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Pragmatics: Basic Concepts

1. Language Use. We begin by setting out a good

working definition of pragmatics.

Pragmatics: the study of language use in

particular situations

This talk about “use” might seem like old hat, after
our study of semantics. After all, the rules
for “using” a sentence like “It's raining” are pretty
simple: you say it when it's raining, and you don't
say it when it's not. In other words, you say the
sentence in those contexts where it's true, and you
don't say it in contexts where it's false. If language
use boils down to a matter of truth and falsehood,
then it looks like “the study of language use in
particular contexts” is just good old semantics. So
who need pragmatics?

But that picture of language use is far too simple. In

fact, we can see, from a couple simple examples,
that even when we've nailed down the semantics of
a sentence (its truth and meaning), we still haven't
settled how the sentence is used in a particular
context.

Consider the following example, where the same

sentence (meaning the same thing throughout)is
used in two different ways (in two different
contexts):

1. My car is in a No Parking zone, and a police

officer approaches. I tell him: “My car has a flat
tire”.

2. I enter a tire store, and tell the person at the

counter: “My car has a flat tire”.

Now, the sentence is equally true in both cases;

and, indeed, the all the words in the sentence (and
so the whole sentence itself) means the same thing
in both cases. So in terms of semantics – meaning
 and truth – the sentence is the same in both cases.
Still, I'm using the sentence to do different things in
the two situations – to excuse myself in the first
context, to request help in the second. This feature
of use, above and beyond the semantic issues of
truth and meaning, is the sort of thing pragmatics is
concerned with; and we see that, even when the
semantic dust has settled, there are still pragmatic
issues to be dealt with.

2. Unspoken Messages. A way of understanding

this talk about "using" is to think of it in terms of
communicating unspoken messages: In both
contexts, I'm reporting my flat tire; but in each case
I'm also communicating some second message as
well (“It's not my fault I'm in a No Parking
zone”; “I would like you to fix the tire”.)

In each case my audience immediately understands

the unspoken message I'm communicating. And
notice it's a different unspoken message in the two
cases – so there was nothing about the words in the
sentence that tipped off the listener (they remained
the same throughout). So how do we know which
unspoken message to 'get'? (We don't hear it – it's
unspoken!)

(i) Obviously the context of utterance makes a big

difference as to which unspoken message gets sent
(that's what changed from one case to the next).

(ii) We will propose that we share certain implicit

(unspoken) conversational rules for how to
communicate unspoken messages – if you and I use
the same rules, then you'll be able to figure out
what I'm leaving unsaid.

3. Conversations. To spell this out more carefully,

we introduce some very basic pragmatic notions
that we will build off of. The most basic is the
Conversation.

A conversation is any episode of language use to

communicate information from one person to
some other(s)
Notice that a conversation doesn't have to be an
even exchange: a logic lecture is an extended (and
very one-sided) conversation, because it involves at
least two participants and language is being used to
communicate information. So “conversation,” in
the special sense meant here, includes what we'd
ordinarily call a conversation, but much more as
well – any episode of linguistic communication
involving (at least) two parties. (But talking to
yourself doesn't count as a conversation.)

4. The Conversational Background. As

conversations proceed, and as we move from one
conversation to the next, we accumulate
information – for example, all the sentences we've
heard (and accepted). For instance, there are things
I can count on you to know about the definition of
the word “pragmatics” now; but I couldn't have
expected you to know this information (say) a week
ago. So that definition is now in the background of
accepted information that we hold in common, and
we can all count on each other to know that
information in our conversation.

We call this set of accepted background sentences

the Conversational Background.

We might consider defining the Conversational

Background as the set of sentences believed by all
the participants in a conversation. But in fact that
definition would be too narrow, since we
sometimes we share a common assumption, for the
sake of discussion, that in fact we don't all believe.
For example, an atheist could discuss the nature of
God with someone who believes in God (saying
things like “But then why does God allow evil in
the world?” etc.), and speak throughout the
conversation as if God exists, even though he didn't
believe in God. He would then be 'entertaining' the
claim “God exists,” temporarily adopting this claim
for the sake of argument, without truly believing it.

The same sort of temporary assumption occurs in

discussion of fictional people and events. In a
discussion of Sherlock Holmes' behavior and
attitudes, we assume (for the duration of the
discussion) that Sherlock Holmes exists, and has
the characteristics reported in the stories by A.C.
 Doyle, and so on; but we don't necessarily believe
these claims. On the other hand, if we are
disagreeing about whether Jupiter is further from
Earth than Saturn, we are likewise accepting that
Jupiter and Saturn exist – and here we really
believe this. In both cases the claims are in the
conversational background. The claim that
Sherlock Holmes exists and did those things is only
temporarily in the conversational background, for
the duration of our literary discussion; but we don't
go on through life continuing to assume these
things. The claim that Jupiter and Saturn exist is, by
contrast, an enduring part of the conversational
background, that we remain committed to
throughout our day.

(Fans of symbolic logic can think of two other

familiar cases where we temporarily adopt claims
for the sake of argument: the assumptions of
Conditional and Indirect Deductions. In
Conditional Deductions we temporarily assume one
sentence, and show that it leads to another
sentence; but when we're done with the CD, we
don't remain committed to that assumption, only to
the claim that if that assumption [the antecedent]
were true, the second claim [the consequent] would
be as well. Likewise in an Indirect Deduction, we
assume a certain sentence for the sake of argument,
only to show that it would lead to an absurdity or
impossibility – at which point we kick out that
original assumption, and believe its opposite
instead. In both cases the assumption is dropped
once we close the derivation box.)

We will use the general word “acceptance” to cover

both kinds of conversational commitment to a
sentence – the temporary, hypothetical commitment
to the existence of Sherlock Holmes, and the
enduring commitment to the existence of Saturn
and Jupiter. We can then define the Conversational
Background in terms of acceptance:

The conversational background is the set of

sentences accepted by all the participants in a
conversation
 We turn next to the various ways of getting
sentences into the Conversational Background.

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