What did they mean by that?

It’s a relatively common question, and it’s precisely the subject of

the field of pragmatics. In order to know what someone meant by what they said, it’s not enough
to know the meanings of the words (semantics) and how they have been strung together into a
sentence (syntax); we also need to know who uttered the sentence and in what context, and to be
able to make inferences regarding why they said it and what they intended us to understand .
There’s one piece of pizza left can be understood as an offer (“would you like it?”) or a warning
(“it’s mine!”) or a scolding (“you didn’t finish your dinner”), depending on the situation, even if
the follow-up comments in parentheses are never uttered. People commonly mean quite a lot
more than they say explicitly, and it’s up to their addressees to figure out what additional
meaning they might have intended. A psychiatrist asking a patient Can you express deep grief?
would not be taken to be asking the patient to engage in such a display immediately, but a movie
director speaking to an actor might well mean exactly that. The literal meaning is a question
about an ability (“are you able to do so?”); the additional meaning is a request (“please do so”)
that may be inferred in some contexts but not others. The literal meaning is the domain of
semantics; the “additional meaning” is the domain of pragmatics.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and the study of linguistics typically includes,
among other things, the study of our knowledge of sound systems (phonology), word structure
(morphology), and sentence structure (syntax). It is also commonly pointed out that there is an
important distinction to be made between our competence and our performance. Our competence
is our (in principle flawless) knowledge of the rules of our own idiolect – our own individual
internalized system of language that has a great deal in common with the idiolects of other
speakers in our community but almost certainly is not identical to any of them. (For example, it’s
unlikely that any two speakers share the same set of lexical items.) Our performance, on the
other hand, is what we actually do linguistically – including all of our hems and haws, false
starts, interrupted sentences, and speech errors, as well as our frequently imperfect
comprehension: Linguists commonly point to sentences like The horse raced past the barn fell as
cases in which our competence allows us – eventually – to recognize the sentence as
grammatical (having the same structure as The men injured on the battlefield died), even though
our imperfect performance in this instance initially causes us to mis-parse the sentence. ( Such
sentences are known as garden-path sentences, since we are led “down the garden path”
toward an incorrect interpretation and have to retrace our steps in order to get to the right one.)
Pragmatics may be roughly defined as the study of language use in context – as compared with
semantics, which is the study of literal meaning independent of context. If I’m having a hard day,
I may tell you that my day has been a nightmare – but of course I don’t intend you to take that
literally; that is, the day hasn’t in fact been something I’ve had a bad dream about. In this case
the semantic meaning of “nightmare” (a bad dream) differs from its pragmatic meaning – that is,
the meaning I intended in the context of my utterance. Given this difference, it might appear at
first glance as though semantic meaning is a matter of competence, while pragmatic meaning is a
matter of performance. However, our knowledge of pragmatics, like all of our linguistic
knowledge, is rule-governed
Definitions and background
Pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and
interpreted by a listener (or reader). It has, consequently, more to do with the analysis of what people
mean by their utterances than what the words or phrases in those utterances might mean by themselves.
Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning.
This type of study necessarily involves the interpretation of what people mean in a particular context and
how the context influences what is said. It requires a consideration of how speakers organize what they
want to say in accordance with who they're talking to, where, when, and under what circumstances.
Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning.
This approach also necessarily explores how listeners can make inferences about what is said in order to
arrive at an interpretation of the speaker's intended meaning. This type of study explores how a great deal
of what is unsaid is recognized as part of what is communicated. We might say that it is the investigation
of invisible meaning. Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said.
This perspective then raises the question of what determines the choice between the said and the unsaid.
The basic answer is tied to the notion of distance. Closeness, whether it is physical, social, or conceptual,
implies shared experience. On the assumption of how close or distant the listener is, speakers determine
how much needs to be said. Pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance.

Syntax, semantics, and pragmatics

One traditional distinction in language analysis contrasts pragmatics with syntax and semantics. Syntax
is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms, how they are arranged in sequence, and which
sequences are well-formed. This type of study generally takes place without considering any world of
reference or any user of the forms. Semantics is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms
and entities in the world; that is, how words literally connect to things. Semantic analysis also attempts to
establish the relationships between verbal descriptions and states of affairs in the world as accurate (true)
or not, regardless of who produces that description.
Pragmatics is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the users of those forms. In this
three-part distinction, only pragmatics allows humans into the analysis. The advantage of studying
language via pragmatics is that one can talk about people's intended meanings, their assumptions, their
purposes or goals, and the kinds of actions (for example, requests) that they are performing when they
speak. The big disadvantage is that all these very human concepts are extremely difficult to analyze in a
consistent and objective way. Two friends having a conversation may imply some things and infer some
others without providing any clear linguistic evidence that we can point to as the explicit source of 'the
meaning' of what was communicated. Example [i] is just such a problematic case. I heard the speakers, I
knew what they said, but I had no idea what was communicated.
[i] Her: So—did you? Him:
Hey—who wouldn't?
Thus, pragmatics is appealing because it's about how people make sense of each other linguistically, but it
can be a frustrating area of study because it requires us to make sense of people and what they have in
mind.

Regularity
Luckily, people tend to behave in fairly regular ways when it comes to using language. Some of that
regularity derives from the fact that people are members of social groups and follow general patterns of
behavior expected within the group. Within a familiar social group, we normally find it easy to be polite
and say appropriate things. In a new, unfamiliar social setting, we are often unsure about what to say and
worry that we might say the wrong thing
A: how do you do
B: how do you do
Another source of regularity in language use derives from the fact that most people within a linguistic
community have similar basic experiences of the world and share a lot of non-linguistic knowledge. Let's
say that, in the middle of a conversation, I mention the information in [z].
[2] I found an old bicycle lying on the ground. The chain was rusted and the tires were flat.
this type of assumption, it would be pragmatically odd for me to have expressed [2] as [3].
[3] I found an old bicycle. A bicycle has a chain. The chain was rusted. A bicycle also has tires. The tires
were flat.
You would perhaps think that more was being communicated than was being said and that you were
being treated as someone with no basic knowledge (i.e. as stupid) Once again, nothing in the use of the
linguistic forms is inaccurate, but getting the pragmatics wrong might be offensive

Pragmatics wastebasket

means when you consider things that are just pragmatics, but not real linguistics. Some linguists say that pragmatics
studies only those things which are not worthy of scientific study. In other words, they consider pragmatics as
meaningless stuff. In modern terms, the meaning of pragmatics wastebasket is taken differently. For example, if
someone says, ‘I am tossing that question in pragmatics wastebasket’, the meaning it seems to carry is that ‘that
question is just pragmatics and therefore not worthy of scientific study. But what it really means is that ‘that
question is worthy of scientific study but too hard to deal with right now, or it would take us too far afield’. The term
‘Pragmatics Wastebasket’ was used for the first time in 1970 by Yehoshua Bar-Hillel. He argued that someone
needed to ‘clean the basket’. He comes up with a serious study of pragmatics. His study resulted in a book known as
Pragmatics of Natural Languages.

In the beginning, semantics was considered known as the “waste-basket of syntax”. In the late fifties and early
sixties, linguists considered linguistics a science. For this purpose, they applied several mathematical methods to
linguistics study. At that time, linguistics was considered an algebra of language. Then in the mid-fifties, the theory
of generative transformational grammar came. This theory was given by Chomsky. He did not give much attention
to the study of meaning and his research was more titled towards grammar. That’s why his research domain was
quite limited. This is how semantics came to be called the “waste-basket of syntax”. Some linguistics in the early
seventies began to study meaning. They considered their study as the foundation of linguistics research instead of
syntax. Their main concern was only to study those conditions which can make a sentence right or wrong. For this
purpose, they did not deal with any questions. Those unsolved questions were thrown into a new basket which is
known as, pragmatic basket. Later, these questions were dealt with by other linguists and these questions were
considered the main items of the pragmatics study. In this sense, pragmatics became the wastebasket of semantics.

When Pragmatics was considered as a wastebasket, it implies not only that it is a pile of garbage, but also that some
useful material can be extracted from some pile of garbage. Pragmatics study leads to the study of discourse
structure that was once considered ‘just pragmatics. Its formal study took it out of the trash and made it a part of
‘real linguistics’. Mey (2001) states that pragmatics emerged from “waste-basket of semantics” and became part of
real linguistics research.

Yehoshua Bar-Hillel was formal linguist. He wrote a report to the US military in the late ’60s, that the effort to date
on machine translation was never going to pay off, thereby stopping all research in machine translation for the next
20 years. He also wrote a little note in 1971 in Linguistic Inquiry (the home journal of Evil Chomskian Formalists),
saying something like this: “We’ve been treating pragmatics as a waste-basket of random crap that we don’t bother
to account for in the language. Every so often, someone goes through the waste-basket of random crap and picks out
something they think they can account for in their new shiny formal syntactic-semantic theory. Instead of treating
pragmatics as a waste basket, and cherry-picking it for bits to account for formally, why we don’t instead start taking
pragmatics seriously and account for the stuff in the “waste basket” on its own terms?”

To conclude, pragmatics is not a wastebasket, but it is given this name because it studies those items which were left
in semantics. Those items were not properly dealt with and were put in the wastebasket. Those items left many
unsolved questions and those questions were not given importance. Linguistics in pragmatics answered those
questions and lead to the emergence of pragmatics as a proper field. source: pragmatics waste basket:
SCRIBD.COM
Linguists and philosophers of language have often focused on the formal structure and logic of language,
much like mathematicians. Their main interest has been in uncovering the basic, universal principles that
underlie language. Because of this focus, everyday language use—how people actually speak and
understand each other in daily life—was often overlooked or considered unimportant. This everyday
language use was pushed aside and eventually discarded, but it's now become a rich area of study.

For example, when analyzing a sentence like "The duck ran up to Mary and licked her," linguists
interested in syntax (the rules governing sentence structure) would focus on making sure the sentence
follows the correct order and rules, like avoiding incorrect versions such as "*Up duck Mary to the ran."
They might also note that the sentence implies a missing word ("and _ licked her"), but they wouldn't care
whether ducks can actually lick people. In fact, from a purely structural viewpoint, even a nonsensical
sentence like "The bottle of ketchup ran up to Mary" is technically correct.

On the other hand, semanticists (who study meaning) would be concerned with whether the sentence
makes sense. They’d note that "duck" refers to something alive, while a "bottle of ketchup" does not, and
that certain actions (like "ran up to") require a living subject. They'd also be interested in whether the
sentence is true, considering both parts of the sentence as separate propositions (labeled as p and q). If
both p and q are true, then the whole sentence is true. But if either is false, the whole sentence is false.

A key point here is that, in formal logic, the order of events doesn’t matter. For example, if "The duck ran
up to Mary and licked her" is true, then "The duck licked Mary and ran up to her" would also be true. But
in everyday language, the order in which events are mentioned often reflects the actual order in which
they happened. We naturally assume that "and" in a sentence like this means "and then," which isn’t a
rule of syntax or semantics but a pragmatic principle—a way we interpret language based on common
sense and context.

Finally, there are many other principles like this in pragmatics, where more is communicated than is
directly said. For example, when two people share a lot of common ground, they need to use fewer words
to communicate, which is why they might use words like "this" or "that" to refer to things they both
understand without needing detailed explanations. This area of study, where we explore how context and
shared knowledge shape language use, is part of the study of deixis.

Here are some key reasons why pragmatics is studied:

We study pragmatics in linguistics to understand how context influences the interpretation of meaning
in communication. While syntax, semantics, and phonology focus on the structure and inherent meaning
of language, pragmatics is concerned with how meaning is constructed and understood in real-life
situations.

1. Contextual Meaning
- Technical Terms:
- Deixis: Words or phrases like "this," "that," "here," "there," "now," and "then" that point to the time,
place, or person involved in the communication. Their meaning is context-dependent.
- Example: "I’ll meet you here tomorrow." The meaning of "here" and "tomorrow" depends on the
time and place of the conversation.

Deixis is a technical term (from Greek) for one of the most basic things we do with utterances. It means
'pointing' via language. Any linguistic form used to accomplish this 'pointing' is called a deictic
expression. When you notice a strange object and ask, 'What's that?', you are using a deictic expression
('that') to indicate something in the immediate context. Deictic expressions are also sometimes called
indexicals. They are among the first forms to be spoken by very young children and can be used to
indicate people via person deixis ('me', 'you'), or location via spatial deixis ('here', 'there'), or time via
temporal deixis ('now', 'then'). All these expressions depend, for their interpretation, on the speaker
and hearer sharing the same context. Indeed, deictic expressions have their most basic uses in face-to-
face spoken interaction where utterances such as [1] are easily understood by the people present, but
may need a translation for someone not right there.

[1] I'll put this here.

(Of course, you understood that Jim was telling Anne that he was about to put an extra house key in one
of the kitchen drawers.) Deixis is clearly a form of referring that is tied to the speaker's context, with the
most basic distinction between deictic expressions being 'near speaker' versus 'away from speaker'. In
English, the 'near speaker', or proximal terms, are 'this', 'here', 'now'. The 'away from speaker', or distal
terms, are 'that', 'there', 'then'. Proximal terms are typically interpreted in terms of the speaker's
location, or the deictic center, so that 'now' is generally understood as referring to some point or period
in time that has the time of the speaker's utterance at its center. Distal terms can simply indicate 'away
from speaker', but, in some languages, can be used to distinguish between 'near addressee' and 'away
from both speaker and addressee'. Thus, in Japanese, the translation of the pronoun 'that' will
distinguish between 'that near addressee' 'sore' and 'that distant from both speaker and addressee' 'are'
with a third term being used for the proximal 'this near speaker' 'kore\

- Context: The surrounding factors (physical, social, and linguistic) that influence how language is
interpreted.
- Example: The phrase "It’s cold in here" could be a simple observation or a request to close the
window, depending on the context.
- Co-text: The linguistic context or surrounding text that helps clarify meaning.
- Example: Understanding "bank" as a financial institution versus the side of a river depends on the
co-text.
- Indexicals: Linguistic expressions that point to a particular time, place, or person, often relying on
context for their meaning.
- Example: "I am here now." The words "I," "here," and "now" are indexicals, whose meaning
depends on who is speaking, where, and when.
- Theories:
- Contextualism: A theory that argues the meaning of utterances cannot be fully understood without
considering the context in which they are made.
- Speech Context Theory: Focuses on how the specific context of a speech event shapes the meaning
and interpretation of language.
- Significance: These theories help us understand that language is not static; meaning is often fluid and
context-dependent. By analyzing context, we can better interpret what speakers intend to convey and how
listeners might understand it.

2. Implied Meaning
- Technical Terms:
- Implicature: Information implied by a speaker but not directly expressed.
- Example: If someone says, "John’s car is parked outside," the implicature might be that John is
nearby.
- Conversational Implicature: A specific type of implicature that arises during conversation when a
speaker implies something based on the assumption that the listener will understand it.
- Example: "Are you coming to the party?" "I have to work early tomorrow." The implicature is that
the person might not be coming because of work.
 - Gricean Maxims: Guidelines proposed by H.P. Grice that speakers usually follow to ensure effective
communication:
- Maxim of Quality: Say what you believe to be true.
- Maxim of Quantity: Provide the right amount of information.
- Maxim of Relevance: Be relevant.
- Maxim of Manner: Be clear and orderly.
- Theories:
- Implicature Theory: Developed by H.P. Grice, this theory explains how listeners infer meaning based
on what is said and what is left unsaid, using the Gricean Maxims.
- Cooperative Principle: The idea that speakers and listeners generally try to cooperate in
communication, making conversation efficient and meaningful.
- Significance: Understanding implicature and the cooperative principle helps us navigate
conversations where much of the meaning is implied rather than explicitly stated. This enhances our
ability to read between the lines and grasp the intended message.

3. Speech Acts
- Technical Terms:
- Speech Acts: Actions performed via utterances, such as requesting, promising, apologizing, or
commanding.
- Example: Saying "I apologize" performs the act of apologizing.
- Illocutionary Acts: The intention behind the utterance, what the speaker intends to accomplish.
- Example: "Could you close the window?" is an illocutionary act of making a request.
- Perlocutionary Acts: The effect the utterance has on the listener, such as persuading, frightening, or
amusing them.
- Example: After hearing "There’s a spider on your shoulder," the listener might jump, demonstrating
the perlocutionary effect of the utterance.
- Performatives: Statements that perform an action simply by being uttered, such as "I hereby declare
you husband and wife."
- Theories:
- Speech Act Theory: Proposed by John L. Austin and further developed by John Searle, this theory
categorizes the different functions language can perform in communication, emphasizing that saying
something often equals doing something.
- Felicity Conditions: Specific conditions that must be met for a speech act to be successfully
performed. For example, a promise must be about something in the future, and the speaker must intend to
keep the promise.
 - Significance: Speech Act Theory allows us to understand how language is used to accomplish actions
in social interactions, moving beyond the idea of language as merely conveying information. This theory
is crucial for understanding how communication operates in real-life contexts.

4. Conversational Rules
- Technical Terms:
- Turn-Taking: The process by which speakers in a conversation alternate turns speaking.
- Example: During a phone call, one person speaks, and the other listens, then they switch roles.
- Adjacency Pairs: Pairs of related utterances by two speakers, where the first utterance provokes a
specific type of response.
- Example: Question-Answer pairs, like "How are you?" followed by "I’m fine."
- Repair Mechanisms: Techniques used to correct or clarify communication when misunderstandings
occur.
- Example: If someone says, "What did you say?" they are initiating repair.
- Conversational Implicature: As previously mentioned, it refers to implied meanings understood
through conversational context.
- Theories:
- Conversation Analysis: Developed by Emanuel Schegloff and Harvey Sacks, this approach studies
the structure and organization of conversation, focusing on how people manage turn-taking, repair
mechanisms, and adjacency pairs.
- Turn-Taking Model: This model describes the rules and patterns governing how people take turns
during a conversation, ensuring smooth and cooperative interaction.
- Significance: These theories and concepts help us understand the subtle, often unconscious rules that
govern our everyday conversations, making it easier to analyze and improve communication practices.

5. Politeness and Social Dynamics

- Technical Terms:
- Face: The public self-image that a person wants to present in a social interaction.
- Example: If someone tries to be polite to avoid embarrassment, they are protecting their own face or
the face of others.
- Politeness Strategies: Techniques used to mitigate face-threatening acts (FTAs), ensuring that
communication is respectful and harmonious.
- Example: Saying "Could you please pass the salt?" instead of "Pass the salt" is a politeness strategy.
 - Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs): Actions or words that might damage someone’s self-image or social
standing.
- Example: Criticizing someone in front of others can be an FTA.
- Facework: The actions people take to maintain their own face or that of others during interaction.
- Example: Offering compliments to soften criticism.
- Theories:
- Politeness Theory: Proposed by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, this theory explains how
people use language to manage face and avoid conflict through positive (building rapport) and negative
(avoiding imposition) politeness strategies.
- Face Negotiation Theory: Focuses on how people from different cultures manage face and conflict in
communication.
- Significance: Politeness Theory and related concepts help us understand the social aspects of
communication, explaining why people use indirect language, hedges, and other strategies to maintain
harmony and avoid offending others. This is particularly important in multicultural or sensitive social
settings.

6. Ambiguity and Interpretation

- Technical Terms:
- Ambiguity: The presence of two or more possible meanings within a single word, phrase, or
sentence.
- Example: "The man saw the boy with the telescope." It’s ambiguous whether the man used the
telescope or the boy had it.
- Presupposition: Assumptions that a speaker makes about what the listener already knows.
- Example: "Jane stopped smoking" presupposes that Jane once smoked.
- Inference: The process of drawing conclusions based on evidence and reasoning rather than explicit
statements.
- Example: If someone says, "I’m on a diet," you might infer that they won’t want dessert.
- Context Resolution: The use of context to resolve ambiguity or clarify meaning.
- Example: The word "bank" is clarified by the surrounding context: "He cashed a check at the bank."
- Theories:
- Relevance Theory: Developed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, this theory argues that
communication is guided by the search for relevance; listeners use context to interpret language by
finding the most relevant meaning based on available information.
- Theory of Presupposition: Focuses on how presuppositions influence understanding and
communication, assuming that certain background knowledge is shared between speaker and listener.
 - Significance: These theories help us navigate the inherent ambiguity

Pragmatics in linguistics often involves the study of how context influences meaning, and it can lead to
some amusing and intriguing examples. Here are a few:

### 1. **The Cooperative Principle (Grice's Maxims)**

- **Example:** If someone asks, "Can you pass the salt?" the literal meaning of the question is about
the ability to pass the salt, but the understood meaning (the pragmatic meaning) is a request for the salt. A
funny twist on this might be:
- **Response:** "Yes, I can!" (but without actually passing the salt).
- This plays with the expectation of relevance and cooperation in conversation.

### 2. **Conversational Implicature**

- **Example:** Imagine two friends discussing a third person who recently got a haircut.
- **Friend 1:** "Did you see John's new haircut?"
- **Friend 2:** "Well, he’s always had a unique sense of style."
- The implicature here is that Friend 2 doesn't think the haircut looks good, but they don’t say it
outright, which can be a subtle and funny way of being indirect.

### 3. **Politeness Strategies**

- **Example:** When someone says, "Would you mind closing the window?" the expected polite
response is to close the window. However, if you take it literally:
- **Response:** "Yes, I would mind." (But then you don't close the window.)
- This can lead to a humorous misunderstanding based on different interpretations of politeness.

### 4. **Speech Acts**

- **Example:** A famous example is when a parent says to a child, "If you don't stop making that
noise, I'll give you something to cry about." The speech act here is a warning or threat, but the literal
meaning is amusingly redundant since the child is already making noise or crying.

### 5. **Deixis and Context**

 - **Example:** If someone says, "I'll be there soon," without specifying where "there" is, it can lead to
funny situations where the listener assumes the wrong location, like waiting at a completely different
place.

### 6. **Sarcasm and Irony**

- **Example:** In a situation where it’s pouring rain, someone might say, "What a beautiful day!" The
literal meaning is contradicted by the context, which makes it sarcastic and often humorous.

### 7. **Ambiguity and Vagueness**

- **Example:**
- **Person A:** "I can't recommend this restaurant enough."
- **Person B:** "So, is that good or bad?"
- The statement is ambiguous because it could mean the restaurant is so good that words can’t describe
it, or it’s so bad that they can’t recommend it at all, leading to confusion and potentially funny
misunderstandings.

These examples showcase how much of what we understand in communication relies on shared context,
cultural knowledge, and assumptions, leading to moments where pragmatics can be both complex and
entertaining.