PRAGMATICS

The study of how language is used to communicate within its situational context.

What is the context of utterance? A sentence is uttered by a speaker, and when

the speaker utters it, he/she performs an act. This is called a speech-act. Since it is
performed by a speaker in relation to a hearer (or addressee), it depends on the
conditions prevailing at the time the speech-act is performed. These conditions
include the previous knowledge shared by speaker and hearer, and the reasons
for the performance of the act. All these taken together constitute the context of
utterance.

Meaning in this sense involves the speaker’s intention to convey a certain

meaning which may not be evident in the message itself. In the sentence ‘There’s
a fly in my soup’, the message is that ‘There is a fly in my soup’ in which the
speaker’s intention may be to complain. So the meaning of the utterance contains
the meaning of complaint. A hearer hearing this sentence may interpret it not just
as a statement but as a request to take the soup away. That is, the meaning will
include some intended effect on the hearer.

The consideration of meaning as a part of the utterance or speech act was

initiated by the philosopher J.L. Austin (How to Do Things with Words) and
developed by J. Searle and H.Y. Grice. Austin makes a distinction between Sense
and Force. Sense is the logical meaning of a sentence. Austin calls it the
locutionary meaning. Force is the act performed in uttering a sentence. It is the
performative meaning, defined by Austin as Illocutionary Force. For example, the
utterance ‘Please shut the door’ is an imperative sentence. The logical context is
that of shutting the door. It will have the force of request if the speaker and
hearer are in some relationship which allows the speaker to make requests to the
hearer, the hearer is in a position where he is capable of shutting the door, there
is a particular door which the speaker is indicating and that door is open.

In this sentence, sense and force are very similar to each other. However, in some
cases there may be a difference. For example, if the speaker says, Can you shut
the door?’ the sentence form is interrogative, the sense is ‘can’ + ‘you’ + ‘shut the
door’, that is, the logical meaning of the sentence is a question about the ability
of the hearer to shut the door, evident in the sense of the modal ‘can’. However,
the force is still that of request. In such an utterance, it is clear that the sense is
not the total meaning of the utterance, and that if only the sense is considered;
the utterance will not succeed as a successful communication.

It is for this reason that Grice explains that all communication takes place in a
situation where people are co-operative. When people communicate, they
assume that the other person will be cooperative and they themselves wish to
cooperate. Grice calls this the ‘Cooperative Principle’. Under this principle, the
following maxims are followed:

(i) Maxim of quantity. Give the right amount of information, neither less nor
more than what is required.

(ii) Maxim of quality. Make your contribution such that it is true; do not say what
you know is false

(iii) Maxim of relation. Be relevant.

(iv) Maxim of manner. Avoid obscurity and ambiguity; be brief and orderly.

These ‘Maxims’ are different from rules in that while rules cannot be violated,
maxims are often violated. That is, people often give more or less information
than required, or make irrelevant contributions. When this happens, some
implied meanings arise as a result. For example, in the interaction:

A : Where’s my box of chocolates?

B : The children were in your room this morning.

B violates the Maxim of relation because the reply is apparently not relevant to
A’s question.

A proper response to A’s question would be that B answers A’s question about
where the chocolates are. Since B does not give this answer, it implies that B does
not know the answer, and also implies a suggestion on B’s part that the children
may have taken the chocolates.
The insights provided by these theories of pragmatics have helped us to
understand meaning as part of communication rather than as something abstract.