a single chapter of about 35 pages, so advanced work needs the primary literature or a more demanding text.

Where It Fits in the Course

Birner is the main undergraduate textbook devoted to pragmatics in this course list. Cruse's Meaning in Language and Hurford, Heasley and Smith's Semantics: A Coursebook cover semantics and pragmatics together and are suitable earlier, or beside Birner's Chapter 1, for readers new to meaning; Saeed's Semantics is a student-friendly introduction to how meaning is represented and communicated, and is useful background for the semantic material in Birner's Chapter 1.

Levinson's Pragmatics is the more demanding, systematic treatment that helped define the field and is a natural next step after Birner's chapters on implicature, presupposition and speech acts. Heim and Kratzer's Semantics in Generative Grammar is a graduate book on formal compositional semantics, relevant to the truth-conditional side of Birner's Chapter 1 for those who want the formal approach.

How to Use This Book

The book is aimed at students of linguistics, semantics and language education. Wiley states that no previous background is assumed, although familiarity with basic linguistic concepts helps.

A practical plan: read Chapters 1 to 3 as the core, since implicature underlies much of what follows. Chapters 4 to 6 (reference, presupposition, speech acts) can be taken in order or selected according to the course. Chapters 7 and 8 suit students interested in discourse and syntax, and Chapters 9 and 10 suit those interested in social and contemporary applications. Do the exercises as you read and use the discussion questions for seminar work. Collect real examples from your own reading or conversation to apply each concept, since the book is built around analysing real language use.