Reviews of the hardback edition:

'If you want to understand how your knowledge of the world shapes your use of language and your grasp of its deepest significance, read this book. Experimental pragmatics began in the 1960s; forty years on, this book marks its coming of age. Its leading practitioners show that pragmatics is far from a peripheral topic but integral to the fundamental mechanisms of language. The chapters are accessible, and the book will provide the basis for an excellent course in experimental pragmatics.' - Professor P. N. Johnson-Laird, Department of Psychology, Princeton University, USA

'Psycholinguists have been investigating the pragmatics of discourse since the early seventies; but it is only recently that linguists working in that area have felt the need to resort to psychological experiments to test their models. Experimental psychology and linguistic pragmatics interact also in the study of reasoning. A new field is emerging - experimental pragmatics - to which this book, the first of its kind, provides an exciting and most welcome introduction.' - Professor Francois Recanati, Institut Jean-Nicod, France

How does our knowledge of the language on the one hand, our knowledge of the world and of the context in which we converse, on the other hand, enable us to understand what we are told, to resolve ambiguities, to appreciate metaphor and irony, to grasp both explicit and implicit content in verbal communication? This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to an exciting new field in which models of language and meaning are tested and compared using techniques from psycholinguistics. For advanced students in Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Psychology and Philosophy with an interest in verbal communication.