This user-friendly introduction to a new 'performative' methodology in linguistic pragmatics breaks away from the traditional approach, which understands language as a machine, operating behind the scenes without human intent. Drawing on a wide spectrum of research and theory from the past thirty ye[...]

Drawing together the estrangement theories of Viktor Shklovsky and Bertolt Brecht with Leo Tolstoy's theory of infection, Douglas Robinson studies the ways in which shared evaluative affect regulates both literary familiarity-convention and tradition-and modern strategies of alienation, depersonaliz[...]

This is the fortieth anniversary edition of John Robinson's classic text. Honest to God is a bracing and engaging call to re-examine outdated and troublesome images of God.[...]