List of figures and tables; To readers; Acknowledgments; Part I: The pragmatics of fiction as communication; 1: Fiction and pragmatics; 2: Fiction and non-fiction; 3: Literature as communication; Part II: The pragmatics of story worlds; 4: Genres of fiction; 5: The narrative core; 6: Character creation; Part III: Themes in the pragmatics of fiction; 7: The performance of fiction; 8: Relational work and (im/politeness) ideologies; 9: The language of emotion; 10: Poetic language; 11: Fiction, pragmatics and future research; Appendices; Sources