Pragmatics

Pragmatics is one of the six micro-linguistic levels you study in English language. It is about how language is used in context.

When we’re talking about context here, it’s not just about historical context. Pragmatics covers all sorts of things, including:

• Who the text receiver is.
• Who the text producer is.
• Why the text is being produced.
• Where and when the text was made.
• Whether a text has followed or deviated from conventions.
• What was said before and what will be said after.
• The relationship between the text producer and text receiver.
• The social and power dynamics of the text.
• The connotations of the words used.
• Non-verbal information like body language, facial expression, eye contact, etc (paralinguistics).
• The knowledge that the text producer and receiver have access to (schema).
• Social context.

There are plenty of other things, but this is a good start!

Grice’s Maxims and Politeness Theory both fall into the study of pragmatics. They’re both very useful things to talk about, along with many other areas of pragmatics! So, this is one of the most important micro-linguistic levels to understand.

In some ways, pragmatics can be considered to be the opposite of semantics, one of the other micro-linguistic fields. While semantics is concerned with the literal meaning of the language we use, pragmatics is all about how context can change how we interpret it.

How Semantics and Pragmatics Differ – Example

Let’s look at an example of the difference between semantics and pragmatics. The clause “It’s Tuesday” is probably one of my favourite examples.

Semantically, “It’s Tuesday” just means you’re telling your text receiver what day of the week it is. That’s all there is to it on the literal side of things. However, when you think about where and why you say that clause, it can mean a whole lot more.

Let’s imagine that the other person in the conversation (interlocutor) just said “I had a terrible day”. Suddenly, the pragmatic meaning of “It’s Tuesday” changes drastically. You might interpret their words to mean that Tuesdays are always terrible days.

On the other hand, you could both have the shared knowledge (schema) that someone is going to die on Tuesday. Suddenly, the clause takes on a much more sinister meaning. You’re reminding your interlocutor that something bad is going to happen.

If you suddenly shout “It’s Tuesday” and your body language shows shock and confusion, you create the pragmatic meaning that you forgot what day of the week it was. Your text receiver might also assume that it was important for you to remember the day of the week. Maybe you had something you needed to do!

Can you think of any other ways that context could change the meaning of the phrase “It’s Tuesday”? If you can, write them in the comments!

Different Areas of Pragmatics

As I mentioned before, there are some very useful theories and concepts in pragmatics. I’ve named some of them before, but here’s a larger list to help you:

• Grice’s Maxims (or the Cooperative Principle)
• Politeness Theory
• Face Theory
• Speech Acts
• Paralinguistics
• Discourse Events
• Schema
• Euphemisms
• Performative Utterances

As I said with the previous list, this isn’t definitive. However, it is a useful place to start if you’re trying to work out what counts as pragmatics and what doesn’t.

Why This Knowledge is Useful for A-level English

I love using the micro-linguistic levels to teach students A-level English Language and Literature. When I combine those six levels with foregrounding theory, I arm my students with the most useful knowledge to analyse and talk about texts.

Pragmatics is a lens that you can use to look at language. I can ask my students to only focus on the pragmatics of a text when they read it. Then, I can ask them to move on and look at the text through the lens of one of the other six micro-linguistic levels.

This arms them with a much more profound, detailed way to look at their text. You can guarantee that it helps them to get better marks!

Plus, it opens up new ways of looking at texts. By the time you get to A-level, you’re going to be looking at texts that aren’t packed with metaphor after metaphor. Examiners want you to find the deeper, less obvious ways that text producers communicate and create messages. This is one of those ways.

Also, if you forget a term like “Grice’s Maxims”, learning the names of the micro-linguistic levels can be a life-saver. They count as terminology just as much as “onomatopoeia” or “blank verse” do. So, if you use the word “pragmatics” in your exam, you’re getting just as many points!

It’s so easy to look over your work and tell which one you’re using too much. Many of my students analyse graphology way too much and forget about pragmatics or semantics. That’s a really useful piece of feedback that they can fix. So, I don’t have to explain in great detail what I need from them!