Book review

In the past twenty years, the experimental approach to the study of meaning has reached a substantial level of awareness of itself as a sub-discipline at the intersection of linguistics and psychology with connections to neuroscience and philosophy, which have led to a recognisable label, ‘experimental pragmatics’ or ‘XPrag’. A milestone is the first monograph in the discipline, ‘Experimental Pragmatics: The Making of a Cognitive Science’, by Ira Noveck, a researcher who can be credited perhaps more than anyone with the flourishing of this area. The book does not aim to be a comprehensive textbook, nor is it an in-depth investigation of a few well-chosen case-studies. It is a blend of the two together along with Noveck’s autobiographical reflections and insights from his own career in the field. It is a book rich in facts as well as in opinions, as Noveck makes clear at the start and the very end too.