The Concepts of Pragmatics

B. The Concepts of Pragmatics

Pragmatics studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the condition of society. 11 According to Gazdar, pragmatics is the study of deixis at least in part, implicature, presupposition, speech acts and aspects of discourse structure. 12 Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics that studies words in utterances in order to give influence something is being talked about and sometimes in fact it has no meaning dearly. 13 We need to understand the entire social context in which a sentence was uttered, a different level of interpretation that is studied within pragmatics, which explore the role that context plays in the interpretation of what people say. 14 Victoria Fromkin describes pragmatics as the study of interpreting linguistics meaning in context. 15 Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics that is increasingly recognized in the present. Around two decades ago, this science is rarely or almost never referred to by linguists. This is supported by the growing of linguists‟ awareness, that the attempt to uncover the nature of language will not bring the expected result without basic understanding of pragmatics, that is, how language is used in communication. 16 In addition to the definitions above, a number of other definitions are 11 Jacob L. Mey, Pragmatics: An Introduction, 2 nd Ed, England: Oxford, 2001, p. 6. 12 F.X. Nadar, Pragmatik dan Penelitian Pragmatik, Yogyakarta; Graha Ilmu, 2013, p. 5. 13 Stephen C. Levinson, Pragmatics: An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, p.5. 14 Charles F. Meyer, Introducing English Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 48. 15 Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams, An Introduction to Language 7 th Ed Boston: Thomson Place, 2003, p. 207. 16 I Dewa Putu Wijana, Dasar-dasar Pragmatik, Yogyakarta: Penerbit ANDI, 1996, p.23 also noted by Levinson that pragmatics is one of those words that give the impression that something quite specific and technical is being talked about when often infact it has no clear meaning. 17 Searle, Kiefer and Bierwisch asserted that pragmatics has as its topic those aspects of the meaning of utterances which cannot be accounted for by straightforward reference to the truth conditions of the sentences uttered. 18 Katz and Fodor suggested that a theory of pragmatics would essentially be concerned with the disambiguation of sentences by the context in which they were uttered, causing the using context of language created interpretations in contexts. 19 Pragmatics deals with a particular aspect of human communication, namely the relationship between language and the context in which is used, and as result it is concerned with analyzing and explaining particular types of data. It is often described as being a branch or field of linguistics. Linguistics is the academic subject that is concerned with the analysis, description and explanation of human language and pragmatics contributes to this project by focusing on the interaction between language and context. 20 What we have returned to here is the gap which exists between language and the world, or human experience. We have many more meanings than we have exact syntactic forms to express them. In an ideal world perhaps every possible speech act, whether direct or indirect, would have its own 17 F.X, Nadar, op. cit, p. 5. 18 Ibid. 19 Stephen C. Levinson, op. cit, p. 8. 20 Siobhan Chapman, Pragmatics, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, p.10. corresponding syntactic form. Ambiguity, confusion, and misinterpretation would then be eliminated from our language use. In brief, pragmatics is the study of language use which is bounded with contexts. In other words, within the meaning of pragmatics determined by the context, ie, who is speaking to whom, where, when, how, and what the function of the utterance. Pragmatic studies the purpose of speech, that what is „X‟ utterance done for. And basically pragmatics asks What do you mean by X?” Not “What X means?” Therefore, by studying pragmatics, we can understand what people intended, their assumptions, and their goals or purposes when they speak in certain context. So that pragmatics comprehension is really important for us in order to make good communication between one and each other.

C. Context