Pragmatic is an adjective that describes someone who takes a realistic approach to situations. The word pragmatic is derived from the Greek word pragma, meaning “deed,” and it has long been used to describe philosophers and politicians who were more concerned with real-world application of ideas than with abstract notions. In language, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and communication studies, and it has been represented by the International Pragmatics Association since 1986.
While syntax studies sentences, semantics studies propositions. The goal of pragmatics is to understand how a given sentence can express different meanings or propositions in different contexts, such as through ambiguity, indexicality, and conversational implicatures. Pragmatics is a branch of semiotics, and its main problems are to define interesting types of speech acts and speech products, and to characterize the ways in which they vary across contexts.
There are many different types of pragmatics: formal and descriptive; computational, theoretical, and applied; experimental and clinical; intercultural, sociocultural, and neuropragmatics; and historical pragmatics. Each type of pragmatics seeks to understand how context contributes to meaning in particular ways, but all share the common goal of understanding how humans use language.
One important aspect of pragmatics is the concept of “pragmatic attribution.” This concept is important because it describes how we make semantic judgments about what other people are saying and how they are using their language. It is also an important part of interpreting other cultures’ language, because it helps us understand what they mean by their words and how they are using them.
Ultimately, pragmatics is the way that we communicate with each other. It includes everything from how we initiate conversations to how we understand metaphors and ironic statements. While some people are born to be natural communicators, other individuals experience a struggle with pragmatics. When this occurs, it can lead to misunderstandings and other social issues.
The good news is that there are strategies for improving pragmatic skills. Individuals with pragmatic impairments can be helped by working with a speech-language pathologist. A speech-language pathologist can provide a range of services to help improve an individual’s pragmatic skills, such as by practicing with them in different contexts, focusing on eliciting functional language, and implementing a social modeling program.
A recent study examined the effect of pragmatic functions instruction on Iranian high school students’ writing proficiency. The results showed that students who received pragmatic functions instruction performed better on the post-test than those who did not. The researchers suggest that pragmatic functions instruction should be incorporated into writing programs in Iranian schools. This is an important finding because the lack of pragmatics knowledge in high-school students may have a negative impact on their academic achievement.
