Cruse A. Meaning in Language. An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics

Oxford University Press, 2000. — xii, 424 p. — (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics Series). — ISBN 0-19-870010-5.The aim of this book is not to present a unified theory of meaning in language, but to survey the full range of semantic phenomena, in all their richness and variety, in such a way that the reader will feel, on completing the book, that he or she has made face-to-face contact with the undeniably messy 'real world' of meaning. At the same time, it aims to show that even the messy bits can, at least to some extent, be tamed by the application of disciplined thinking. As far as semantic theories are concerned, I have been unashamedly eclectic, adopting whatever approach to a particular problem seems genuinely to shed light on it. If there is a theoretical bias, it is in favour of approaches which, like the cognitive linguistic approach, embrace the continuity and non-finiteness of meaning.
This is not intended to be a 'baptismal' text; it would probably not be suitable for absolute beginners. The sort of readership I had in mind is second- or third-year undergraduates and beginning postgraduates who have completed at least an introductory course in linguistics, and who require an overview of meaning in language, either as preparation for a more detailed study of some particular area, or as background for other studies. I would hope it would be found useful, not only by students of linguistics, but also students of ancient and modern languages, translation, psychology, perhaps even literature.
Most of the material in the book has grown out of courses in general semantics, lexical semantics, and pragmatics, given to second- and third-year undergraduates and postgraduates at Manchester University over a number of years.title page publisher's imprint contents samples of pages ⌸ ⌸