Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a special area of study in linguistics and the philosophy of language. It looks at how the situation around us helps us understand what someone really means when they speak. People who study pragmatics are called pragmaticians. Since 1986, the International Pragmatics Association has helped support this field of study.

Pragmatics looks at many interesting things we use when we talk, like implicature, speech acts, relevance, conversation, and even nonverbal communication. It is closely connected to semantics, which studies meaning, and syntax, which looks at how sentences are built. All of these together are part of semiotics. Being good at pragmatics means understanding what someone really intends to say, even if they don’t say it directly.

The idea of pragmatics started with Charles Morris in 1938. It grew into its own area of study in the 1950s thanks to important work by J. L. Austin and Paul Grice.

History

The study of pragmatics began in the early 1900s with ideas from philosophy and semiotics. The word pragmatics was first used in 1938 by Charles Morris, who suggested splitting the study of signs into three parts: syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Morris believed pragmatics should look at how signs and language users interact, considering their context.

Later, philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein said that a word’s meaning comes from how it is used. In the 1950s, J. L. Austin showed that when we speak, we often do things — like apologizing — just by saying certain words. His work helped people see that meaning depends on how words are used in real situations.

H. Paul Grice added more ideas in the 1960s and 1970s. He explained that when we talk, we often mean more than our words say, using clues from the situation. For example, if someone asks to pass the salt and you point to it on the table, you’re really saying “yes” without using the word. These ideas helped make pragmatics a special area of study in language.

Areas of interest

Pragmatics looks at how we use language in real life, especially how we understand each other by looking at the situation and what people mean, not just the words they say. It studies many important parts of talking to each other.

We learn how people share ideas and understand each other by looking at things like what someone really means when they speak, how we use words that change meaning based on who is talking and where they are, and how we say things in a polite or direct way. Pragmatics also looks at how we have conversations, how we understand each other even when someone says something in a tricky way, and how people learn to use language properly as they grow up.

Ambiguity

Main article: Ambiguity

Ambiguity happens when it's hard to know what someone means without knowing more about the situation or the person talking. For example, if someone says, "You have a green light," it could mean many things. They might mean that the room you're in has green lighting, or that you can go because the traffic light is green, or even that you're allowed to continue doing something that isn't related to driving.

Another example is the sentence, "I went to the bank." Here, "bank" could mean a place where people keep money, or it could mean the side of a river. To understand what the speaker really means, we need to know more about the situation.

Similarly, the sentence "Sherlock saw the man with binoculars" might mean that Sherlock used binoculars to see the man, or it could mean that the man Sherlock saw was holding binoculars. The true meaning depends on the context and what the speaker intends.

In simple terms, sentences by themselves don't always have one clear meaning. It’s the situation and extra information that help us understand what someone is really saying.

Referential uses of language

When we use words, we often point to specific things or ideas. For example, the word "cat" stands for the idea of a cat. This connection between the word and the idea gives it meaning.

There are two ways meaning can work. One way is like saying "Santa Claus eats cookies." This tells us something about Santa Claus that is always true, no matter when we say it. The other way depends on the situation. For example, saying "I" means different people depending on who is speaking. This shows how meaning can change based on who is talking and when they talk.

People use words to refer to things in conversations all the time. They choose words carefully to make sure everyone understands what they mean, using context to help share ideas clearly.

Nonreferential uses of language

Michael Silverstein talked about special ways people use language that don't point to things but show something about the situation. These special uses can tell us about the speaker or the relationship between people talking.

These special uses can show many things. For example:

• Some languages change words to show if the speaker is male or female.
• Words can show respect or difference in status between the person talking and the person listening.
• In some cultures, people change their words completely when certain family members are present to show respect and keep distance.

The performative

Main articles: Performative utterance and Speech act theory

J. L. Austin talked about special kinds of sentences that do something when we say them, instead of just describing something. These are called performatives.

Examples include:

• "I hereby pronounce you man and wife."
• "I accept your apology."
• "This meeting is now adjourned."

For these sentences to work correctly, certain conditions need to be met, like the right situation and the person saying it having the proper role.

Formalization

Pragmatics is about how we use language in real life, looking at how the situation and context change what we mean. It helps us understand why someone might say one thing but mean something else, depending on who they are talking to and where they are.

Over recent years, new ways to study pragmatics using math and computer ideas have become popular. One successful way is called the Rational Speech Act, made by Noah Goodman and Michael C. Frank. This way looks at how both the person talking and the person listening think about each other. They try to guess what the other person means by looking at what they say and what they think the other person wants to tell them.

This helps us understand how people talk to each other in a friendly way, even if they don’t always say exactly what they mean. Recent work in Artificial Intelligence has added more detail to this idea, helping computers understand how people think about each other when they talk.

Related fields

Pragmatics is closely related to sociolinguistics because both study how people use language in their communities. Sociolinguists often look at how language changes between different groups of people. Pragmatics also connects to ideas from philosophy and politics, as the way people speak can show power and relationships in society.

Pragmatics helps anthropologists understand how language links to bigger social ideas. It looks at how things like power, gender, and identity affect the way people speak. For example, switching between languages, called code-switching, is a part of pragmatics because it changes the meaning behind what someone is saying.

According to Charles W. Morris, pragmatics studies how signs and symbols are used by people, while semantics looks at the actual meaning of words, and syntax studies how words are put together.

Speech Act Theory, started by J. L. Austin and expanded by John Searle, focuses on how saying something can actually do an action. This idea shares many goals with pragmatics.

Computational pragmatics, explained by Victoria Fromkin, is about helping computers understand human intentions clearly. This is important for natural language processing, a part of artificial intelligence, where computers use knowledge and rules to respond to information like humans do. One key task is helping computers figure out when things are the same or different.

Significant works and concepts

Some important books and ideas help us understand how we use language in everyday conversations.

One famous book is How to Do Things with Words by John Langshaw Austin, and another is Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language by John R. Searle. Paul Grice introduced the cooperative principle, which explains how we work together when we talk.

Other important ideas include Brown and Levinson's politeness theory, Geoffrey Leech's politeness maxims, and relevance theory by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson. These works help us see how meaning comes from the situation and the way people talk to each other.