ABSTRACT

'Jean-Jacques Lecercle's remarkable Philosophy of Nonsense offers a sustained and important account of an area that is usually hastily dismissed. Using the resources of contemporary philosophy - notably Deleuze and Lyotard - he manages to bring out the importance of nonsense' - Andrew Benjamin, University of Warwick

Why are we, and in particular why are philosophers and linguists, so fascinated with nonsense? Why do Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear appear in so many otherwise dull and dry academic books? This amusing, yet rigorous new book by Jean-Jacques Lecercle shows how the genre of nonsense was constructed and why it has proved so enduring and enlightening for linguistics and philosophy.

chapter |26 pages

INTRODUCTION: READING NONSENSE READING

chapter 1|42 pages

THE LINGUISTICS OF NONSENSE

chapter 2|46 pages

THE PRAGMATICS OF NONSENSE

chapter 3|50 pages

NONSENSE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

chapter 4|58 pages

THE POLYPHONY OF NONSENSE