What is Pragmatics?
'''Pragmatics''' is the study of [[meaning]] in [[language]] in a particular [[context]]. People who study pragmatics are called '''pragmaticians'''. This includes the place where the thing is said, who says it, and the things that you have already said. Also, pragmatics studies how people speak when they both know something. Pragmatics studies how people speak not literally, but in an indirect way. It studies why people can still understand each other even though they don't speak literally. It also studies how people can understand each other even if the words are [[ambiguity|ambiguous]]. The ability to understand what someone intends to tell you is called pragmatic competence.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Koike|first=Dale April|date=September 1989|title=Pragmatic Competence and Adult L2 Acquisition: Speech Acts in Interlanguage|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1989.tb06364.x|journal=The Modern Language Journal|language=en|volume=73|issue=3|pages=279–289|doi=10.1111/j.1540-4781.1989.tb06364.x|issn=0026-7902}}</ref> Pragmatics has a lot in common with other areas of linguistics, like [[syntax]] (which studies the way words are put together into sentences) and [[semantics]] (which studies what words and phrases mean). Some theories of pragmatics overlap with these areas. == References == {{reflist}} {{stub}} [[Category:Linguistics]]