Essay On Pragmatics

As part of the digital world’s growing influence on society, we have seen an ever increasing reliance on email as a mode of communication. Yet, issues arise due to the nature of email communication, making it susceptible to misunderstanding. As such, the linguistic discipline of pragmatics studies the reasons for this miscommunications, utilising conventions such as Gricean Conversational Maxims to aid in the understanding initial intentions behind messages. These conventions are regularly flouted, intentionally and unintentionally, causing miscommunication and misunderstanding. As such, obeying these conventions can ultimately reduce misunderstanding between individuals

Pragmatics focuses on language use within a given social environment, analysing how people interpret the various meanings language conveys. Yet, miscommunication arises due to situational contexts and thus, pragmatists “focus on what is not explicitly stated”, instead emphasising “what is communicated by the manner and style of utterance” (Finch, 2000). Consider a sign saying “Garage sale.” Naturally, without further information, we understand that there is a sale within an individual’s garage, rather than actual garages being sold. The example highlights how pragmatics furthers the understanding of an interpretation that is found past the words. This deep-seated meaning is transparent not by the reason of the semantics of the words themselves, but due to the contextual knowledge that is widely known. Ultimately pragmatics is the study of the ambiguity of language, as it examines the multiple meanings each sentence may have, which may lead to confusion, conflict and ambiguity. Therefore a sound understanding of pragmatics, may lead to a reduction in conflicts betw...

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...sking “How is university going, are you fitting in well?” Accordingly, understanding the maxim of manner and pertaining to the facts may consequently lead to a better understanding of the meaning behind the message.

Ultimately, it is essential that individuals adhere to the pragmatic convention of the cooperation principle developed by Grice. As pragmatics is the study of understanding the meaning of words in relation to the context, flouting on an intentional and unintentional basis may lead to miscommunication or misunderstanding. Due to the nature of email communication, emails are vulnerable to pragmatic conventions such as the Gricean conversational maxims being flouted. Thus exposing emails to be a common denominator for misunderstandings, and a sound understanding of the pragmatic conventions may significantly cut down the number of incidents that occur.