1. The historical origin of pragmatics
The modern usage of the term Pragmatics is attributable to the philosopher Charles Morris (1983), who was concern to outline the general shape of science of signs or called semiotics in another term. Within semiotics, Morris distinguished three distinct branches of inquiry: syntactic (or syntax) “being the study of the formal relation of signs to one another”, semantics “the study of the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable”, and pragmatics “the study of relation of signs to interpreters”.
2. The difference between Pragmatics and Semantics
a) Semantics is linguistics meaning or semantic sense, Pragmatics is speakers’ sense or speaker meaning.
b) Semantics has a dyadic relation “what does X mean?” Pragmatics has a triadic relation “What do you mean by X?” So, in semantics there are no relation of situation between the speaker and the hearer.
c) Semantics is context independent, Pragmatics is context dependent. So, context in Pragmatics is the most important things.
d) Finegan (1992: 140), Sentence semantics is not concerned with utterance meaning. Utterances are the subject of investigation of another branch of linguistics called pragmatics.
3. The Definitions of Pragmatics and Context in Pragmatics
a) Mey (1993: 38), context is the surroundings, in the widest sense, that enable the participants in the communication process to interact, and that make the linguistic expressions of their interaction intelligible.
b) Kiefer and Bierwich (1980: ix), pragmatics is concerned with the way in which the interpretation of syntactically defined expressions depends on the particular conditions of their use in context.
c) Levinson (1983: 9), Pragmatics is the study of those relations between language and context that are grammaticalized, or encoded in the structure of language.
d) Parker (1986: 11), Pragmatics is distinct from grammar, which is the study of internal structure of language. Pragmatics is the study of how language is used to communicate.
e) Gazdar (1979: 2), Pragmatics is the study of deixis (at least in part), implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and aspects of discourse structure.
The various definitions of pragmatics are common place and it should not be in our concern here is as stated by Levinson (1983: 5), this diversity of possible definitions and lack of clear boundaries may be disconcerting, but it is by no means unusual; since academic fields are congeries of preferred methods, implicit assumptions, and focal problems or subject matters, attempts to define them are rarely wholly satisfactory. And indeed, in one sense there is no problem of definition at all: just as, traditionally, syntax is taken to be the study of combinatorial properties of words and their parts, and semantics to be the study of meaning, so pragmatics is the study of language usage.
5. Speech Act
Searle in his book “Speech acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969: 23-24)” states that Pragmatics at least has three speech acts; they are (1) locution act (2) illocution act, and (3) perlocutionary act. Locution act is act of saying something, illocution act is act of doing something, and perlocutionary act is act of affecting someone. The hypothesis of speech acts is that speaking a language is engaging in a rule-governed form of behavior. To put it more briskly, talking is performing acts according rules.
The modern usage of the term Pragmatics is attributable to the philosopher Charles Morris (1983), who was concern to outline the general shape of science of signs or called semiotics in another term. Within semiotics, Morris distinguished three distinct branches of inquiry: syntactic (or syntax) “being the study of the formal relation of signs to one another”, semantics “the study of the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable”, and pragmatics “the study of relation of signs to interpreters”.
2. The difference between Pragmatics and Semantics
a) Semantics is linguistics meaning or semantic sense, Pragmatics is speakers’ sense or speaker meaning.
b) Semantics has a dyadic relation “what does X mean?” Pragmatics has a triadic relation “What do you mean by X?” So, in semantics there are no relation of situation between the speaker and the hearer.
c) Semantics is context independent, Pragmatics is context dependent. So, context in Pragmatics is the most important things.
d) Finegan (1992: 140), Sentence semantics is not concerned with utterance meaning. Utterances are the subject of investigation of another branch of linguistics called pragmatics.
3. The Definitions of Pragmatics and Context in Pragmatics
a) Mey (1993: 38), context is the surroundings, in the widest sense, that enable the participants in the communication process to interact, and that make the linguistic expressions of their interaction intelligible.
b) Kiefer and Bierwich (1980: ix), pragmatics is concerned with the way in which the interpretation of syntactically defined expressions depends on the particular conditions of their use in context.
c) Levinson (1983: 9), Pragmatics is the study of those relations between language and context that are grammaticalized, or encoded in the structure of language.
d) Parker (1986: 11), Pragmatics is distinct from grammar, which is the study of internal structure of language. Pragmatics is the study of how language is used to communicate.
e) Gazdar (1979: 2), Pragmatics is the study of deixis (at least in part), implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and aspects of discourse structure.
The various definitions of pragmatics are common place and it should not be in our concern here is as stated by Levinson (1983: 5), this diversity of possible definitions and lack of clear boundaries may be disconcerting, but it is by no means unusual; since academic fields are congeries of preferred methods, implicit assumptions, and focal problems or subject matters, attempts to define them are rarely wholly satisfactory. And indeed, in one sense there is no problem of definition at all: just as, traditionally, syntax is taken to be the study of combinatorial properties of words and their parts, and semantics to be the study of meaning, so pragmatics is the study of language usage.
5. Speech Act
Searle in his book “Speech acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969: 23-24)” states that Pragmatics at least has three speech acts; they are (1) locution act (2) illocution act, and (3) perlocutionary act. Locution act is act of saying something, illocution act is act of doing something, and perlocutionary act is act of affecting someone. The hypothesis of speech acts is that speaking a language is engaging in a rule-governed form of behavior. To put it more briskly, talking is performing acts according rules.
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