This study introduces a range of pragmatic theories and approaches that can be applied to literary texts. It is ideal as an introduction for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates.

Elizabeth Black looks at the usefulness of pragmatic theories in interpreting literary texts and surveys methods of analysing narrative, paying special attention to narratorial authority and character focalisation. She describes Grice's Co-operative Principle, and considers Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory, focusing on the latter's insights into irony and varieties of indirect discourse. She introduces Bakhtin's theories, relating them to Relevance Theory. Metaphor, irony and parody are examined primarily as pragmatic phenomena, while investigation of the theories of Labov and Bakhtin provides a strand of sociolinguistic interest. Examples throughout the volume are taken from genuine, predominantly twentieth-century, literary texts.

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