Pragmatic is a word that is used to describe people who are practical and logical in their choices. It also refers to a philosophy that emphasizes practical consequences in the determination of meaning, truth, or value. In the case of language, pragmatics deals with how social context influences what is actually meant by a spoken word or sentence. The term is often contrasted with idealistic, as in a politician who will be pragmatic in getting things done as opposed to someone who is a true idealist.
Essentially, pragmatics is “meaning minus semantics,” according to Frank Brisard in the article “Introduction: Meaning and Use in Grammar.” Semantics deals with the literal meaning of an utterance, while grammar involves the rules defining how the words are put together. In pragmatics, context is taken into consideration to complement the contributions of both semantics and grammar.
The concept of pragmatics is broad, and different theorists have focused on different aspects of linguistic meaning. For example, some philosophers have distinguished between ‘near-side’ and ‘far-side’ pragmatics. ‘Near-side’ pragmatics involves the nature of certain facts that are relevant to the determination of what is said, including the resolution of ambiguity and vagueness and the reference of proper names, indexicals and demonstratives. Far-side pragmatics, on the other hand, focuses on what happens beyond saying something, such as the generation of implicatures (see below for an explanation).
For instance, your friend may be talking about her new car and favorite TV shows while you are trying to escape his room. While he sees this as a simple sharing of information, you interpret it as a rude monopolization of your time. The fact that you are not laughing at his jokes and the way he looks at you when he is speaking all contribute to your interpretation of his meaning.
Likewise, the way a child uses her vocabulary is influenced by how she and others in her social circle interpret the words she says. This is why it is important to teach explicit communication skills, or pragmatics, to children with autism spectrum disorder. These skills are based on natural communication patterns that typically occur in everyday conversational interaction, and they can help children develop more functional and expressive communication skills.
The word pragmatic is most commonly used as a descriptive adjective. It can be applied to a person, such as an intelligent and practical college student who is more interested in studying subjects that will benefit her job search later on, or it can be used to refer to a philosophical theory that prioritizes practical consequences over ideaslism. In this case, pragmatism is a counterbalance to the metaphysical theories that focus on idealism and the creation of concepts, hypotheses, and theories in terms of their intrinsic values or metaphysical truths. This is a critical point of the pragmatic approach to reality, as exemplified by the phrase: “It’s pragmatic that we must take into account the consequences of our actions on real life conditions.” By doing this, we can better understand and address the realities of the world around us.