Pragmatic — pronounced pah-guh-mah-tic — means “real-world,” and it’s often used to praise people or solutions who take an approach that makes sense for the current situation. It’s a philosophy of “doing what works” that grew out of the work of philosopher and political thinker C. S. Peirce and is also the basis for a number of pragmatic theories of meaning, discourse, and language.
The word is often applied to choices and actions that are considered practical and reasonable, especially those taken by politicians and businesspeople. A person who is pragmatic is likely to be careful with their money, for example. They may also be someone who is willing to compromise or take a middle-of-the-road position. These types of pragmatic approaches to issues are often praised on social media, for example. Twitter is a great place for pragmatic, middle-of-the-road takes because it’s more realistic than a full on “I’m right and you’re wrong” position and doesn’t get punished by the timeline algorithm.
In linguistics, pragmatics is the subfield of linguistics that studies how context contributes to meaning. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. There are several different pragmatic theories, including:
What’s the Difference Between Semantics and Pragmatics?
The differences between semantics and pragmatics are a bit blurry. Generally speaking, semantics is about the literal meaning of words and sentences, while pragmatics is about how those words are actually used in conversation and what they mean in context.
A basic definition of pragmatics is that it’s the study of speakers’ communicative intentions and the ways those intention interact with their speech acts, and how the results of these interactions communicate meaning. This definition, however, isn’t a complete one. There are many different pragmatic theories and a lot of overlap in the areas studied by the various pragmatics branches.
There is formal and computational pragmatics, theoretical and applied pragmatics, game-theoretic, clinical and experimental pragmatics, and intercultural and interlinguistic pragmatics, to name just a few of the areas in which pragmatics is investigated. There are even a couple of pragmatic philosophies, such as the pragmatist philosophical school of thought and the related pragmatics of language learning.
Whether you’re studying semantics, pragmatics, or both, your knowledge of the field is invaluable in everyday life. For example, your pragmatic knowledge enables you to politely hedge a request, cleverly read between the lines, and negotiate turn-taking norms in conversation. It’s also what helps you understand ambiguity in context. People don’t always say what they mean, and your pragmatic knowledge allows you to disambiguate meaning so that you can communicate effectively in any situation. This is what makes language so powerful! Whether you’re talking to your boss at work or your kids at home, there are things that you can do to make communication more effective. Thanks for reading! See you next time! For more helpful articles, check out our other blog posts and our collection of the most popular posts. And, don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter so you can receive weekly tips on how to be a more effective speaker.