Pragmatics is the study of how people use language to convey meaning in a social context. Pragmatics includes not only the linguistic elements of communication such as turn taking, greetings and eye contact but also other non-verbal cues such as facial expressions, body posture and pauses. Children develop a pragmatic understanding of language as they learn to communicate in social settings and this knowledge is implicitly taught by the adults they interact with.
The term pragmatics is used as a contrast with semantics, the study of the underlying meaning of words and sentences. The pragmatist approach places greater emphasis on the role of convention and context in interpretation, while semantics places more focus on the underlying meaning of words and phrases. However, the two approaches are not completely separate and can be seen as complementary. The articles in this special issue demonstrate that pragmatics enriches linguistic-semantic meaning, and that semantics and pragmatics interface in several specific ways.
A fundamental principle in pragmatics is that speakers always intend to convey something with their utterances. Therefore, it is important to consider the context in which an utterance is heard, as well as the intentions of the speaker. This is a major reason why the word pragmatic is sometimes used to describe someone who has good common sense and can see how things work in real life rather than someone who is idealistic and will never compromise.
Pragmatism as Peirce conceived it centered on the Pragmatic Maxim, which is a rule for clarifying hypotheses by tracing their practical consequences in concrete circumstances. This was an effort to overcome the limitations of the’second level’ of semantics that had developed through examining verbal definitions alone, a process that he complained led to ’empty disputes’.
Modern pragmatists have attempted to place this approach within a broader Western philosophical tradition, for example by demonstrating Peirce’s significant debt to Kant (Apel 1974, Gava 2014) and by showing connections between pragmatism and 19th century idealism (Brown 2009). Those who advocate a more radical rethinking of the concept of truth have tended to be labelled as ‘critical pragmatists’.
There are many other important pragmatic issues that have yet to be fully explored. These include: