Pragmatics is an approach to language that stresses the significance of context in interpreting utterances. Specifically, it focuses on the way that one and the same sentence can express different meanings or propositions in various contexts because of ambiguity, indexicality or some other factor. It also studies the way that speakers’ communicative intentions and purposes shape their utterances.
The concept of pragmatics arose in discussions at the so-called Metaphysical Club around Harvard in the early 1870s and continues to present a third alternative to analytic and Continental philosophical traditions worldwide. It is most often associated with the American philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, although the work of a number of other writers and thinkers also displays pragmatist themes (e.g., Josiah Royce at Harvard and Frank Ramsey in Cambridge in the 1920s).
Semantics deals with the significance conventionally or literally attached to words or sentences, while pragmatics examines how the meaning of an utterance depends on context. It is the latter that relates to the ‘biotic’ aspects of semiosis, or the relationship between signs and their interpreters. Thus, for example, the sign ‘u’ may denote several things, but only if the actual facts gathered in the environment in which the sentence is uttered – such as who was touched by what, when and how – provide Elwood, Eloise and putting one’s hands on as the relevant referents.
There are a variety of ways to understand and develop pragmatics, and the field is rapidly evolving. However, there are some general tendencies: Those who see pragmatics mainly as a philosophical project in the style of Grice; those who concentrate on its interaction with grammar; and those who view it as an empirical psychological theory of utterance interpretation.
The word ‘pragmatic’ itself derives from the Greek pragmatikos, which is related to praxis, or ‘to do’. It can thus be interpreted as a dispassionate form of common sense. A pragmatic person, for instance, is able to take into account all the relevant facts when making a decision and recognises that there are often trade-offs.
Philosophically, pragmatism is a philosophy of inquiry, and this reflects the fact that its main goal is to facilitate contact with phenomena that prove genuinely puzzling and then guide the participants through a process of enquiry, with the aim of resolving the problem to the satisfaction of all concerned. Hence the ‘cycle of inquiry’ that John Dewey devised as the structure for his whole educational philosophy and which is now practised worldwide as part of a global Philosophy for Children movement. It is based on a pragmatist epistemology that treats knowledge as an emergent phenomenon and requires that teachers start by facilitating their students’ contact with phenomena that prove genuinely puzzling, then encourage them to gather information and suggest hypotheses which might resolve the problem, and then test those hypotheses in the light of the experiences gathered. In education, this has become known as a ‘problem-centred pedagogy’.
