Introduction to Pragmatics By Anmar Ahmed

The Rise of Pragmatics Turn

Pragmatics is the new paradigm that comes to find solutions for the philosophical
questions that accompanied the linguistic phenomenon . These questions were
emerged because there are many unexplainable observations cannot be analyzed
through the narrow boundaries of syntax and later also semantics , for example what
is the role of presuppositions in our understanding to language and what is the relation
between linguistic performance and the context . The pragmatic turn in linguistics
can thus be described as a shift from the paradigm of a theoretical grammar ( in
particular syntax ) to the paradigm of the language user .
The Use of Language and Pragmatics
The language user is the centre of attention in pragmatics . This is not a
satisfactory definition of pragmatics because there are varying interpretations of the
term use of language , as well as of what is implied by the role of language user . The
use of language can be interpreted in two ways :
1 – One can either consider language use to be whatever happens when users are
doing things with words or ,
2 – following a more restrictive procedure , one can demand that pragmatics refer
explicitly to a user , whenever language is discussed .
Levinson tried to modify the use of language into grammar , he mentioned that
pragmatics is '' the study of those relations between language and context that are
grammaticalized , or encoded in the structure of a language . This is also a narrow
horizon for the use of language , because :
1 – It accepts only those uses of language as pragmatically relevant that have a
distinct grammatical expression , that operate with phonological , morphological and
syntactic elements under the direction of grammatical rules .
2 – He does not tell us , however , how we may connect user and grammar , or how
language and context relate , with or without grammar's helping hand .
3 – He did not consider that language use can be whatever happens when users are
doing things in and with language , pragmatics comprise everything that characterizes
people as users of language . Levinson did not refutate this opinion by coherent
evidences , but he just said '' this is a very broad usage of the term pragmatics '' ; in
fact it is but a natural extension of pragmatics as a theory of use .
4 – Levinson further comments , somewhat regretfully , it might seem '' It rests on the
assumption that the language users , being members of society , depend on the rules
and norms that are valid at any time , in any place , in the community they belong to ''.
The Societal Character of Pragmatics
One cannot restrict the pragmatic concept to purely linguistics matters because :
1 – It is not an acceptable point of view for those who want to include the whole of
human language use , the need to implying the extralinguistic factors for example .
2 – A truly pragmatic consideration has to deal with the users in their social context ,
it cannot limit itself to the grammatically encoded aspects of contexts .
There are many reasons for the use of pragmatics to analyse the social affairs
because :
1 – Communication in society happens chiefly by means of language .
2 – The users of language , as social beings , communicate and use language on
society's premises , society controls their access to the linguistic and communicative
means .
3 – Pragmatics as the study of the way humans use their language in communication ,
bases itself on a study of those premises and determines how they affect and
effectualize , human language use . Hence :
Pragmatic studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the
conditions of society .
Pragmatics and the Opaque Boundaries
Pragmatics is about incorporating as much societal context as possible , necessarily
remains vague as regards the relation between pragmatics and the other areas of
linguistics because demarcated boundaries is useless process because :
1 – When pragmatics is in constant development , so that boundary markers , once
placed will have to be moved all the time .
2 – The traditional linguistic orientation towards pragmatics , neglected the social
phenomenon .
Leech Attempt to mix between Pragmatics and Semantics
The opaque boundaries of pragmatics was studied by Leech in his approach . He
advocates complementary between pragmatics and semantics . He thought that:
1 - semantics and pragmatics are distinct , though complementary and interrelated
fields of study .
2 – he suggests a semanticism relationship ( pragmatics inside semantics ) ,
pragmaticism ( semantics inside pragmatics ) and complementarism ( semantics and
pragmatics complement each other , but are otherwise independent areas of research .
Searle and Austin Reactions against Leech Approach
Searle did not accept the idea of semanticism and its way to analyse speech acts . It
did not answer the question when someone utters a promise , does he make a promise
because of the semantics of the verb ( to promise ) or because its active pragmatic
character . Austin contrasted Leech ' approach by giving just a social dimension for
words and the pragmatics can take role only in words effects when they are uttering
and the things the user can do with these words .
Levinson's View about Leech Approach
Levinson , discussing the relationship between semantics and pragmatics , remarks
' from what we know about the nature of meaning , a hybrid or modular account
seems inescapable ; their remains the hope that with two components , a semantics
and pragmatics working in tandem , each can be built on relatively homogeneous and
systematic lines .
Is Pragmatics a perspective or component
The component view of language is based on :
1 – A modular conception of the human mind .
2 – The human faculties are thought of as independent but cooperating units .
3 – They are emerged in linguistics in the form of syntax , semantics and phonology .
4 – In the component view each module works within a properly delimited domain ,
with well – defined objects and properly established , specific methods , for example ,
leaving the syntactic to the syntacticians
Pragmatics is perspective in through the view of human language activity and it
focuses on the activity in its various aspects . Linguistic pragmatics can be said to
characterize a new way of looking at things linguistics [ I , e , a perspective ] , rather
than marking off clear borderline to other disciplines because :
1 - A pragmatic perspective will focus on the societal factors that make a certain
language use , more or less acceptable .
2 – The other components abstractly , but pragmatically radically different ( because
mostly unacceptable ) uses .
3 – Pragmatic perspective defines the linguistic performance and its accepting in the
society .
4 – Pragmatics is wider in range , according to Verschuren pragmatics is a general
cognitive , social and cultural perspective on linguistic phenomena in relation to their
usage in forms of behavior .
5 – A perspective view emphasizes the pragmatic aspects of all parts of linguistics
from psycholinguistics to the hyphenated areas and the variables of sociology such as
income , housing and degree of education and psychology such as IQ , character traits
and sexual orientation .
6 – Pragmatics can be umbrella for areas of linguistics as mentioned in ( 5 ) and the
components by asking such questions , how users mean what they say , how they
using language or how they say what they mean , employing the linguistic devices at
their disposal to express themselves .
The Function of Language and Pragmatics
One of the main reasons behind pragmatics is the functions of language . Language
is used to make expression , speech , representation , code , channel and poetic
quality. So language is a faculty of society , used to make numerous functions for the
users as the six latter communicative functions . These functions can be studied
technically by pragmatics through every day conversation because :
1 – It is a fundamental linguistic interaction , using language face to face
2 – It can be studied in two ways , first , describing the participants and their choices
of expressing themselves to their own and others and their options to join in at any
given point of the conversation , second , establishing the minimal conditions for
successful interaction both on the linguistic level and on the hidden levels of societal
equality or inequality , of prejudice and class feeling , education and culture .
Pragmatics Theory and Practice
The problems that can be solved through pragmatics are :
1 – The numerous practical problems that we meet in the exercise of our linguistic
functions , problems of conversation and turn – control .
2 – Problems of argumentation ( philosophy )
3 – Problems of language use in educational settings ( applied linguistics )
4 – Problems of interaction between humans and computers ( computer software
design ) .
5 – All sorts of communication problems in anthropology , ethnography , psychiatry
and psychology .
6 – Ambiguity of utterances , lazy reference of pronouns , voice in narrative and so
on.
Theoretically , it can be characterized abstractedly as a component of linguistics or
as a perspective pervading the components and giving them a pragmatic accent .
Why do We Need Pragmatics
1 – It is used to remove the ambiguity of utterances and contexts , we need to know
how uttered the sentence and in what context , and to be able to make inferences
regarding why they said it and what they intended us to understand . There is one
piece of pizza left , can be understood as an offer '' would you like it ? , or a warning ''
it's mine '' or a scolding '' you didn't finish your dinner '' depending on the situation .
2 – It is necessary to know how humans explain , communicate and interact with each
other .
3 – It leads to a coherent understanding and more sensible searching about human
behavior at the level of language .
4 – It is a mean of explaining language and break the constraints down as the
constraint of ambiguity .
5 – People commonly mean quite a lot more they say explicitly and it's up to their
addresses to figure out what additional meaning they might have intended .
The Validity of Contexts to the Pragmatics
The scope of context is not easy to define one must consider the social and
psychological world in which the language user operates at any given time . '' It
includes minimally language users ' beliefs and assumptions about temporal , spatial ,
and social settings ; prior , ongoing , and future actions ( verbal , non – verbal ) , and
the state of knowledge and attentiveness of those participating in the social interaction
in hand '' and the linguistic features which are called the contextualization cues .
Contexts are sets of propositions constrained only by consistency . The consistent sets
of propositions that comprise contexts are to be interpreted as the unique speaker's
own ' commitment state ' . As a pragmatically concern , it is the interpretation of the
utterance by the hearer . The pragmatic contexts have many features and perspectives:
1 – We must invoke the context to determine what an ambiguous sentence means
2 – Context means all the factors that play a role in producing and understanding
utterances
3 – It is often restricted to a kind of prehistory of a particular utterance , the sum and
result of what has been said and done up to now .
4 – Its condition proceeding a particular state of affairs in the physical world are
thought of as completely determining the next development .
5 – One can depend on the illocutionary force , such a concept of context is
established independently of the ongoing interaction between the interlocutors the
dynamic development of the conversation , that which gives us the clue to an
understanding .
6 – It must be falsifiable under the empirical claim , a claim is only empirical if you
can imagine a circumstances that would show that it is false .For example , a
discourse always beings with a greeting is a falsifiable claim . Discovery of a single
discourse that does not begin with a greeting (under some specific definition of the
word “greeting”) irrevocably and irrefutably falsifies our claim. The claim is
falsifiable, it an empirical (i.e., testable) claim.
7 – The claim of the context must be predictive . In order to be interesting, the claim
must also be predictive, in the sense of being general or generalizable. That is, the
claim must not simply be about a single instance of language use; instead, it must
make a general claim about an entire class of uses, and therefore also predict how
speakers will behave in the future.
Pragmatics as a Mean of Surviving
The descriptive endeavor of linguistics is in great danger of being irrevocably
thwarted because :
1 – All description is strictly a terminal process , everything has been described that
there is to describe , description has to come to an end .
2 - Languages are now without purity and undergo many factors, such as the factors
of westernization and industrialization , especially in the third and fourth worlds, and
this is what impedes the work of the descriptive linguistics as looking for linguistic
purity.
3 – The descriptive linguistics way to save such languages is useless one because the
descriptive means in all its conditions small to influence and unable to keep up with
the real language with its various dimensions, especially the social ones .
Pragmatics as we viewed in previous sections is dynamic process , relevant to
people , not just go out there and describe , but fight what has been called '' linguistic
genocide ''
Morris and Carnap's Discrimination between Pragmatics and Semantics

Pragmatics is the study of aspects of language that required reference to the users
of the language then led to a very natural , further restriction of the term in analytical
philosophy . The study of a word or expression whose meaning is dependent on the
context in which it is used, e.g., here , you , me , that one there , or next Tuesday , or
what they called the study of deictic or indexical . Language can be analyzed through
the study of the huge range of psychological and sociological phenomena involved in
sign system in general or in language in particular ( semiotics ) .

The Functional View of Pragmatics

This opinion can be viewed that pragmatics is the study of language from a
functional perspective that is , that it attempts to explain facets of linguistic structure
by reference to non-linguistic pressures and causes . Depending on this perspective ,
Chomsky asserted that pragmatics is concerned solely with performance principles of
language use . Kats and Fodor also adopted this sense , they viewed that the theory of
pragmatics ( the theory of setting selection ) would essentially be concerned with the
disambiguation of sentences by the contexts in which they were uttered .

The Position of Pragmatics According to Chomsky

Katz explained this . He said grammar are theories about the structure of sentence
types . Pragmatic theories , in contrast , do nothing to explicate the structure of
linguistics constructions or grammatical properties and relations . They explicate the
reasoning of speakers and hearers in working out the correlation in a context of a
sentence token with a proposition . In this respect , a pragmatic theory is part of
performance .

Because speakers within a language community share these pragmatic principles

concerning language production and interpretation in context, they constitute part of
our linguistic competence, not merely matters of performance. That is to say,
pragmatic knowledge is part of our knowledge of how to use language appropriately.
And as with other areas of linguistic competence, our pragmatic competence is
generally implicit – known at some level, but not usually available for explicit
examination.

Formulation The Relation Between Pragmatics and Grammar

Yes there is , one definition of pragmatics implies that pragmatics is the study of
those relations between language and context that are grammaticalized , or encoded in
the structure of a language .

This formula restricts pragmatics to the study of certain aspects of linguistic

structure . It also excludes the study of principles of language usage that could not be
shown to have repercussions on the grammar of language , so important implications
called conversational implicatures would lie outside the purview of a pragmatic
theory .

This sense has the possible advantage that it would effectively delimit the field and
exclude neighboring fields like sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics , in short it
would in a way that guaranteed linguistic relevance .

Universal Pragmatics and language – Specific Pragmatics

Universal pragmatics is the general theory of what aspects of context get encoded
and how . Language – specific pragmatics of individual languages , for example , the
pragmatics of English might have relatively little to say about social status , while in
contrast the pragmatics of Japanese would be greatly concerned with the
grammaticalization of the relative social ranks of participants and referents .

For a feature of the context to be linguistically encoded , ( a ) it must be

intentionally communicated , ( b ) it must be conventionally associated with the
linguistic form in question , ( c ) the encoding form must be a member of a contrast
set , the other members of which encode different features , (d) the linguistic form
must be subject to regular grammatical processes . It can be the conditions of the
pragmatic context according to the universal pragmatics theory .

Meaning According to the Pragmatics and Semantics

Of course meaning in its most broadest scope cannot be reduced only to the
semantic theory . Pragmatics is the study of all those aspects of meaning not captured
in a semantic theory . It studies the meaning of utterances which cannot be accounted
for by straighford reference to the truth conditions of the sentences uttered .

The sense of the meaning is very broad and consists of many substantial areas ,
specifically variations of meaning components under the headings projection and
defeasible . The projection components are totally linguistic components of meaning
in the way in which they are compounded when a complex sentence , whose parts
produce the inference in question , is built up . Some of these meaning components
disappear under specific and distinctive conditions , namely particular linguistic
constructions . These components imply truth conditions or entailments and
conventional implicatures , which can be studies semantically .

The other most important heading is the defeasible components of meaning , which
play important role in the pragmatic research . It is subject to cancellation by features
of the context . Such features interact with or arise from assumptions made by
participants in the context , and are particularly inappropriate aspects of meaning to
incorporate within a semantic theory . These components include presuppositions .
conversational implicature , felicity conditions and inferences based on conversational
structure which can be studied pragmatically .

Pragmatics, then, has to do with a rather slippery type of meaning, one that isn’t
found in dictionaries and which may vary from context to context. The same utterance
will mean different things in different contexts, and will even mean different things to
different people. In general terms, pragmatics typically has to do with meaning that is:
1 - non-literal
2 - context-dependent,
3 - inferential, and/or
4 - not truth-conditional.
Pragmatics and Communication

Yes it can . For communication involves the notions of intention and agency , and
only those inference that are openly intended to be conveyed can properly be said to
have been communicated . This notion is emerged through non-natural meaning
(equivalent to the notion of intentional communication ) . Grice mentioned that there
is no automatic, natural correlation between the word and its meaning. Instead, the
word/meaning correlation is arbitrary; this meaning could just as easily have ended up
being attached to another string of sounds, had the history of the language worked out
differently.

This communication consists of the sender , intending to cause the receiver to think
or do something , just by getting the receiver to recognize that the sender is trying to
cause though or action . The relation between the participants in this sense of
communication is built upon mutual knowledge or the co-presence heuristic , for
example , if you and I are co-present in the room when the instructor announces that
there will be a quiz next Tuesday, I can then felicitously utter the noun phrase the quiz
in conversation with you and fully expect that you will assume that I’m referring to
the quiz that the instructor told us about – on the grounds that we were mutually co-
present at the time the instructor made the announcement. Depending on this mutual
knowledge the receiver can organize the message effectively , even if it is non –
verbal cased .

The Position of the Utterance and the Sentence in Pragmatics

A sentence is an abstract theoretical entity defined within a theory of grammar ,

while and utterance is the issuance of a sentence , a sentence – analogue , or sentence
– fragment , in an actual context . The utterance is the pairing of a sentence and a
context , namely the context in which the sentence was uttered . The utterance
involves other non-linguistic features to be realized , the certain personality , the
certain time or true of individuals only at certain times . So , the utterance is the
sentence meaning that can be analyzed pragmatically due to the existing of the
context dependent meaning . Finally utterance to be understood is involved a great
deal more than knowing the meanings of the words uttered and the grammatical
relations between them and the making of inference that will connect what is said to
what is mutually or what has been said before .

Pragmatics as a Way of Language Understanding

In this sense pragmatics is the study of the relations between language and context
that are basic to an account of language understanding . This sense clarifies that :
1 – Language understanding and understanding an utterance involve a great deal more
than knowing the meanings of the words uttered and the grammatical relations
between them .

2 – Understanding an utterance involves the making of inference that will connect

what is said to what is mutually or what has been said before .

3 – The full understanding of language involve the inference of presuppositions ,

implicatures , illocutionary force and other pragmatic implications .

4 – Language understanding involves the study of principles of language usage by the

set of inference – procedures .

The General Concerns of Pragmatic Theory

1 – It studies how the context is related to language understanding , there may well be
cases where sociolinguistic variables would be of relevance to language
understanding .

2 – It studies the full grammar ( including semantically ) description of a sentence ,

together with information about the context in which it was uttered .

3 – The output of the pragmatic theory will be a set of representations ( or

propositions ) which capture the full meaning of the utterance in the context specified.

The Relation Between Pragmatics and Linguistics , General View

In this section it is not attractive to repeat the meaning concept as essentially just a
linguistic sense . Searching the relation between pragmatics and semantics here is
built upon the borders not on the overlap in the area of the meaning to both of them .
Pragmatics equates with semantic as a meaning minus semantics , or with a theory of
language understanding that takes context into account , in order to complement the
contribution that semantics makes to meanings . Pragmatics is acting here as a mean
to fill gaps according to the principles of language usage and these are likely in the
long run to impinge on grammar .

Pragmatics would not be a level or component of linguistic theory but a way of

looking afresh at the data and methods of linguistics . Pragmatics would be a field
more akin to sociolinguistics than semantics . It is therefore worthwhile seeing that ,
whatever the merits of this view , there is a need for a kind of pragmatic theory that
can take its place beside syntax , semantics and phonology within an overall theory of
grammar because the adequate grammatical descriptions include specifications of the
meaning of every word in a language and , and such requirement has normally been
assumed , then we find words whose meaning – specifications can only be given by
reference to contexts of usage , for example the meaning of words like well , oh and
anyway . So if the lexicon not complete , then neither is the syntax , semantics or
phonology likely to be .

This relation between pragmatics and linguistics can be enriched by the opinions of
Charles Morris , who makes a line between what he called the traditional linguistics
and pragmatics . We can review the definition of Charles Morris for pragmatics ' the
study of the relation of signs to interpreters ' so in its simple view about the message
and language users . language can be analyzed into traditional linguistics ( Syntax ,
phonology , morphology and semantics ) and pragmatics . The supreme level of
pragmatics is a result of its focusing on the :
1 – language – using humans
2 – the process of producing language and its procedures , not just in the end –
product language .
3 – The direct communication between human
Mey also clarified that pragmatics is movable and linguistics is static in addition to
the different directions in linguistics and pragmatics . A pure linguistic description is
retroactive and static : it takes a snapshot of what is the case at any particular
moment , and tries to freeze that picture . Pure descriptions have no dynamic ; they
can never capture the richness of the developments that take place between people
using language .
In linguistics , it has long been an article of faith that the science of language has
to be practiced for its own sake .Linguists have talked about the immanence of
linguistic theory , by which they mean that linguistics is accountable only to itself as
to its methods and objectives . Most of the linguistics work is theoretical , dealing
with the language as isolated aspects and in many cases the practitioners of linguistics
have not been able to talk to each other except in very general terms , even when one
comes to describe prime practical endeavor of linguists , the consensus remains
largely theoretical .
 References
Mey , J . ( 2001 ) . Pragmatics : an Introduction . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing
Birner , B . ( 2013 ) . Introduction to Pragmatics . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing
Levinson , S . ( 1983 ) . Pragmatics . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press