Pragmatics is the study of how people produce and interpret language in context. It’s the kind of knowledge that allows us to politely hedge a request or negotiate turn-taking norms in conversation, and navigate ambiguity in context. Effective communication is crucial to success in all aspects of life, and pragmatic skills can help you connect with others, express yourself clearly, and navigate social situations with confidence.
A rich pragmatist legacy is now thriving across philosophy, psychology, the social sciences, and linguistics. Contemporary pragmatism offers an original, a posteriori epistemology that is rooted in experience rather than a priori propositions, and it has made a major contribution to re-conceptualizing the notion of truth in science (Clark 1996). It also has profound implications for philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of law, art and education – fields that Dewey would surely have approved of.
Moreover, the work of modern pragmatists like George Herbert Mead and W.E.B Du Bois has influenced a wide range of disciplines including sociology, history, philosophy of race and culture and social policy. The field of experimental pragmatics is no exception to this. In recent years, there have been a number of studies that show significant variations in how people pragmatically produce and interpret certain aspects of communicative meaning. In light of a wider concern within psychology and beyond, dubbed the replication crisis, these profound differences call into question the validity of some experimental results.
As such, the scope of experimental pragmatics needs to be significantly broadened to encompass the full pragmatics of real-time language production and interpretation. This includes the production and interpretation of non-lexical elements such as gestures, emotions, stances, and figurative speech acts.
The aim of this special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics is to bring together experimental and theoretical approaches to these issues, so that a more complete picture of what people actually do when they communicate emerges.
We encourage submissions of invited review articles that provide a detailed, critical summary of current research findings on a particular aspect of pragmatic language use. Please get in touch with the Editors if you are interested in writing such an article.
