Pragmatics is the study of how language functions and how context influences what we mean when we say things. It looks at how gestures, facial expressions, and tone are used in speech to convey meaning that might not be clear to a listener. It also examines the ways that different cultures communicate.
While the term pragmatics may be new to some, it is a broad field that stretches from anthropology and sociology, to linguistics, communication studies, and even philosophy. The Journal of Pragmatics was founded in 2000 to encourage work in this broad area and to explore the relationship between pragmatics and neighbouring research areas such as semantics, discourse analysis, conversation analysis and ethnomethodology, interactional linguistics, morphology, sociolinguistics, media studies, psycholinguistics, and philosophical inquiry. It aims to publish papers that make use of attested language data and are relevant to disciplines such as linguistics, philosophy, semiotics, conversational theory, discourse analysis, sociolinguistic anthropology, media studies, psychology, and the social sciences.
The word pragmatic comes from a Latin word that means “to be suitable for practical consequences.” In general, this philosophy of action emphasizes that only actions and their outcomes matter. If an ideology or proposition is not practical, it should be rejected. This view of pragmatism was largely promoted by philosophers John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce, though a variety of others have endorsed it. The movement originated in the latter quarter of the nineteenth century and has significantly influenced non-philosophers as well, especially in law, education, business, sociology, and politics.
For instance, if a person killed their creditor and never had to pay off the debt, that might seem pragmatic from a personal standpoint, but not in terms of society as a whole. In a wider sense, it’s not truly pragmatic to destroy an entire system of commerce or culture when it has unfavorable outcomes for others.
One of the most popular and widespread uses of pragmatics in everyday life is to explain why certain actions are morally wrong or not appropriate. For example, if someone kills another person and gets away with it, that might appear to be pragmatic from a personal perspective because they don’t have to worry about the consequences of their actions, but it is not pragmatic in terms of society as a whole, as a murder victim’s family suffers.
Teaching pragmatics is challenging because there is no single, coherent creed for pragmatists. There are, however, some ideas that have loomed large over the pragmatist tradition. In the Forum article “Pragmatic Activities for the Speaking Classroom,” Joseph Siegel provides some useful suggestions for teaching pragmatics in the classroom using a series of scenarios that ask students to decide how they would make a request. The goal is to teach students how to interpret context and understand the true meaning behind what someone says. This is the essence of pragmatics. It helps us to bridge the gap between the speaker and the listener. It’s important for us to be able to interpret and respond to other people’s speech acts, whether we’re making requests or being asked for help.
