Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics which studies •

language from the point of view of the users , especially of the

choices they make ,the constraints they encounter in using
language in social interaction ,and the effects their use of language
. has on the other participants in an act of communication

Communication in society happens chiefly by means of language .

However , the users of language , as social beings , communicate and use
language on society’s premises ; the society controls their access to the
. linguistic and communicative means
Pragmatics , as the study of the way humans use their language in
communication , bases itself on a study of those premises and determines
how they affect human language use . Hence , pragmatics studies the use
of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of
. society

The proper domain of pragmatics would then be what Chomsky has

called “ performance “ , that is to say: the way the individual goes about
using language .It has been characterized as the study of the principles
and practice of conversational performance ;the reasoning of speakers
. and hearers , including all aspects of language usage
This concrete linguistic practice would be distinguished from an
abstract “competence “,understood as the “user’s knowledge of the
.language and its rules “, the theories of grammar

One could simply divide the study of language into two independent
: parts
One , a description of its structure (as dealt with by the traditional
methods of grammars ) ; the other , a description of its use (to be taken
( care of by pragmatics