SYNOPSIS The present volume, authored by Istvan Kecskes, explores a range of issues revolving around the notions of communication and interculturality, approaching them from the perspective of socio-cultural pragmatics. <...> Concluding sections of the volume are Epilogue, References and Index. <...> Having provided the reader with a succinct, yet comprehensive introductory section, outlining the goals of the volume and defining and contextualising the key concepts, the author goes on to provide a critical review of the current pragmatic theories (Chapter 1), starting with Gricean pragmatics, the “major source of development” (p. 21) for intercultural pragmatics. <...> Pragmatics is defined as a study field exploring “how the language system is employed in social encounters by human beings” (p. 21) in an attempt to answer two main research questions: “why do we choose to say what we say?” (p. 21) and “why do we understand things the way we do?” (p. 21). <...> In other words, when engaging in a communicative act the participants “manipulate language to shape and infer meaning in a socio-cultural context” (p. 21). <...> Developing his argument further, Kecskes discusses the Gricean Cooperative Principle, explaining that what happens far more frequently is egocentric communicative behaviour, “rooted in the speakers’ and hearers’ own knowledge instead of their mutual knowledge” (p. 33). <...> Interlocutors’ prior experience, knowledge and their own understanding of the world takes priority in language production and comprehension in communicative encounters, being firmly “anchored in the assumption that that what is salient or accessible to oneself will also be accessible to one’s interlocutors” (p. 33; also Giora 2003; Kecskes 2007, etc). <...> Chapter 2 elaborates on the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) to intercultural pragmatics, “tak[ing] into account both the societal and individual factors including cooperation and egocentrism that [.] are not antagonistic phenomena in interaction” (p. 42). <...> SCA is an anchor point in intercultural pragmatics, “emphasiz[ing] the complex role of cultural and private mental models, how these are applied categorically and/or reflectively by individuals in response to socio-cultural environmental feedback mechanisms, and how this leads to and explains different meaning outcomes and knowledge transfer” (p. 46). <...> Additionally and rather importantly <...>