Pragmatic refers to the study of practical aspects of human thought and action, such as understanding communication and how it is interpreted. It focuses on the implied meaning of words as well as the context of communication, including interpreting social cues and responding to them in order to understand what someone is trying to say. Pragmatic skills are essential for learning, and students who have poor pragmatic skills may struggle in the classroom.
The pragmatism paradigm is a research framework that allows for multiple methods to be used to investigate real-world problems. It is particularly appropriate for research on social issues, which require complex solutions that may be influenced by many factors and require a multipronged approach. Pragmatism’s reliance on the scientific method of inquiry and its alignment with democratic values make it an excellent research framework for problem-oriented research.
Pragmatism is often viewed as a philosophical trend that looks at things in terms of their direct, practical consequences rather than their theoretical principles. Its philosophy essentially says that something is only true if it works, for example, arguing whether capitalism or socialism is better for humanity makes little sense unless we can actually compare how people live under each system and determine which one provides a better life overall.
Putnam’s neo-pragmatic account of truth is similar to those of Peirce and Dewey, but differs from their correspondence theory in that it does not place any limiting restrictions on what counts as a valid claim. He argues that “truth is whatever a person asserts in the face of an audience and for which he can be reasonably expected to be believed.”
The pragmatic movement also applies to language, with the pragmatic study of linguistics looking beyond semantics (what words mean) to explore what people actually communicate with them. It is an important part of the study of semantics, and considers the way that context influences meaning, focusing on reference resolution, or how a word is understood by the speaker and listener. Pragmatics is integral to the study of natural language processing, a sub-discipline of artificial intelligence, and is also used by computer programmers to create more realistic programming languages.
In addition to its use in computer science, pragmatics is an important aspect of the teaching and learning of language and is a key area of research for Deaf and hard of hearing students. For this reason, a great deal of work in the field of pragmatics has focused on the development of teaching strategies to help develop pragmatic language skills. Some of these include explicit instruction, social modeling, visual supports, and interactive play. A digital booklet that outlines these strategies and includes fun activities can be found here: ‘Supporting the Pragmatic and Social Communication Skills of Deaf Children’.
