1. Welcome to the World of Pragmatics
Your Host
Prof. E. Aminudin Aziz, M.A., Ph.D.
English Education Program
Indonesia University of Education
2010

2. • The Genesis
It all began when Charles Morris (1938),
following Charles Sanders Peirce, introduced
his trichotomy of the general science of signs --
Semiotic (Semiotics):
Syntactics (Syntax) - Semantics - Pragmatics

3. Look at the following examples:
1a. Asep ate an apple.
b. An apple kissed Asep.
c. The dead person is alive.
d. The colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

4. • According to Morris
Syntactics (Syntax)
is the study of the formal relations of signs
to one another (1938)
deals with combinations of signs without
regard for their specific significations or
their relation to the behaviour in which
they occur (1946)

5. • Semantics
is the study of the relations of signs to the
objects to which the signs are applicable
(1938)
deals with the signification of signs in all
modes of signifying (1946)

6. • Pragmatics
is the study of the relations of signs to
interpreters (1938);
deals with the origin, uses, and effects of
signs within the behaviour in which they
occur (1946);

7. • Rudolf Carnap (1942: 9)
If in an investigation explicit reference is
made to the speaker, or, to put it more
general terms, to the user of the language,
then we assign it to the field of pragmatics
If we abstract from the user of the
language and analyse only the expressions
and their designata, we are in the field of
semantics.
If we abstract form from the designata also
and analyse only the relations between the
expressions, we are in (logical) syntax.

8. • More recent accounts …
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

9. This type of study necessarily involves the
interpretation of what people mean in particular
context and how the context influences what is said.
It requires a consideration of how speakers organise
what they want to say in accordance with who they
are talking to, where, when, and under what
circumstances. (cf. Hymes’s mnemonic SPEAKING
and Allan’s SHC[Setting-The World Spoken of-Co-
text]Utt)
Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning

10. 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 recognised 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.

11. This perspective then raises the question of what
determines the choice between the said and unsaid.
The basic answer is tied to the notion of distance.
Closeness, whether it is physical, social, or conceptual,
implied 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.

12. Not to make you fed up, I stop here for now.
Hope you enjoy your today’s adventure in the
world of Pragmatics.
Thanx for joining!!!
Eaa
www.rumahbelajarlinguistik.blogspot.com