Pragmatic refers to a philosophy of “doing what works best.” The word pragmatic comes from the Greek pragma, meaning “deed,” and has historically described philosophers who were concerned more with real-world application of ideas than with abstract notions. Someone who takes a pragmatic approach to problems is considered realistic and grounded in reality. For example, a four-year-old who wants a unicorn for her birthday isn’t being very pragmatic.
A pragmatist approach to language acquisition involves teaching learners to analyze the context of a speech act or grammatical rule in order to determine the most appropriate way to use it. It is important to consider the cultural aspects of a communication when learning a new language, so lessons in pragmatics often include discussions of home culture as well as target culture. Pragmatics also considers the effects of context-dependent ambiguity and indexicality on the interpretation of words and sentences.
In the classroom, pragmatics is usually taught in conjunction with content instruction, rather than as a separate subject area. Lessons on pragmatics often relate to different language functions, such as greetings, requests, complaints, invitations, and apologies. In addition to considering the home and target cultures, a lesson on apologies might also address how people apologize in other cultures.
The pragmatics of language acquisition is an area of study that is influenced by many other disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, psychology, and law. It has become increasingly important in the field of education, as teachers strive to develop students’ linguistic competence and communicative skills. In addition to improving students’ linguistic proficiency, pragmatics also helps them adapt to new cultures and environments.
There are many different areas of pragmatics, such as formal and computational pragmatics; theoretical and applied; intercultural, cross-cultural and interlinguistic pragmatics; game-theoretical, clinical and experimental pragmatics; and neuropragmatics. Each has its own methodologies, theories and applications.
While pragmatism has had a significant influence on non-philosophers, most people are familiar with the philosophy from its classical era of the late 19th century to mid-20th century. During this time, the pragmatic ideas of Peirce and James were influential in many fields, particularly anthropology, social work, psychology, and education.
In the early 1950s, Quine’s famous article “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” challenged positivist orthodoxy and brought pragmatic ideas back into prominence. However, it took another fifty years for mainstream analytic philosophers to adopt pragmatism in any substantial way. Today, pragmatism continues to be an important influence on many different fields of inquiry, ranging from business management to computer science to medical ethics. It is not uncommon for a pragmatist to incorporate insights from one of these disciplines into his or her philosophical work. A pragmatist is likely to be skeptical of strategies that aren’t practical and will be quick to point out flaws in plans or proposals. This realism can sometimes cause pragmatic individuals to be perceived as inflexible or stubborn, but it is an important tool for keeping projects on track and avoiding wasted effort.