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This article is about the subfield of linguistics. For other uses, see Pragmatic.

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, linguistics and anthropology.[1] Unlike semantics, which examines meaning that is conventional or "coded" in a given language, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors.[2] In this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance.[1]

The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence.[3][4][5]


Main article: Ambiguity

The sentence "You have a green light" is ambiguous. Without knowing the context, the identity of the speaker, and his or her intent, it is difficult to infer the meaning with confidence. For example:

  • It could mean that the space that belongs to you has green ambient lighting.
  • It could mean that you are driving through a green traffic signal.
  • It could mean that you no longer have to wait to continue driving.
  • It could mean that you are permitted to proceed in a non-driving context.
  • It could mean that your body has a green glow.
  • It could mean that you possess a light bulb that is tinted green.

Similarly, the sentence "Sherlock saw the man with binoculars" could mean that Sherlock observed the man by using binoculars, or it could mean that Sherlock observed a man who was holding binoculars (syntactic ambiguity).[6] The meaning of the sentence depends on an understanding of the context and the speaker's intent. As defined in linguistics, a sentence is an abstract entity — a string of words divorced from non-linguistic context — as opposed to an utterance, which is a concrete example of a speech act in a specific context. The more closely conscious subjects stick to common words, idioms, phrasings, and topics, the more easily others can surmise their meaning; the further they stray from common expressions and topics, the wider the variations in interpretations. This suggests that sentences do not have meaning intrinsically; there is not a meaning associated with a sentence or word, they can only symbolically represent an idea. The cat sat on the mat is a sentence in English. If someone were to say to someone else, "The cat sat on the mat," this is an example of an utterance. Thus, there is no such thing as a sentence, term, expression or word symbolically representing a single true meaning; it is underspecified (which cat sat on which mat?) and potentially ambiguous. The meaning of an utterance, on the other hand, is inferred based on linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the non-linguistic context of the utterance (which may or may not be sufficient to resolve ambiguity). In mathematics with Berry's paradox there arose a systematic ambiguity with the word "definable". The ambiguity with words shows that the descriptive power of any human language is limited.


The word pragmatics derives via Latin pragmaticus from the Greek πραγματικός (pragmatikos), meaning amongst others "fit for action",[7] which comes from πρᾶγμα (pragma), "deed, act",[8] and that from πράσσω (prassō), "to pass over, to practise, to achieve".[9]

Origins of the field[edit]


Areas of interest[edit]

  • Information structure, the study of how utterances are marked in order to efficiently manage the common ground of referred entities between speaker and hearer

Referential uses of language[edit]



Signified: the concept cat
Signifier: the word "cat"


"Santa Claus eats cookies."



Tiger: carnivorous, a mammal

If someone were to say that a tiger is a carnivorous animal in one context and a mammal in another, the definition of tiger would still be the same. The meaning of the sign tiger is describing some animal in the world, which does not change in either circumstance.


Example: "I"




Referential: singular count
Indexical: Close by





Non-referential uses of language[edit]

Silverstein's "pure" indexes[edit]

Michael Silverstein has argued that "nonreferential" or "pure" indices do not contribute to an utterance's referential meaning but instead "signal some particular value of one or more contextual variables."[10] Although nonreferential indexes are devoid of semantico-referential meaning, they do encode "pragmatic" meaning.




The performative[edit]


  • Its uttering performs an action rather than simply describing one


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

To be performative, an utterance must conform to various conditions involving what Austin calls felicity. These deal with things like appropriate context and the speaker's authority. For instance, when a couple has been arguing and the husband says to his wife that he accepts her apology even though she has offered nothing approaching an apology, his assertion is infelicitous—because she has made neither expression of regret nor request for forgiveness, there exists none to accept, and thus no act of accepting can possibly happen.

Jakobson's six functions of language[edit]



The six constitutive factors of a speech event




The six functions of language



  • The Poetic Function focuses on "the message for its own sake"[12] and is the operative function in poetry as well as slogans.

Related fields[edit]






There has been a great amount of discussion on the boundary between semantics and pragmatics [13] and there are many different formalizations of aspects of pragmatics linked to context dependence. Particular interesting cases are the discussions on the semantics of indexicals and the problem of referential descriptions, a topic developed after the theories of Keith Donnellan.[14] A proper logical theory of formal pragmatics has been developed by Carlo Dalla Pozza, according to which it is possible to connect classical semantics (treating propositional contents as true or false) and intuitionistic semantics (dealing with illocutionary forces). The presentation of a formal treatment of pragmatics appears to be a development of the Fregean idea of assertion sign as formal sign of the act of assertion.

In literary theory[edit]






Significant works[edit]

See also[edit]


  3. ^ Daejin Kim et al. (2002) "The Role of an Interactive Book Reading Program in the Development of Second Language Pragmatic Competence", The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 332-348
  4. ^ Masahiro Takimoto (2008) "The Effects of Deductive and Inductive Instruction on the Development of Language Learners' Pragmatic Competence", The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 92, No. 3 (Fall, 2008), pp. 369-386
  5. ^ Dale April Koike (1989) "Pragmatic Competence and Adult L2 Acquisition: Speech Acts in Interlanguage", The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 279-289
  6. ^
  7. ^ πραγματικός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  8. ^ πρᾶγμα, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  10. ^ Silverstein 1976
  12. ^ a b Duranti 1997
  13. ^ see for instance F.Domaneschi. C. Penco, What is Said and What is Not, CSLI Publication, Stanford
  14. ^ see for instance S. Neale, Descriptions, 1990


  • Ariel, Mira (2010). Defining Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-73203-1. 
  • Lin, G. H. C., & Perkins, L. (2005). Cross-cultural discourse of giving and accepting gifts. International Journal of Communication, 16,1-2, 103-12 (ERIC Collections in ED 503685
  • Robinson, Douglas. (2003). Performative Linguistics: Speaking and Translating as Doing Things With Words. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Robinson, Douglas. (2006). Introducing Performative Pragmatics. London and New York: Routledge.

External links[edit]