WHAT IS PRAGMATICS?

What do these children still need to learn about

using language?
A little boy comes to the front door.
Mother: Wipe your feet, please.
He removes his muddy shoes and socks carefully
wipes his clean feet on the doormat.
A father is trying to get his 3-year-old daughter
to stop lifting up her dress to display her new
underwear to the assembled guests.
Father: we don’t DO that.
Daughter: I KNOW, Daddy. You don’t WEAR
dresses
• Generally speaking, SEMANTICS focuses on
meaning that comes from purely linguistic
knowledge, while PRAGMATICS focuses on
those aspects of meaning that cannot be
predicted by linguistic knowledge alone and
takes into account knowledge about the
physical and social world.
• What is the definition of meaning then?
What is meaning?
Meaning is described in Wordnet browser as (1) the
message that is intended or expressed or signified;
and (2) the idea that is intended. The term meaning is
simply derived from the word mean. In the same
browser this word may be used to mean: mean or
intend to express or convey; have logical
consequence; denote or connote; have in mind as a
purpose; have a specified of degree of importance;
think of, have in mind, mean; destine or designate for
a certain purpose.
The word mean can be used in a number of ways:
1. I mean (intend) to help if I can.
2. Without you life wouldn’t mean anything (have any
purpose)
3. They are so mean (cruel) to me.
4. He is losing his job means (implies) that he will have to
look for again.
5. Gudang Garam means (indicates) fine tobacco.
6. This will mean(result in) the beginning of semester.
7. Procrastinate means (?) to ‘to put things off’
8. In saying that, she meant (?) that we should leave
• (a) What does cat mean? (b) What does cream
mean? (c) What does to drink mean? Thry to
define them. Thus, lexical semantics.
• What does cat drink cream mean? Try to
define it, perhaps by paraphrasing it. Thus,
sentence semantics.
• To provide a paraphrase we used our
knowledge of the meanings of the individual
words but we also used our knowledge of
English grammar. For example, word order is
very important for establishing sentence
meaning in English. The sentences Cats chase
mice and Mice chase cats contain the same
words but have entirely different meanings.
• Mike, Annie and Mike’s cat, Felix, are in
Mike’s kitchen. What did Annie mean?
Mike: What happened to that bowl of cream?
Annie: Cats drink milk.
Here we are no longer talking simply about what
words or sentences mean, but what a person
means as well. We have entered the realm of
pragmatics meaning and yet another meaning of
meaning.
• We can make these layers of meaning explicit
by providing separate paraphrase for semantic
meaning ( a semantic paraphrase or SP) and a
pragmatic meaning (a pragmatic paraphrase
or PP).
• Cats drink milk
SP: Domestic feline consume the liquid of milk.
PP: Felix probably drank the cream.
• Linguists often make distinction between a
SENTENCE and an UTTERANCE for two
reasons. First, pragmatic analyzes language
in use and many of the utterance we use do
not consist of full sentences yet are entirely
understandable in context
Jane: Coffee?
Steve: Sure.
Jane: White?
Steve: Black.
• Second, while we can talk about the two
sentences Cats drink cream and Cats drink
cream are being exactly the same, we cannot
really say this about sentences because each
utterance is unique event created at a
particular point of time for a particular
purpose.
 • Provide semantic meaning (SP) and a pragmatic
meaning (PP) for it’s cold here in two different
context, (a) and (b) below:
(a) Mike and Annie are in the living room. Mike asks
Annie whether she’d like to eat dinner in the
living room or kitchen. Annie replies: It’s cold in
here.
(b) The queen and her butler, James are in the
drawing room. The window is open. The queen
says: It’ cold in here.