Aijmer Karin. Understanding Pragmatic Markers: A Variational Pragmatic Approach

Edinburgh University Press, 2013. — x, 162 pages. — ISBN: 978-0-7486-3550-4.How do pragmatic markers vary according to the region, the social situation and the identity of the speaker? What can the study of variation pragmatics add to our knowledge of pragmatic markers?Understanding Pragmatic Markers is inspired by recent ideas in pragmatics on variation in language use with regard to social, cultural and regional factors. Karin Aijmer argues that in addition to a general analysis of pragmatic markers we need to take into account their occurrence in different varieties of English, text types and activity types. Expanding the study of pragmatic markers in this way broadens the area of study and results in a better knowledge of pragmatic markers in general.By discussing the different theoretical frameworks, methodologies such as corpus linguistics and the debates around the categorization of the functions of pragmatic markers, this accessible introduction brings students and scholars in linguistics up-to-date with this dynamic field of research.