Pragmatic is a way of thinking and behaving that takes into account the reality of a situation. It is sometimes contrasted with idealistic which refers to someone or something that strives to achieve the highest possible standard without considering the implications of the action. Pragmatic people are often described as being realistic and practical in their approach to life and they find the best solutions to problems by weighing up the pros and cons of different courses of action.
Pragmatism is a philosophical position that was first developed in the United States in around 1870 and presents a third alternative to analytic and continental philosophy traditions worldwide. The so-called ‘classical pragmatists’ Charles Sanders Peirce and William James framed the concept of pragmatism around the notion of the Pragmatic Maxim, which was designed to clarify the meaning of hypotheses by tracing their ‘practical consequences’ for experience in specific situations.
Initially, pragmatism was primarily an epistemological philosophy with a focus on the nature of inquiry and the notion of truth. However, the second generation of pragmatists moved its intellectual centre of gravity towards politics and other dimensions of social improvement under the huge influence of John Dewey, Jane Addams and others.
A key theme was the idea that human knowledge is necessarily fallible and that epistemological ‘norms of inquiry’ must therefore be established by pragmatic means rather than an appeal to a priori principles. The pragmatist position also stressed the importance of an empirical stance that was open to all possibilities for interpretation and action.
The field of pragmatics is now incredibly broad and includes theoretical, experimental and clinical pragmatics as well as intercultural and interlinguistic pragmatics. The distinction between semantics and pragmatics has been drawn as the near side of a line, with semantics on one side and what is now called pragmatics (theoretical, experimental, clinical and psycholinguistic) on the other.
One of the main challenges for researchers in pragmatics is to distinguish between semantic and pragmatic ambiguity. A sentence can appear to have the same meaning in two different contexts and this is often the result of pragmatic ambiguity. Understanding pragmatic ambiguity is crucial to understanding how language works in practice.
In the classroom, it is important to teach students about pragmatics as part of a broader language learning curriculum. There is no one answer to the question of how to include pragmatics in the classroom because it will vary depending on individual needs and available resources. However, there are some general guidelines that can help to ensure that pragmatics is included in a syllabus.
Pragmatics is a useful topic for teaching because it deals with the ways in which language is used in everyday situations. It is a great topic for ESL learners to study as it allows them to understand how the English language is used in practice and this helps them to use the language appropriately in a variety of different situations. For example, when learning about the grammar of the English language, pragmatics can be used to disambiguate meaning and improve understanding in conversations.