Pragmatic is the understanding of contextual meaning in communication. Unlike semantics, which deals with the meaning of words and sentences in a literal sense, pragmatics takes into account social, cultural, and situational factors. The goal of pragmatics is to help people communicate more effectively by taking these factors into consideration.
The field of pragmatics is often referred to as ‘pragmatics’, but it also encompasses the study of speech acts, rhetorical structure, conversational implicature and managing the flow of reference in discourse. It is a broad area of study that requires a multidisciplinary approach to incorporate insights from psychology, sociology, philosophy, history and linguistics.
In his 1893 essay, The Pragmatic Maxim, Charles Sanders Peirce defined pragmatism as “a doctrine that makes knowledge useful and that therefore enables us to understand reality as it is” (Borradori 2008). He was influenced by the ideas of other philosophers, including the American analytic philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap, Nelson Goodman, Wilfrid Sellars and Thomas Kuhn. He developed his theory of pragmatism in discussions with members of the so-called Metaphysical Club, a group that met at Harvard around 1870, which is well documented by Lewis Menand in his book The Metaphysical Club (1998).
Using the principles of pragmatism to guide research can strengthen the research process in ways that are valuable to researchers. Specifically, pragmatism can help researchers surface issues and themes that are hidden in the documentation and rhetoric of respondents. It can also provide a framework for exploring the interactions between’saying’ and ‘doing’ in organizational processes, and thereby identify the consequences or meanings of social action that may be unforeseen by the research team.
An essential element of pragmatism is that we need to make a distinction between truth and value. This distinction helps to explain why pragmatism is sometimes seen as a more positive alternative to positivist realism, particularly in the context of an ongoing debate over the role of empirical evidence and science in the world we inhabit.
Educators have many opportunities to incorporate pragmatism in the classroom by teaching students about the pragmatics of language use. For example, when a teacher asks the question “How are you?”, they are usually not looking for a detailed account of how the student is feeling at that moment. Instead, the question serves a number of pragmatic functions, such as establishing rapport and demonstrating empathy. An understanding of these pragmatic functions can help students to navigate the sometimes ambiguous nature of communication in everyday life. This month’s Teacher’s Corner focuses on an activity that allows students to practice pragmatics by examining different language functions like greetings, requests, complaints, invitations and apologies. The lesson can be adapted for learners in various cultures and languages. You can download the lesson for free on the ESL Library website.
