Pragmatic is a field within the larger field of language and communication. It explores what it means to say something and how that something might be understood by someone else. It also examines how different situations might impact the way that an utterance is understood. It is a highly inter-disciplinary field with contributions from linguists, philosophers and psychologists.

It has a broad definition that encompasses the meanings of words, how those meanings interact with different circumstances and strategies that speakers and hearers use to interpret utterances. It also addresses the ways that cultural differences might influence how a message is understood. There are many subfields in pragmatics: formal and computational pragmatics; theoretical and applied pragmatics; intercultural, social and cross-cultural pragmatics; neuropragmatics and experimental pragmatics; historical pragmatics and sociolinguistics; and discourse analysis and sociophonology.

The word pragmatic comes from the Latin pragma, which means “practical.” A pragmatist is a person who takes a practical view of things and makes decisions based on what works best in reality, rather than on what might be ideal.

A good example of a pragmatic situation would be when someone is offered a job that is less than they want, but decides to accept it anyways because they know they can work toward getting a higher position. Taking a pragmatic approach to problems is often more successful than trying to maintain an unrealistic, idealistic viewpoint.

One important characteristic of pragmatics is its focus on what people actually do with the language that they have. This might include how they initiate a conversation, how they take turns and how they communicate information about their emotions or intentions. It might also involve the ways that they enunciate their speech and how they modulate their voice.

This pragmatic approach to language is a very important part of the human ability to understand and create culture. It is what separates us from other animals. It is what allows us to develop the kinds of societal structures that we do, from our laws and educational systems to our economies and political structures. Without the ability to communicate and share ideas with one another, we could not survive as a species.

Pragmatics has a long history in both philosophy and psychology. It is one of the earliest areas of study within the discipline of cognitive science, and its roots extend back to ancient times. Some of the first questions that pragmatists addressed concerned the nature of knowledge and the role of beliefs in the representation of reality. In particular, they explored the question of whether or not a belief could be considered true if it were useful in some inquiry or action.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done in the pragmatics field. The first challenge is to fully understand how experimental tasks affect the interpretation of an utterance. This is important because it may be impossible to create a theory of pragmatics that supersedes the explicit task demands that are placed on participants in experiments.