Pragmatic is a broad term, which covers many different aspects of language use and meaning. There are formal and computational pragmatics; theoretical and applied pragmatics; intercultural, interlinguistic and experimental pragmatics; as well as cognitive, clinical and neuropragmatics.
Despite the variety of pragmatics subfields, all share certain central concerns. They all study the relationship between the meaning of words and their contexts of utterance, the specific intention that speakers have when they say them, and what they manage to communicate through the utterance. Pragmatics thus deals with the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of language, rather than the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of grammar or syntax.
Another common concern is that, even if we know what someone means by the utterance they produce and understand, it may be impossible to determine why they made that utterance in the first place. In other words, we may not have a complete picture of the underlying intentions, motives, and social expectations of the speaker, even if we have a good idea what they actually said.
This concern is one reason why it is important to include pragmatics in linguistic analysis. The pragmatics of a particular language helps us to understand the intentions and motivations behind the utterance and the social and cultural conditions that led to its production.
The main idea of pragmatism is that the most effective approach to life is one that is guided by results and practical considerations. It is a philosophical approach that reconciles anti-skepticism and fallibilism by stressing the importance of pragmatics in making decisions and dealing with problems.
One of the biggest challenges in analyzing pragmatics is that experimental studies often lack the full scope of real-world language use. This is because researchers are usually limited to the amount of stimuli that they can present to participants and rely on average behavioral responses (e.g., measures of eye-movements) to determine the resulting pragmatics. This makes it difficult to capture the range of pragmatics that people face in everyday language use, especially the more complex and nuanced pragmatics associated with particular utterances.
Despite the challenges, there are also some positive signs that pragmatic research is moving in the right direction. For example, there are increasing numbers of studies that show that people quickly and efficiently interpret a wide range of utterances that contain irony. This suggests that pragmatic knowledge, of varying types, is crucial to the understanding of ironic utterances. Another encouraging development is the growing recognition that the sensitivity to social cues plays a role in pragmatics, and that it can be measured by various behavioral methods. It is hoped that these developments will help to provide more accurate and meaningful interpretations of pragmatic language use. In the meantime, teachers of English can incorporate pragmatics into their lessons in a variety of ways. For example, in “Luck of the Draw,” Amy Hanna explains how students can practice using appropriate greetings with different people and in different situations.
