PRAGMATICS
1. The study of language as it is used in a social context, including its effect on the interlocutors.
2. The branch of semiotics that deals with the relationship between signs, especially words and other elements of language, and their users.



What is pragmatics?

 


Definition

 
Pragmatics is the study of the aspects of meaning and language use that are dependent on the speaker, the addressee and other features of the context of utterance, such as the following:

 
The effect that the following have on the speaker’s choice of expression and the addressee’s interpretation of an utterance:
Context of utterance
Generally observed principles of communication
The goals of the speaker
Programmatic concerns, such as
the treatment of given versus new information, including presupposition
deixis
speech acts, especially illocutionary acts
implicature, and
the relations of meaning or function between portions of discourse (see interpropositional relation) or turns of conversation (see conversation analysis).


Generic

 
Pragmatics is a kind of

 
What is meaning and pragmatic function?


Sources

 
Levinson 1983 5–34

 
Crystal 1985 240

 
Leech 1983 2, 5–6