The purpose of this course is to afford students insights into the genesis and development of pragmatics as one of the relatively new sub-disciplines of linguistics. Thus, students will be apprised, through extensive reading, of the origin of modern pragmatics and the transformations and debates that have characterized this sub-discipline. Consequently, Gricean and Neo-gricean theories of pragmatics will be examined as well as other more recent cognitively based theories such as Relevance Theory. Social approaches to language understanding and interpretation as an aspect of pragmatic inquiry will also be examined.