The Relationship Between Semantics and Pragmatics

(1) Meaning
① What is meaning?
Levinson, discussing the relationship between semantics and pragmatics,
remarks: “From what we now know about the nature of meaning, a hybrid or modular
account seems inescapable; there remains the hope that with two components, a
semantics and a pragmatics working in tandem, each can be built on relatively
homogeneous and systematic line” (1983:15).Both in semantics or pragmatics,
meaning is a main topic which causes linguists’ interest and concern.
On one hand, in semantics, the word “meaning” has many different meanings. In
their book, The Meaning of Meaning written in 1923, C.K.Odgen and I.A.Richards
presented a “representative list of the main definitions which reputable students of
meaning have favoured” (p.186). G.Leech in a more moderate tone recognizes 7 types
of meaning in his Semantics (p.23), first published in 1974, includes: conceptual
meaning, connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning,
collocative meaning, thematic meaning. The first type of meaning — conceptual
meaning — makes up the central part. It is denotative in that it concerned with the
relationship between a word and the thing it denotes, or refers to. In this sense,
conceptual meaning overlaps to a large extent with the notion of reference.
On the other hand, all these types of meaning mentioned above have been well
studied in the field of semantics. What’s more, in pragmatics linguists connect the
meaning of a word with the thing it points to. To some extent, it is similar to the
referential theory, which relates the meaning of a word to the thing it refers to, or
stands for. There is something behind the concrete thing we can see with our eyes.
And that something is abstract, which has no existence in the material world and can
only be sensed in our minds. This abstract thing is usually called concept. A theory
which explicitly employs the notion “concept” is the semantic triangle proposed by
Ogden and Richards in their book The Meaning of Meaning. They argue that the
relation between a word and a thing it refers to is not direct. It is mediated by concept.
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In a diagram form, the relation is represented as follows:
Concept

Word -------------------- Thing

The difference between semantics and pragmatics according to G.Leech, in his

Principles of pragmatics (pp.5-6) holds the view that “can be traced to two different
uses of the verb to mean:
[1] What does X mean? [2] What did you mean by X?
Semantics traditionally deals with meaning as a dyadic relation, as in [1] , while
pragmatics deals with meaning as a triadic relation, as in [2]. Thus meaning in
pragmatics is defined relative to a speaker or user of the language, whereas meaning
in semantics is defined purely as a property of expressions in a given language, in
abstraction from particular situations, speakers, or hearers.” And he goes on to state
explicitly “This is a rough-and-ready distinction which has been refined, for particular
purposes, by philosophers such as Morris (1938, 1946 ) or Carnap ( 1942 ).”
As it is known to all, the word is a vital unit of analyzing linguistics and it is the
bearer of meaning in semantics, which focus on its literal meaning; while in
pragmatics words are seen from a functional point of view, that is to say, how it makes
a difference in a context. There are three approaches to deal with meaning:
The traditional approach is based on the assumption that the word was the basic
unit of syntax and semantics. Thus, the traditional approach is almost exclusively
concerned with word meaning and words are regarded as the bearer of meaning.
Functional linguists like M.A.K.Halliday take a functional approach towards
meaning. They emphasize the social aspect of language and regards language as
“social semiotic”. According to their description, the functional components of the
semantic system are the modes of meaning: ideational meaning, interpersonal
meaning and textual meaning.
The pragmatic approach emphasizes the dependency of the understanding of an
utterance of the situational context.
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② Pragmatics = Meaning – Semantics
Hanks states that “meaning arises out of the interaction between language and
circumstances, rather than being encapsulated in the language itself” (1996:266); that
is to say, encoded in semantic units and administered by syntactic rules.
When we use sentences with a meaning other than the literal, this kind of
meaning is sometimes referred to as speaker’s meaning, utterance meaning or
contextual meaning. It is called pragmatics. Since this kind of meaning comes partly
from the use of language in a context, pragmatics may also be defined as the study of
language in use. Now if we divide meaning into two major sides: the side more
closely related to the words used, the more constant, inherent side of meaning (which
is studied under the heading of semantics) and the side more closely related to the
context, the more indeterminate side, or something extra (which is studied under the
heading of pragmatics), then we can say “pragmatics = meaning – semantics”.
Pragmatics is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the uses of
those forms. For example, two friends having a conversation may imply some things
and infer some others without providing any clear linguistic evidence that we can
point to as the explicit source of “the meaning” of what was communicated.
eg. Her: So—did you?
Him: Hey—who wouldn’t?
Thus, pragmatics is appealing because it is about how people make sense of each
other linguistically, but it can be a frustrating area of study because it requires us to
make sense of people and what they have in mind.
In other words, when we speak we not only produce some units of language with
certain meanings, but also make clear our purpose in producing them, the way we
intend them to be understood, or they have certain forces as Austin prefers to say.
Austin acknowledges the “force” may be regarded as part of “meaning”, when the
later is used in a broad sense. But Austin thinks it is better to distinguish “force” from
“meaning”, with the latter used in a narrow sense, or what we called the more
constant, inherent side of meaning,. Thus interpreted, “force”, or “illocutionary

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meaning ”and may be translated into Chinese as 言外之意.
To figure out meanings in actual context, Herbert Paul Grice presented the
original theory – the cooperative principle, or CP for short, which is meant to describe
what actually happens in conversation and guide us. What’s more, it is obvious that
the conversational implicature of an utterance is different from its literal meaning.
There is no direct link between the two. So if it is to succeed as the speaker intends to,
there must be ways for the hearer to work it out. In “Logic and Conversation”, Grice
suggests, “To work out that particular conversational implicature is present, the hearer
will rely on the following data: (1) the conventional meaning of the words used,
together with the identity of any references that may be involved; (2) the CP and its
maxims; (3) the context, linguistic or otherwise, of the utterance; (4) other items of
background knowledge; and (5) the fact that all relevant items falling under the
previous headings are available to both participants and both participants know or
assume this to be the case.
Later on, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson developed Gricean maxims. In 1981,
Wilson and Sperber published an article entitled “On Grice’s Theory of
Conversation”. In it they propose for the first time that all Gricean maxims, including
the CP itself, should be reduced to a single principle of relevance, which is defined as
“The speaker has done his best to be maximally relevant”(Wilson & Sperber[1981]；
361)．Reference theory was formally proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson
in their book Relevance: Communication and Cognition in 1986.
As for CP itself, they think it is not incompatible with their principle.
Nevertheless, it does not seem right to characterize conversation as a cooperative
effort. Conversation is basically egotistic, some degree of cooperative effort.
Conversation is basically egotistic, some degree of cooperation is only a price
interlocutor have to pay. In their 1986 book, Sperber and Wilson define the principle
of relevance as: “Every act of ostensive communication communicates the
presumption of its own optimal relevance.”(Sperber & Wilson 1986: 158)
③ Semantic clash & Pragmatic acts

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 Pragmatic acts are pragmatic because they base themselves on language as
constrained by the situation, not as defined by syntactic rules or by semantic
selections and conceptual restrictions. Pragmatic acts situation-derived and situation-
constrained; in the final analysis, they are determined by the broader social context in
which they happen, and they realize their goals in the conditions placed upon human
action by that context. As such, they correspond to what Levinson, in an early article,
has called ‘activity types’: “they [the ‘pragmemes’] constrain what will count as an
allowable contribution to each activity [or ‘pract’ and on the other hand, they help to
determine [‘set up’] how what one says [one’s ‘speech acts’], will be ‘taken’”
(Levinson 1979:393; Jacob L.Mey additions).
Consider the following example. The Chicago alternative cultural weekly
Reader had an advertisement in its August 21, 1992, issue for a downtown cocktail
lounge called Sweet Alice. The ad carried the text “I bought some sushi home and
cooked it; it wasn’t bad.”Of course, this sentence is a joke: everyone knows that sushi
is eaten raw, and that you’re not supposed to cook it. Cooking sushi may strike one as
funny, stupid, or outrageous, depending on one’s point of view. In the same way is
“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”, which made a certain linguist famous in the
sixties.
When asked about the odd wording in the advertisement quoted above, the
linguists might say that the sentence above contains a semantic clash, and that’s why
it doesn’t make sense: the semantics of one of its parts (the sushi) contradicts the
semantics of another part (the cooking). This is where pragmatic acts come into
picture. Pragmatics tells us it’s all right to use language in various unconventional
ways, as long as we know, as language users, what we’re doing. That implies letting
ourselves be “semantically shocked”, if there is a reason for it, or if it is done for a
purpose.
Such a pragmatic explanation of a linguistic fact will by some be ascribed to an
inability to explain linguistic matters in normal ways, making use of the standard
methods of semantics or syntax; this kind of attitude has led to the well-known

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characterization of pragmatics as the “waste -basket of linguistics”.

(2) The relationship between semantics and pragmatics

① Definitions
Morris gave his new definitions in this 1946 book are: “ pragmatics is that
portion of semiotic which deals with the origin, uses, and effects if signs within the
behavior in which they occur; semantics deals with the signification of signs in all
modes of signifying.”
Furthermore, pragmatics is the study of language usage from a functional
perspective and is concerned with the principles that account for how meaning is
communicated by the speaker or writer and interrupted by the listener or reader in a
certain context. Pragmatics studies the contextual meaning and it is concerned with
people’s intended meaning, their assumption and their purposes or goals. It
concentrates on the aspects of meaning that cannot be predicted by linguistic
knowledge alone and takes into account our knowledge about the physical and social
world. Comparatively speaking, semantics is the study of the relationship between
linguistic forms and entities in the world and it focuses on the meaning that comes
from linguistic knowledge.
In general, pragmatics and semantics are both linguistic studies of meaning. The
great difference between them is whether the context of use is considered in the study
of meaning. If it is not considered, the study is confined to the area of traditional
semantics; if it is considered, the study is being carried out in the area of pragmatics.
Or we may say that semantics is the study of meaning in language. It is concerned
with what language means. This is not the same as what people mean by the language
they use, how they actualize its meaning potential as a communicative resource. This
is the concern of pragmatics.
② Langue-Parole distinction of Saussure
Saussure proposed that linguistics should concern itself with the shared social
code, the abstract system, which he called langue, leaving aside the particular

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actualities of individual utterances, which he called parole.
According to Saussure’s account on the distinction between langue and parole, we
could identify the social bond that constitutes language (langue) which is more or less
like a grammatical system, or in other words, from my point of view, belongs to
semantics. While the actual use of speaking (parole) has a potential existence in each
brain, which belongs to pragmatics. So the distinction between langue and parole is,
to some extent, reflects the relationship between semantics and pragmatics.
Furthermore, as Chomsky points out that the distinction between competence
and performance is related to the langue-parole distinction of Saussure; we can also
observe the discrepancy between competence and performance in normal language
users. According to Chomsky, the task of a linguist is to determine from the data of
performance the underlying system of rules that has been mastered by the language
user. As far as I am concerned, that is to combine pragmatics and semantics together;
use materials from pragmatics to summary rules in semantics.
On one hand, as a language user we all have, without any doubt, a grasp of the
rules of language and all these linguistic rules, though we may not be able to state
them explicitly, make up a large part in semantics. On the other hand, in fact, speakers
do not always observe linguistic rules when they talk in daily life. Instead there can be
numerous false starts, derivations, grammatical expressions and so on, which arouse
linguists’ interests in respect of pragmatics.
To extend the notion of competence, which is restricted by Chomsky to
knowledge of grammar, to incorporate the pragmatic ability for language use, Dell
Hymes approaches language from a socio-cultural viewpoint with the aim of studying
the varieties of ways of speaking on the part of the individual and the community.
This extended idea of competence can be called Communicative Competence. In this
way, we enlarge the area of semantics to pragmatics.
(3) Summary
According to Geofrey Leech—This is what he says about the relation between
pragmatics and its nearest linguistic neighbor, semantics. “The view that semantics

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and pragmatics are distinct, though complementary and interrelated fields of study, is
easy to appreciate subjectively, but is more difficult to justify in an objective way. It is
best supported negatively, by pointing out the failures or weakness of alternative
views” (1983:6). Leech distinguishes between three possible ways of structuring this
relationship: semanticism(pragmatics inside semantics), pragmanticism(semantics
inside pragmatics) and complementarism(semantics and pragmatics complement each
other, but are otherwise independent areas of research).

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