Chapter 3 focuses on Paul Auster’s autobiographical diptych (Winter Journal (2012) and Report from the Interior (2013)) which are both entirely written in the second-person pronoun. It demonstrates why the pronoun is particularly fitting a choice in the general economy of life writing and memory gathering of Auster’s enterprise. The second-person pronoun is also shown to be instrumental in the interpersonal connection Auster is ethically constructing with his readers, making his own personal experience somehow shareable. ‘You’ positions the reader in a most singular way in the intrapersonal dialogue Auster is having with himself, placing her close to his deictic centre, as a sort of co-habitant of his mental space. The American author’s autobiographical works most unusually written in a doubly subjective ‘you’ indeed pragmatically invites the reader to meet him half way via the ethical vector that the second person represents.

In Chapter 6, Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) are analysed in a pragmatic light. Although many have studied the age-old author–reader relationship in these two novels, rarely have the different pragmatic acts the author/narrator is performing in their address to the reader been highlighted. Studied within Warhol’s broader narratological distinctions between ‘distancing’ and ‘engaging’ narrators (1986, 1989, 1995), these addresses are re-placed within the theoretical model developed in Chapter 1 to enhance the difference between the two texts and show that other references of ‘you’ are present in a way never emphasised in studies of these novels (Brontë’s in particular).

Chapter 7 deals with the resurgence of the traditional conversational mode in Neil Bartlett’s twenty-first-century novel, Skin Lane, which, associated with a most unique use of generic ‘you’, favours strategic empathy for a certain Mr F, suffering from repressed desire for a young man. It shows how the technique can be exploited as a pragmatic possibility to reach the reader’s attention anew. Although approached inParts I and II, this chapter more thoroughly investigates the notion of strategic empathy (drawing from specialists on the matter in literary studies and in socio-cognition research), as Bartlett subtly but strongly guides our ethical reaction (in the manner of Fielding) and brings us to align with the second-person pronoun (in the manner of Brontë).

Chapter 10 dissects Kevin Spacey’s YouTube video posted on Christmas eve in 2018 to defend himself against sexual assault accusations. It shows how dangerous the second-person pronoun can be when it is used to numb ‘cognitive vigilance’ all the more so as the actor fakes to embody his House of Cards character (Netflix 2013–2018) and charmingly threaten the audience into trusting him by virtue of their past history. Spacey asserts he knows what his audience wants: they want him back. In the YouTube clip, the second-person pronoun loses its ethical bond-creating force, turning instead the viewer into a hostage to the character/actor’s perception. This chapter offers a fine-grained analysis of the video, highlighting where Spacey breaks the fictional contract by offering a show outside the show that is authorised by no ‘collective sender’, authoring himself so to speak and forcing the audience to adopt a ‘third consciousness’ as both fans and citizens. The doubly deictic ‘I’ he uses, ambiguously superimposing references to himself as a fictional character (Frank Underwood in the political series) and as a citizen (in the real world) indeed problematises response from the viewers.

This introductory chapter aims at giving an overview of the pervasiveness of the second-person pronoun across genres, from advertising and political slogans to Twitter via ‘you narratives’ as literature too has taken its ‘you’-turn. Starting from a linguistic template based on face-to-face interactions and adapting it to make it fit written narratives, the chapter offers a theoretical modelling of the possible references of ‘you’, given the degree of congruence between form and function, that could apply to both fictional and non-fictional texts. The pragma-rhetorical approach adopted here foregrounding the author–reader channel allows to transcend the divide between ‘you narratives’ and other genres using the pronoun that the literature has tended to keep separate. It highlights the ethicality of the second-person pronoun as readers are brought to negotiate their relation to the pragmatic effects of ‘you’ in the wide variety of texts investigated in the following chapters. The model that is designed in this chapter gives pride of place to the flesh and blood reader and her potential self-ascription as addressee even in cases where there is only an ‘effect of address’.

This chapter discusses world Englishes.

The eternal question of what differentiates a language from a dialect is discussed in this chapter.

In this chapter, I discuss obscenities.

This chapter looks into the conceptualization of space.

This chapter looks into the encapsulation of previous periods in society in some terminologies.

The present chapter explores expressions used in connection with death and dying.

This chapter is about the words used in communicating with nonhuman animals.

The present chapter explores maledictions.

The present chapter addresses the names for new nonmotorized vehicles.