A response to N. J. Enfield's review of Ethnopragmatics (Goddard, ed. 2006)
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Cliff Goddard
His research interests lie in the intersection of language, culture and meaning. He has published numerous papers and books including the textbook
Semantic Analysis: A Practical Introduction (Oxford University Press 1998) andLanguages of East and Southeast Asia: An Introduction (Oxford University Press 2005). He is co-editor, with Anna Wierzbicka, of a two volume collection of studies titledMeaning and Universal Grammar (John Benjamins 2002), and a “special issue” ofIntercultural Pragmatics on Cultural Scripts (2005). His latest book isEthnopragmatics: Understanding Discourse in Cultural Context (Mouton de Gruyter 2006).
Abstract
I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to N. J. (Nick) Enfield's review of the Ethnopragmatics volume, recently published in this journal. Although the review begins with some welcome positive statements, the tone soon shifts and the approach to cross-linguistic semantics which underlies the project (the NSM approach, which will be well familiar to readers of this journal) is presented by turn as unreasonably critical of other work, narrowly focused on lexical semantics, and uninterested in the big issues. Moreover, Enfield makes no attempt to give a realistic picture of the book as a whole. He spends most of his time objecting to the introduction (“Ethnopragmatics: A new paradigm”), while his content summary of the seven following chapters runs to six lines in total.
About the author
His research interests lie in the intersection of language, culture and meaning. He has published numerous papers and books including the textbook Semantic Analysis: A Practical Introduction (Oxford University Press 1998) and Languages of East and Southeast Asia: An Introduction (Oxford University Press 2005). He is co-editor, with Anna Wierzbicka, of a two volume collection of studies titled Meaning and Universal Grammar (John Benjamins 2002), and a “special issue” of Intercultural Pragmatics on Cultural Scripts (2005). His latest book is Ethnopragmatics: Understanding Discourse in Cultural Context (Mouton de Gruyter 2006).
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- The evolutionary social psychology of off-record indirect speech acts
- Brown & Levinson's face: How it can—and can't—help us to understand interaction across cultures
- Non-acceptances in context
- NSM Semantics versus Conceptual Semantics: Goals and standards (A response to Jackendoff)
- A response to N. J. Enfield's review of Ethnopragmatics (Goddard, ed. 2006)
- Book review
- Contributors to this issue
Articles in the same Issue
- The evolutionary social psychology of off-record indirect speech acts
- Brown & Levinson's face: How it can—and can't—help us to understand interaction across cultures
- Non-acceptances in context
- NSM Semantics versus Conceptual Semantics: Goals and standards (A response to Jackendoff)
- A response to N. J. Enfield's review of Ethnopragmatics (Goddard, ed. 2006)
- Book review
- Contributors to this issue
