Pragmatics is the study of how language is used to convey meaning. It focuses on the use of context and communicative intentions by speakers and writers to express intended meanings of words and phrases in their communication. It has been described as a cross-disciplinary field that includes theories of communication, semantics, and philosophy of language. In addition, the pragmatics of a particular language is also considered to be part of its grammar and syntax.
Its roots are in the work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1924) and the psychologist Ernst von Brückenheim (1900–1937). It is often viewed as a bridge between philosophy, linguistics, and the social sciences. It is often seen as a more practical and utilitarian field than the traditional philosophical traditions of epistemology (the theory of how we know what we know), ontology (the theory of what exists), and metaphysics (the theory of reality).
The word pragmatics has been defined in various ways, from a broad, philosophical perspective to a specific, linguistic approach. The term has been used in a variety of fields, including anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and communication studies. Despite this, it is generally accepted that pragmatics is a sub-discipline of linguistics and that its primary purpose is to describe how people use language to convey meaning.
The main idea of pragmatics is that the meaning of a sentence depends on its context. This is known as contextualism, and it has become one of the key ideas in linguistics. Pragmatics also deals with how ambiguity and indexicality are resolved, and it is concerned with the way in which speech acts are structured.
In contrast to semantics, which studies the significance of words, sentences and utterances in their contexts, pragmatics is concerned with how a speaker or writer intends their message to be understood by others. It is also interested in the ways in which this intention or meaning can vary from context to context.
One of the most important theories in pragmatics is Relevance Theory, which was first developed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson. This theory, which is based on Grice’s notion of conversational implicature, states that a speaker will imply something to their addressee if the implication is relevant enough for the listener to spend effort processing it.
Another important theory in pragmatics is the concept of ‘near-side’ pragmatics. This refers to a set of rules that match up sentences in a natural language with the propositions they express, as determined by the features of the context in which they are spoken.
A final major theory in pragmatics is the ‘far-side’ view of pragmatics. This is a more technical approach to the study of pragmatics, and it involves determining which features of the speech context are necessary for an utterance to have any meaningful interpretation at all.
It has been shown that learners who receive explicit pragmatics instruction perform better than those who do not. This suggests that pragmatics should be taught to all learners, and it is especially important for writing.