Pragmatik

Pragmatik, often rendered as pragmatics in English, is a subfield of linguistics that studies how language is used in real situations to convey meaning. It focuses on how speakers and listeners rely on context, shared knowledge, and social norms to interpret utterances beyond their literal content. Pragmatics examines how meaning emerges from actual language use rather than from words alone.

Core concerns include speech acts, where utterances perform actions such as requesting, promising, or apologizing; implicature, where listeners infer intended meaning not explicitly stated; presupposition, which relies on background assumptions; and deixis, which involves reference to time, place, and participants. The field also analyzes how discourse structure, politeness, and conversational norms shape communication. Pragmatics is distinguished from semantics, which studies meaning encoded in words and sentences independent of context.

Important theories and concepts include speech-act theory (Austin, Searle), which analyzes how utterances function as actions; Grice’s cooperative principle and maxims, which describe How speakers rely on shared conversational expectations; and relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson), which emphasizes the cognitive effort involved in deriving intended meaning.

History and scope: The term pragmatics was popularized in the early 20th century and developed through work by philosophers and linguists such as Charles Morris, J. L. Austin, John Searle, and H. P. Grice. The field intersects with philosophy of language, discourse analysis, and cognitive science.

Applications and methods: Pragmatics informs natural language processing, language teaching, cross-cultural communication, and dialogue systems. Typical methods include discourse analysis, corpus-based pragmatics, and experimental approaches to how context influences interpretation.