M. A. I english P. C3 & C6 Modern Linguistics title pmd

1.2
Meaning and Definitions
Pragmaticsas a study of meaning in discourse is an interdisciplinary field. 
‘Pragmatics’ offers a totally different perspective to language. It studies language in 
its socio-cultural context; the problems and principles of the use of language in 
social interaction.It is a user-oriented view on language.It concerns itself with the 
study of language usage, namely what people mean by what they say. Pragmatics 
establishes a link between language and human life in general. It describes not so 
much a system of symbols (which is the job of syntax and semantics), but what 
people do with the system. 
An utterance is used for communicative purposes. An utterance is not just 
the exposition of grammatical rules, but it is the exposition of intended meaning. The 
fact is that in every conversation more is communicated than is actually said. The 
study of what is said directly through words, the coded meaning, is the concern of 
Semantics, but the study of what is implied, non-coded meaning, is the concern of 
Pragmatics. Unlike structuralism, the main focus of Pragmatics is the process of 
language production and its producers not the end product language. 
Jacob Mey describes the emergence of Pragmatics as, 
… a shift from the paradigm of theoretical grammar (in particular syntax) to the 
paradigm of the language user (2001:04).

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Charles Morris, attempted to define Pragmatics as,
…the study of the relation of signs to interpreters (1938:6).
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary definition of Pragmatics reads as,
“The study of the way in which language is used to express what somebody really 
means in particular situations, especially when the actual words used may appear to 
mean something different. (2005, P: 1182).
Pragmatics is a part of linguistics, but is not a component of linguistics like 
syntax or semantics. We have to distinguish between linguistics of language 
resources and linguistics of language use.According to Leech (1983:04) “Grammar 
and Pragmatics are complementary domains within linguistics”. Language cannot be 
understood without studying these domains and the interaction between them. 
Pragmatics also can be distinguished from other interdisciplinary fields of 
investigation such as neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and 
anthropological linguistics. Each of these fields has their own limitation. They are 
bound to certain aspects of human life, whereas Pragmatics is concerned with the 
full complexity of linguistic behaviour.
To sum up, we might say that Pragmatics isthe investigation of invisible 
meaning. Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said 
(Yule: 1996).