Pragmatics is the study of the ways in which a speaker’s context influences the meaning of his or her utterance. It is usually contrasted with the other main branch of semiotics, semantics, which studies the actual objects that a word or sign may refer to. Depending on how it is defined, pragmatics might also be seen as the study of the effects that speakers’ intentions and actions have on the utterance they produce.
There are many different approaches to pragmatics, with a variety of specific properties being studied. One of the earliest and best-known is Speech Act Theory, pioneered by J. L. Austin and John Searle. Another is Bach and Harnish’s Statistical Semantics, which studies the structure of utterance interpretation as an inferential process. Other important approaches are the’minimalist’ and ‘hidden indexical’ pragmatics of Stanley and Szabo (1998), and the semantic theory of relevance introduced by Sperber and Wilson (1986/1995).
Some theorists have argued that there is a distinction between ‘near-side’ and ‘far-side’ pragmatics. They argue that the utterances philosophers traditionally regard as paradigmatic of pragmatics are those whose meaning is determined in the context of their use, whereas far-side pragmatics deals with what goes beyond saying, or what ‘implicatures’ are generated by the speaker’s intention and the particular circumstances in which the utterance is produced.
However, others have argued that there is no clear distinction between semantics and pragmatics. Morris, for example, defines pragmatics as the “science of the relation of signs to the objects which they imply or designate.” In this sense, it could be said that semantics is concerned with the actual objects which a word or sign relates to and syntax examines relationships between those words or symbols.
One of the problems that arises from this is that many of the things that are traditionally considered to be pragmatics are actually parts of the semantics of language. For example, descriptions are often viewed as pragmatic because they can be used to refer either to the object in question or to the speaker’s own reference intentions. These can be determined through the semantic content of the description, or through the conversational implicatures which are triggered by its use, or in a number of other ways.
Similarly, the pragmatist approach to problems is often seen as pragmatic because it takes into account practical considerations rather than idealistic, entrenched viewpoints. For instance, a pragmatist would be likely to compromise between their theoretically ideal job and the position they currently have, if that meant getting them closer to the position they wanted. This is not to say that a pragmatic view of the world is without its problems, but rather that it seeks out ‘win-win’ outcomes for everyone. The real-world consequences of this are that it is often easier to get things done in the real world than in the idealized theoretical world. This is particularly true when it comes to matters of business. For this reason, pragmatic approaches to problems are often more successful than the idealistic, ideological approaches which are often favoured in academic philosophy and political theory.