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Twisted Roots. Intellectuals, Mass Culture and Political Culture in Italy The article examines the rise of mass culture in Italy from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. It particularly analyses the literary production, politically organised cultural offering as well as the role of the intellectuals. Despite the high illiteracy rate (until the beginning of the twentieth century higher than in other countries), different mass-cultural spheres developed throughout Western Europe. The socialist and Catholic communities decisively contributed to this development. With the help of their own publications and distribution channels as well as libraries, they encouraged the population to read. Simultaneously, intellectuals and writers with precarious social situations hoped for new fields of activity in the emerging cultural industries. The gap between these expectations and modern reality led many of these observers to criticise massculture. In some cases, it even led to political radicalisation and rapprochement with the fascist movement.

The ten volumes of Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights focus on the most salient topics in the field of pragmatics, thus dividing its wide interdisciplinary spectrum in a transparent and manageable way. While other volumes select philosophical, cognitive, grammatical, social, variational, interactional, or discursive angles, this second volume reviews basic topics and traditions that place language use in its cultural context. As emphasized in the introduction, and as revealed in the choice of articles, 'culture' is by no means to be seen as standing in opposition to society and cognition; on the contrary, the notion cannot be understood without insight into the intricate interactions of social and cognitive structures and processes. In addition to the topical articles, a number of contributions to this volume is devoted to aspects of methodology. Others highlight the role of eminent scholars who have made the study of cultural dimensions of language use into what it is today.

In recent years we have seen a continuation and perhaps even acceleration in the trend of popular culture having a discernible effect on politics. From The Daily Show to candidates' use of Facebook and MySpace, politics have opened up to new technologies as we come online for the next generation. Our political world has become popularized, or our popular world has become politicized in a new way, facilitated by the entertainment media and new technologies. This volume's authors attempt to ma