Pragmatics! | Linguistic II

 

Pragmatics is a crucial part of the language because it allows adaptation in the communication process, allowing people to understand what is being said since it studies how the context influences the interpretation of the meaning of a message. In the process of acquiring a language, it is required to properly develop pragmatic skills to improve communicative competence, through the proper use of conversational rules for a coherent discourse. These competencies constitute the ability to interact through language.

The development of pragmatic competence depends on general communicative knowledge and interactional opportunities to:

1) practice the target language, allowing learners to demonstrate their skills

2) receive constructive feedback

3) observe linguistic input.

Culture is an important aspect to considerate since influences the language that is spoken within its constraints as a society, such as how certain words are used in support of the culture. It's through language that members of a specific culture communicate with each other and create bonds with each other. Language is a way that others identify specific cultures, be it based on a geographical regional culture, or a social culture based on ideology. The culture develops its own language and has nuances accompanied by forms of group body language and voice inflections.

Examples of the importance of pragmatics in language is reflected

1)“How are you?” This everyday greeting is rarely met with a response that involves discussing every medical and personal detail that may affect how the person is feeling on a given day (which would make up a literal response to the question). Instead, you might respond to the question with: “Fine, how are you?” This would be a pragmatic response since you are making a presupposition that the speaker’s intention was for the question to be an implied greeting and not a literal question about how you are doing at that exact moment.

 2)“Luggage must be carried on the escalator.” This sentence on a referential sign in an airport is linguistically ambiguous, although not usually pragmatically ambiguous. Someone who has never gone to an airport before might misinterpret the semantic, literal meaning as a command that everyone must rush over to the escalator while carrying their luggage. But thanks to pragmatics (the inclusion of context with the sign), you know that the sign only applies to people who are actively taking luggage onto the escalator, not to everyone. The context of the situation determines the sentence’s meaning.

 3)“I have two sons.” While not necessarily ambiguous, this sentence contains an implication that the speaker has no more than two sons; however, it’s possible the speaker could have more than two sons and the statement would still be truthful. Pragmatics incorporates the context of an utterance to determine meaning. Therefore, a preceding question of “Do you have any children?” would change the response’s implication to be that the speaker only has two children—two sons. Furthermore, a preceding question of “Do you have any sons?” would change the response’s implication to be that the speaker might have one or more daughters in addition to having two sons.