This introduction to pragmatics provides an authoritative and comprehensive account of its central topics and a guide to the latest research. After describing the subject's scope and history, it examines conversational and conventional implicature, presupposition, speech act theory, and deixis. It then explores the interfaces between pragmatics and other core areas of inquiry, including cognition (focussing on relevance theory), semantics, and syntax. Professor Huang's lively account contains exercises with suggested solutions, a glossary, and guides to further reading. This is the ideal textbook for students of linguistics. It is also a valuable resource for scholars in related fields.