Pragmatics is a discipline that studies how language can be understood to have more than just its literal meaning. It considers things such as the context in which an utterance is made, the speaker’s intentions and their actions in order to determine what the utterance means. It also takes into account ambiguity and how people try to navigate it.
This is in contrast to semantics which only focuses on the meaning of a word in isolation. This can lead to misinterpretation. For example, if someone says “I have two sons”, the implication is that the person only has two children. But this is not always the case. The ambiguity could be due to something else such as how the sentence is delivered or even the speaker’s tone of voice.
For example, if someone said “I have two sons” in a serious tone of voice it would mean they were telling the truth. But if they said it in a lighthearted manner then this could be taken as a joke and the statement would have more than just a literal meaning.
Pragmatism is a philosophical doctrine that was developed by American philosophers John Dewey (1842-1910) and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). It advocates the idea that human understanding and knowledge must be adapted to the real world. Its ideas have been used in a variety of different fields such as psychology, philosophy and literature.
Various scholars have come up with different ideas about how pragmatics works. These include near-side and far-side pragmatics. The near-side pragmatics involves the nature of certain facts that are relevant to determining what an utterance means, such as whether it is intended to be truthful or not. Far-side pragmatics is concerned with what happens beyond saying what is meant, such as how the speech act generates a range of implicatures.
The main aim of communication is to ensure that the person who receives the message understands it in a way that makes sense. If this does not happen then the message will be interpreted differently by each individual which could lead to confusion and misunderstandings. This is why the study of pragmatics is important as it can help to solve such problems.
Despite its wide application, some individuals have criticised pragmatics. They have argued that the concept does not have a clear focus and its ideologies are vague. They have also suggested that it is redundant because semantics has covered everything that pragmatics attempts to do. Nevertheless, there are others who believe that pragmatics is an essential part of linguistics and without it, understanding how language works would be impossible. This is why it is important that we continue to develop and expand the field of pragmatics. This will allow us to improve the quality of our understanding and communication. This is crucial to the growth of mankind. Without it, there is a risk that humanity will not progress as we should. As such, it is imperative that we continue to invest time and resources in developing this area of research.