Pragmatic is a philosophical movement that holds that most philosophical topics-including the nature of knowledge, language, meaning, and belief-are best viewed in terms of their practical applications and consequences. Pragmatists reject the idea that the function of thought is to describe or mirror reality, and instead maintain that thoughts should serve as tools and instruments for prediction and problem solving. They also stress the importance of communication and interaction in human relationships, and emphasize the value of social pragmatics in understanding how people communicate with each other.
A key component of pragmatism is the use of social signs and non-verbal expressions, including gestures and tone of voice, to convey meaning in addition to words. It is this notion of social pragmatics-the study of the use and effects of signs within the context of communication-that separates pragmatism from other areas of linguistic studies such as semantics, syntax, and semiotics.
The field of pragmatics was first developed by a philosopher named Morris Morris in the late 19th century. His work drew heavily from sociology and anthropology, two related disciplines that study the development of human society and culture. The pragmatic theory he laid out in his book “Signs, Language and Behavior” focuses on the context and culture of communication, as well as the subtle movements, gestures, and tones of voice that accompany speech.
In his essay, “Introduction: Meaning and Use in Grammar, Meaning and Pragmatics,” Frank Brisard describes a pragmatic approach to language as being the’meaning minus semantics.’ Semantics involves the rules that determine the literal linguistic meanings of expressions, while grammar deals with the way those expressions are combined to form sentences. Pragmatics, however, takes contextual considerations into account to complement the contributions that semantics and grammar make to meaning.
To illustrate the concept of pragmatics, Brisard uses the example of a man talking to his friend about his new car and favorite TV shows. While the speaker sees this as a simple sharing of information, the listener might interpret it as a rude monopolization of his time.
Computational pragmatics, another area of pragmatic study, seeks to improve natural language processing by using contextual information to reduce ambiguity. Victoria Fromkin, an assistant professor at the University of Edinburgh, notes that computational pragmatism is “in essence the process of turning an unambiguous statement into one that can be understood by a computer system.”
A third aspect of pragmatics is referential pragmatics, which aims to improve reference resolution in natural language. This is the ability of a computer to understand what an utterance means when the word or phrase in question does not include a direct reference to a specific object. A good example is a person telling their child that there are invisible gremlins living in electrical outlets, who will bite them if they touch them. This information enables the child to understand that they should avoid touching the outlets and might even encourage them to use a power strip when going to bed, for example.