Pragmatic is a way of thinking that involves considering consequences of your actions. For example, if you go to a restaurant with friends and split the bill, you may have that one friend who thinks he had less than everyone else, but the fair thing to do is to get the check, figure out what each person had, and then divide appropriately. If you do this, then each person will be happy and the restaurant won’t have to waste time arguing about who spent what. Being pragmatic is a great way to be when it comes to relationships, work, and life in general.
The study of pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and it focuses on the context of language use. It looks at how meaning is conveyed through language, as well as the relationship between speaker and interpreter. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. Pragmatics is different from semantics because it focuses on what you actually mean rather than what the word might mean. For example, if someone says that they are upset because their boss didn’t let them take vacation days, you might think that they are being a bit harsh but they are really just being pragmatic about the situation.
People who are pragmatic think about what will really make a difference and are more concerned with outcomes than they are with philosophies or ideologies. For example, some people may say that capitalism is better than socialism because of the fact that capitalism leads to more wealth for those who live under it. Others might say that it doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, that as long as you are happy, it is all good.
Although pragmatics is considered a subfield of linguistics, there are debates about its status as a separate discipline from other areas of study, particularly semantics. The distinction between pragmatics and semantics is important because it defines the areas that each discipline covers and how they interact with one another.
For example, the Journal of Pragmatics encourages work that explores the interaction between pragmatics and neighbouring research areas, such as semantics, discourse analysis, conversation analysis and ethnomethodology, linguistic anthropology, media studies, sociolinguistics, psychology, philosophy, and the philosophy of language. It also welcomes articles that use attested language data and that examine the relationship between pragmatics and other areas such as formal semantics (treating propositional content as either true or false) and intuitionistic semantics (dealing with illocutionary forces).
Pragmatic skills are vital in our daily lives. They can help us form meaningful relationships with other people and are an essential component in our communication skills. Although learning pragmatics can be difficult, there are a variety of teaching strategies and activities that can help students acquire these skills in the classroom. For example, in the English Teaching Forum article “Pragmatic Activities for the Speaking Classroom,” Joseph Siegel provides an activity that gives students a request scenario and asks them to determine what their response should be based on their age, culture, and past relationships with the speakers.