Pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning in human language. It is a subfield of linguistics and a branch of philosophy that has its origins in pragmatism. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are known as pragmaticians. The term pragmatism derives from the Greek word pragmat (“practical,” “useful,” or “practical considerations”). It is a form of behaviorism which emphasizes that language is primarily used for communication. The theory of pragmatics provides a way to examine the effects of context on linguistic interpretation and semantic analysis.
Semantics is traditionally defined as the science of the relation of signs to the objects which they may or may not denote. Its closest relative is the science of semiosis, a concept which combines the linguistic phenomena of sign interpreting (pragmatics) with the psychological and biological phenomena that underlie the process of acquiring and using a language.
In practice, it is very difficult to draw a sharp boundary between semantics and pragmatics. Many of the issues that are central to pragmatics are a result of the close relationship between semantics and syntax. For example, one of the major issues in pragmatics is the way that a single sentence can express different propositions depending on its context. This issue is addressed in both the theory of ambiguity and indexicality and in speech act theory.
A related issue is that of recursivity. Some theories of recursivity hold that the semantics of an expression depends on its previous context. For example, the fact that a sentence like ‘Elwood put his hands on Eloise’ can be interpreted as meaning ‘Elwood touched her’ or ‘Elwood is touching her’ is a result of recursivity.
Another area of controversy is that of what is called the wide side of pragmatics. Various definitions of the wide side are offered. Some hold that the wide side of pragmatics includes all facts about a context, whether linguistic or extra-linguistic. Others hold that the wide side of pragmatics is restricted to those facts about a context which are necessary for the interpretation of an utterance. This restriction is sometimes referred to as the ‘narrow context’.
The broad side of pragmatics is usually understood to include such things as the speaker’s intentions, the audience’s expectations, and a variety of other factors. The narrow side of pragmatics, on the other hand, is understood to be limited to those facts about an utterance which are needed for its conventional or literal meaning. Narrow contextualism is thus distinguished from critical pragmatics, which stresses a hierarchy of intentions, and from a range of other approaches to pragmatics such as generative semantics and discourse analysis.