Pragmatic is the study of how people use language to convey meaning in context. It looks beyond the literal meaning of an utterance to focus on the implied meaning of an utterance, how an utterance is understood by its hearers and the negotiation of meaning that takes place between speakers. The study of pragmatics is essential to our understanding of human communication and interaction.
In a practical sense, pragmatics refers to a person’s ability to see what options or courses of action are realistic and will likely result in their desired outcome, rather than remaining blindly focused on an idealistic vision that might never come to fruition. Pragmatic individuals are often willing to compromise, and understand that they can’t always get everything they want.
Historically, pragmatism was a philosophical movement that began in Dewey’s era, but was largely eclipsed by the rise of self-consciously rigorous imports like Moore, Russell and Wittgenstein. It has been suggested that this eclipse reflected a fundamental change in the way philosophers think about philosophy, with less attention to generating new ideas and more emphasis on solving problems.
The pragmatics of language is a key area of study within the larger field of cognitive science. It is a part of the theoretical framework known as interpretive semantics. This theoretical framework is a synthesis of several important philosophical traditions, including deconstructionism, structuralism and postmodernism. It seeks to provide an alternative to the traditional metaphysical/ontological debate by describing how the structure of reality influences our interpretation of it.
When teaching pragmatics, it is important to set goals that are developmentally appropriate for the individual student. For example, an individual may need to work on hedging requests, turning down invitations, or reading nonverbal cues before responding in a social situation. It is also important to provide opportunities for practice, both in the classroom and in real-world settings.
In experimental pragmatics, researchers typically present participants with a set of stimuli that represent different independent variables. They then compute averages of people’s behavioral performances under these conditions. However, there are a variety of within-individual differences that influence what a person actually does in these situations (for example, eye-movement responses). These within-individual variations make it challenging to draw firm conclusions about how a theory applies to real-world behavior.
Moreover, it is crucial to understand that the pragmatics of language vary across cultures. What might be considered polite in one culture might be rude or bizarre in another, and an understanding of the pragmatics of language is critical to effective cross-cultural communication. Mastery of pragmatic rules is also necessary for navigating culturally specific ambiguity and negotiating turn-taking norms in conversation.
