The contributions in Pragmatics across languages and cultures (volume 7 in the “Handbook of pragmatics” series) discuss cross-cultural pragmatics, focusing on theory, practice, and methods. The interplay between language, culture, and the interaction of speakers in different linguistic and cultural contexts has become important in today's globalised world. This handbook is of considerable importance, for it deals with a wide range of cross-cultural pragmatics topics covering recent developments in the field. The volume presents an in-depth analysis of four main areas of pragmatics in line with these recent trends. Part I focuses on “Contrastive, cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatics,” while Part II explores a range of topics in “Interlanguage pragmatics.” Part III addresses issues on “Teaching and testing of second/foreign language pragmatics,” and in Part IV the contributions discuss “Pragmatics in corporate culture communication.”
Given the limited space of this review it is impossible to provide a summary of each of the individual contributions in the volume. Key topics include culture and international communication (Ch. 1 by Anna Wierzbicka), intercultural (im)politeness and micro-macro issues (Michael Haugh, Ch. 4), telephone conversations (Rosina Márquez & Kang-kwong Luke, Ch. 3), pragmatics challenge and second language learners (Linda Yates, Ch. 9), pragmatics and research into corporate communication (Hilkka Yli-Jokipii, Ch. 17), corporate crisis communication across cultures (Finn Frandsen & Winnie Johansen, Ch. 19), and corporate culture (Patricia Mayes, Ch. 21).
The contributors are experts in their respective areas in language, linguistics, and communication. They combine theory and practice in their analyses, providing details simple enough for nonexperts in pragmatics or linguistics to understand, and yet also including technical details for experts. Students, teachers, and advanced scholars in linguistics and other related subjects such as philosophy, anthropology, sociology, discourse analysis, and business communication will find this handbook a very useful resource. Throughout the volume, the contributors use authentic naturally occurring interactional data to compare pragmatic aspects of communicative situations in different languages and cultures.
Handbooks generally have a reputation for being written for an advanced academic audience. However, the contributions in Pragmatics across languages and cultures are remarkably well written in clear and concise language for an international audience from different disciplines and backgrounds to understand. Even if you are not interested in pragmatics but interested in language use in social context or corporate interactions, this is the book to look out for. The handbook demonstrates and discusses many pragmatic principles and issues in communication across languages and cultures. Perhaps, the only limitation of the handbook is that the contributions seem to focus on Indo-European and Asian languages with virtually no contribution from African languages. Nevertheless, some of the cross-cultural pragmatic phenomena (e.g. politeness, address, requests) discussed in Asian (e.g. Chinese and Japanese) show similarities to some African languages.
