Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures and tables -- To readers -- Acknowledgements -- Transcription conventions -- 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 -- Glossary -- Index