RESEARCH IN
PRAGMATICS
OF
LANGUAGES
OR TEXTS
By Elizaveta Kucher and Daria Shanin
What is pragmatics?
Pragmatics is a branch of
linguistics concerned with the use
of language in social contexts and
the ways people produce and
comprehend meanings through
language.
Background of pragmatics
Pragmatics "deals with the origins,
uses, and effects of signs within the
total behavior of the interpreters of
signs."
- Charles Morris, (May 23, 1901 –
January 15, 1979), American
philosopher and semiotician
Pragmatics VS Semantics
Example #1
"You invited your friend over for dinner. Your younger brother sees
your friend reach for some cookies and says, 'Better not take those,
or you'll get even bigger.' You can't believe your brother could be so
rude."
Example #2
"You talk with a neighbour about his new car. He has trouble staying
on topic and starts talking about his favourite TV show. He doesn't
look at you when you talk and doesn't laugh at your jokes. He keeps
talking, even when you look at your watch and say, 'Wow. It's
getting late.' You finally leave, thinking about how hard it is to talk
with him."
Major areas of
pragmatics:
Conversational implicature: based on the idea that people in a conversation are
cooperating to reach a common conversational goal; therefore, implications can be
derived from a speaker’s responses to questions.
Cognitive pragmatics: focuses on cognition or the mental processes (also called
cognitive processes) of human communication.
Intercultural pragmatics: works with language learners who are acquiring a second
language.
Sociolinguistics: focuses on how native speakers of the same language may speak
differently from one another simply because of the different social groups to which
they belong.
Examples of Research in Pragmatics
of Languages or Texts
Pragmatics is very
important
The context— the social signs, body language, and tone of
voice (the pragmatics)— is what makes utterances clear or
unclear to the speaker and her listeners.
Resources
1. https://repository.cardiffmet.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10369/8670/FINAL%20Thesis
%20Submission_El%20Shazly.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
2. https://www.masterclass.com/articles/pragmatics-in-linguistics-guide
3. http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/pragmatics.htm
4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222541617_New_directions_for_researc
h_in_pragmatics_and_modularity
5. https://www.thoughtco.com/pragmatics-language-1691654
6. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321192663_So_that's_the_way_it_is_fo
r_me__always_being_left_out_Acquired_Pragmatic_Language_Impairment_and_S
ocial_Functioning_following_Traumatic_Brain_Injury
7. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244016632288
Thank you!
