Pragmatic is a term that describes an approach or attitude that is practical, logical, and sensible. People who are pragmatic take into consideration the direct and immediate consequences of their actions, rather than following theories or ideals. People who are pragmatic are usually willing to compromise and work towards a win-win situation.
You might hear someone who is highly idealistic being told that they need to be more pragmatic, which typically means that the person needs to focus on realistic options or courses of action instead of just trying to achieve the best possible outcome based on their principles. However, many people have a balance of idealism and pragmatism. For example, a person might know that traffic can be unpredictable, so they leave early when heading to the airport. They might also know that it rains a lot in Seattle, so they always bring an umbrella when traveling to the city.
In the language classroom, it is important to teach students how to use their new vocabulary and common phrases, but it’s equally as important to provide them with the tools they need to be pragmatic in their interactions. This month’s Teacher’s Corner explores the importance of pragmatic instruction and offers resources and ideas for including pragmatic lessons in your ESL classes.
A linguistic subfield known as pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. Linguists who specialize in this field are called pragmaticians. The goal of pragmatics is to understand how different social situations and cultures influence the way we use language. Pragmatics focuses on speakers’ intentions and how those intentions are conveyed through their actions, as well as the relationship between a speaker and their listener.
Pragmatics is distinct from semantics, which studies the way sentences relate to each other and express propositions. The main difference between the two is that semantics is concerned with how a sentence is used, while pragmatics is concerned with what the sentence is actually saying.
There are many ways to incorporate pragmatics into the ESL classroom. One way is to teach students about greetings in different cultures. Another way is to have students practice using various responses to taboo questions, as described in the Forum article “Pragmatic Activities for the Speaking Classroom.” In this activity, students role-play a series of scenarios that include age, context, and past relationships between speakers, and then determine how they would make a request given those specific factors.
A third way to incorporate pragmatics into the ESL classroom is to link lessons in this area to content that already exists in the textbook. For example, if a course is going over the book’s unit on apologizing, it may be helpful for instructors to add a lesson on how to apologize in different cultures. Pragmatic instruction is often tied to language functions, such as greetings, invitations, complaints, and closing conversations. This allows instructors to add pragmatic lessons to their existing curriculum and build up students’ pragmatic competence.
