The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Language

This Handbook introduces key issues in the philosophy of language as currently practised. Topics include: the nature of language; the nature and role of semantic content; the dynamics of communication and speech acts; tense and modality; discourse dynamics; and the expressive, evaluative, subjective, and social aspects of language.

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Language introduces readers to the main issues and theories in the philosophy of language as currently practised. Written by leading researchers and covering the central topics in the contemporary philosophical study of language, the twenty-seven chapters provide an overview of the state of the art, and a presentation of cutting-edge developments. Topics covered include: the nature of language; the nature and role of semantic and attitudinal content; the dynamics of communication and speech acts; meta-semantics and reference grounding; tense and modality; discourse dynamics and information structure; and the expressive, evaluative, subjective, and social aspects of language. Although some of the articles focus directly on technical issues following the recent approach of linguistically oriented philosophy of language, the majority of the contributions are primarily focused on foundational questions drawn from traditional philosophy of language. The volume offers a reconsideration of these foundational issues in a new light, while still bearing in mind the formal developments in recent literature, as well as a presentation of new foundational issues that have emerged as a result of these developments.