An Overview Of Pragmatic Theories

Pragmatics
What is pragmatics?
"We human beings are odd compared with our nearest animal relatives. Unlike them, we can say what we
want, when we want. All normal humans can produce and understand any number of new words and
sentences. Humans use the multiple options of language often without thinking. But blindly, they sometimes
fall into its traps. They are like spiders who exploit theirwebs, but themselves get caught in the sticky
strands"
Jean Aitchison
“Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our
choice on others.”
David Crystal
“Pragmatics is a way of investigating how sense can be made of certain texts even when, from a semantic
viewpoint, the text seems to be either incomplete or to have a differentmeaning to what is really
intended. Consider a sign seen in a children's wear shop window: "Baby Sale - lots of bargains". We know
without asking that there are no babies are for sale - that what is for sale are items used for babies.
Pragmatics allows us to investigate how this "meaning beyond the words" can be understood without
ambiguity. The extra meaning is there, not because of thesemantic aspects of the words themselves, but
because we share certain contextual knowledge with the writer or speaker of the text.
Pragmatics is an important area of study for your course. A simplified way of thinking about pragmatics is to
recognise, for example, that language needs to be kept interesting - a speaker or writer does not want to
bore a listener or reader, for example, by beingover-long or tedious. So, humans strive to find linguistic
means to make a text, perhaps, shorter, more interesting, more relevant, more purposeful or more personal.
Pragmatics allows this.”
Steve Campsall

W e use language all the time to make things happen. We ask someone to pass the salt or marry us – not,
usually at the same time. We order a pizza or make a dental appointment. Speech actsinclude asking for a
glass of beer, promising to drink the beer, threatening to drink more beer, ordering someone else to drink
some beer, and so on. Some special people can do extraordinary things with words, like baptizing a baby,
declaring war, awarding a penalty kick to Arsenal FC or sentencing a convict.
Linguists have called these things “speech acts” – and developed a theory (called,unsurprisingly, speech act
theory) to explain how they work. Some of this is rooted in common sense and stating the obvious – like
felicity conditions. These explain that merely saying the words does not accomplish the act. Judges (unless
they are also referees) cannot award penalty kicks to Arsenal, and football referees (unless they are also
heads of state) cannot declare war.
Speech act theoryis not the whole of pragmatics, but is perhaps currently the most important established
part of the subject. Contemporary debate in pragmatics often focuses on its relations with semantics. Since
semantics is the study of meaning in language, why add a new field of study to look at meaning from a novel
viewpoint?
This is an elementary confusion. Clearly linguists could develop a model ofsemantics that included
pragmatics. Or they could produce a model for each, which allows for some exploration and explanation of
the boundary between them – but distinguishes them as in some way different kinds of activity. However,
there is a consensus view that pragmatics as a separate study is necessary because it explains meanings
that semantics overlooks.

Pragmatics

What does pragmaticsinclude?
The lack of a clear consensus appears in the way that no two published accounts list the same categories of
pragmatics in quite the same order. But among the things you should know about are:
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Speech act theory

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Felicity conditions

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Conversational implicature

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The cooperative principle

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Conversational maxims

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Relevance

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Politeness

•...