The Relationship between Pragmatics and Other Fields

Raghad Mohammed Bakr ALSaadi¹

Researcher, Iraq.      Email: rgadm77@gmail.com

HNSJ, 2024, 5(5); https://doi.org/10.53796/hnsj55/20

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Published at 01/05/2024 Accepted at 05/04/2024

Abstract

Linguistics is simply can be defined as the scientific or systematic study of language. it can be studied in two ways. Either about other science outside itself which is called Macro linguistics, that branch contains Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Stylistics and discourse analysis. or Micro -Linguistics is the branch which studies language within itself, this branch contains Phonetics, phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics.

Pragmatics is a critical aspect within linguistics in general and especially within Micro linguistics which has a significant impact on learning language. However this aspect has not received sufficient attention from EFL researchers. There for, it is important to investigate the relationship between Pragmatics and other fields.

The aims of the study is to shed light on the one of the most important branch of Macro Linguistics which is Pragmatics and it’s relation with other fields.

This research tries to answer the following questions what is meant by Pragmatics and identifying is there a relationship between pragmatics and other discipline of Linguistics?

The study concluded that Pragmatics is subfield of Linguistics which concerns to study how context contributes to meaning. It encompasses speech act theory ,conversation implicate, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy ,sociology Linguistics and anthropology.

Key Words: Macro-linguistics, Micro- linguistic, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics Psycholinguistics.

1.1. Introduction

Linguistics can be defined as the scientific or systematic study of language. It is a science in the sense that it scientifically studies the rules, systems, and principles of human languages. Each linguist defines linguistics according to his view. According to Crystal, there are two sides to language, which are the functional side is the jobs do in human society, and the Formal side is the way language is structured. In the other hand, De Saussure explained that language has two aspects: parole “performance, the act of uttering, language, an individual aspect of language”, and Langue “which is the system of a language ability of the single speaker to speak his native language competence (linguistics Knowledge). Others like Robert Henry Robins stated that language is a symbol system based on a purely arbitrary convention infinitely extended and modifiable according to the changing needs of its speakers.

Linguistics can be defined as the science of language that can be studied in two ways: about other sciences outside itself, and indifferent branches within itself. Thus:

Scope of linguistics

Micro-linguistics	Macro-linguistics
Phonetics Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics pragmatics	Sociolinguistics Psycholinguistics Stylistics discourse analysis

Micro-linguistics concerns with branches within linguistics itself. These branches are:

• Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sounds. It studies how speech sounds are articulated, transmitted, and received.
• Phonology is the study of how speech sounds function in a language, it studies the ways speech sounds are organized. It can be seen as the functional phonetics of a particular language.
• Morphology is the study of the formation of words. It is a branch of linguistics which breaks words into morphemes. It can be considered as the grammar of words as syntax is the grammar of sentences.
• Syntax is the study of sentence structures. It deals with the combination of words into phrases, clauses, and sentences. It is the grammar of sentence construction.
• Semantics: is a branch of linguistics that is concerned with the study of meaning in all its formal aspects. It is the study of the intrinsic meaning of the linguistics items or words.
• Pragmatics: can be defined as the study of language in use. It deals with how speakers use language in ways that cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge alone, and how hearers arrive at the intended meaning of speakers. In other words, it is the study of meaning in the interactional context.

On the other hand, Macro-linguistics concerns with different sciences outside itself. Such sciences are:

• Sociolinguistics studies the relations between language and society: how social factors influence the structure and use of language.
• Psycholinguistics is the study of language and mind: the mental structures and processes which are involved in the acquisition, comprehension, and production of language.
• Neuro-linguistics is the study of language processing and language representation in the brain. It typically studies the disturbances of language comprehension and production caused by the damage of certain areas of the brain.
  • Stylistics is the study of how literary effects can be related to linguistic features. It usually refers to the study of written language, including literary text, but it also investigates spoken language sometimes. And other sciences…..

This research concerns pragmatics and its relation to other fields.

The aims of the study:

1. The research aims to investigate various definitions of pragmatics.
2. It aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between Pragmatics and other fields.

This research tries to answer the following questions:

1. What is meant by pragmatics?
2. is there a relationship between pragmatics and other disciplines of linguistics?

1.2. What is Pragmatics?

Pragmatics is a sub-discipline of linguistics developed from different linguistic,

philosophical, and sociological traditions that study the relationship between natural language expressions and their uses in specific situations. The term pragmatics comes from Morris’ (1938) general theory of signs: in this semiotic model (semiotics), pragmatics refers to the relationship of the sign to the sign user. In linguistics the distinction between pragmatics and semantics and syntax on the one hand and, in a broader sense, between pragmatics and sociolinguistics, on the other hand, depends wholly on the particular theory, Pragmatics can hardly be considered an independent field of study (as is the case for phonology, for example). In British-American linguistics, the term ‘pragmatics’ has only been in use for a relatively short time; this area was previously included under the term sociolinguistics’.(Trask 2007) .

Yule (1996, p. 3) states that pragmatics is the study of meaning. According to Yule, Pragmatics is concerned with four dimensions of meaning:

• • The study of speaker meaning.
  • The study of contextual meaning.
  • The study of how more gets communicated than is said.
  • The study of the expression of relative distance.

May (2001; p. 6) analyzes pragmatic meaning according to how humans use language in communication. For this linguist, pragmatics “studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society”.

Huang (2007; 2), followed by Levinson (1983, 2000), defines Pragmatics as the systematic study of meaning under, or dependent on, the use of language. The central topics of inquiry of pragmatics include implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and dixies”.

Crystal (1997; 301) takes into account language users and meaning in social interaction. He defines pragmatics as “the study of language from users, especially of the choices they make, the restrictions they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects of language on other participants in the act of communication”.

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies how context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics includes speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction, and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, linguistics, and anthropology. Unlike semantics, which examines meaning that is conventional or “coded” in a given language, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge (grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and listener but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors. In that respect, pragmatics explains how language users can overcome ambiguity since meaning relies on the manner, place, time, etc. of an utterance.

[internet source: 1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics]

The Historical Background

Pragmatics is the study of ‘invisible’ meaning or how we recognize what is meant even when it is not said (or written) (Yule, 1996:127). In other words, Pragmatics is the study of language according to contexts. Although Pragmatics is a relatively new branch of linguistics, its historical development dates back to ancient Greek and Roman academic works where the terms ‘pragmatics’ is found in late Latin and ‘pragmatic’ in Greek, both mean being ‘pragmatical’. This is credited to some great philosophers, who, at that time had started discussing something related to Pragmatics, and, for this; we can say that Pragmatics develops from philosophy. Why?

First, the term “Pragmatics” appears in linguistic philosophy in the 1930s, for then, western philosophers have begun to shift their focus on studies of language symbols, which develops into Semiology later. Early Pragmatics is just a branch of Semiology under philosophers’ studies and this shows clearly that it originates from their (philosophers’) study of language.

Second, the theoretic basis for Pragmatics is from philosophy. To be more specific, Pragmatics originates from the following aspects: the study of Semiology, the study of linguistic Philosophy in the 20th century, and the study of functional Linguistics on language forms.

Third, the main studies of Pragmatics such as indexicality and presupposition also have a philosophical background.

Lastly, Pragmatics has been developing very quickly and soundly since the 1980s. So far, it has made some delightful progress and attracted more and more students as well as scholars to conduct researches in it.

The present Pragmatics has developed new branches which include: Inter- language Pragmatics, Cross-cultural Pragmatics, Pragmatics and Translation, Pragmatics, and Language Teaching which is divided into two groups: Pragma- linguistics and Socio-pragmatics, Cognitive Pragmatics and Clinical Pragmatics.

The Scope of Pragmatics

The scope here means the areas to which the study of Pragmatics has been extended. The term “Pragmatics” was first used by Charles Morris (1938). Morris has a great deal of interest in Semiotics which is the general study of signs and symbols. Pragmatics had been defined as the “study of the relation of signs to interpreters”. Morris then extends the scope of pragmatics to include psychological, biological, and sociological phenomena which occur in the functioning of signs (Levinson, 1983). Today, this will cover other areas of study such as Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Neurolinguistics, etc. Currently, linguistic pragmatics majorly dwells on those factors of language use that govern the choice individuals make in social interaction and the effect of those choices on others (Crystal, 1987:120). The pragmatic study has thrown some light on the study of Literature, especially figures of speech such as hyperbole, personification, and euphemism, and so on, giving rise to literary pragmatics. In a similar mood, the application of Pragmatics to computational linguistics has also developed into computational pragmatics.

Grammar is a description of the structure of a language and how linguistic

units such as words and phrases are combined to produce sentences in the language. It usually takes into account the meanings and functions these sentences have in the general system of the language. Thus, it focuses on the structure of the expression. (Richards and Schmidt, 2002:230)

On the other hand, Pragmatics is the study of the use of language in communication, particularly the relationships between sentences and the contexts and situations in which they are used. It refers to the actual use of language. Pragmatics is sometimes contrasted with SEMANTICS, which deals with meaning without reference to the users and communicative functions of sentences. Pragmatics includes the study of:

• • • how the interpretation and use of utterances depends on knowledge of the real world
    • how speakers use and understand speech acts
    • How the structure of sentences is influenced by the relationship between the speaker and the hearer. (ibid: 412)

Sentence meaning has several kinds of grammatical meanings. These meanings are expressed by the arrangement of words, or grammatical affixes, or by grammatical words (function words). The change in the grammatical system of a

specific sentence will affect the meaning. For example:

The words (frog) and (croak) are lexical meanings, meanings that are stored in our mental lexicon. They are lexemes as defined by Lyons, and cited by Kreidler (ibid, 51); a lexeme is a minimal unit that can take part in referring or predicting, in English, we have formed as:

These are different forms for the same lexeme, with different meanings.

• • Go, went, going, gone
  • Begin, began, begun, beginning,

If the word-forms, either content words or functional words, are combined together to form constructions, sometimes we have a sort of problem, because the meaning of the structure is not the meaning of its components. For example:

• • put up with, kick the bucket, dog in the manger.

endure Died Someone is not sharing what he has, even though, he doesn’t use it.

The relation between pragmatics and grammar sometimes may lead to a kind of ambiguity in the interpretation, such ambiguity in the structure, or in lexical.

Either: I saw her duck ={bend down=lower her head or body quickly to avoid a blue . or to not to be seen}.

Or : I saw her walking with her dock.

Either : The chicken after cooking is ready to eat by anyone.

Or: The chicken ,as an animal and animate, it is ready to eat anything.

Ambiguity occurs when language elements have more than one meaning. If the ambiguity is in a single word, it is lexical ambiguity. If a sentence or clause, it is a grammatical or structural ambiguity.

Lexical ambiguity:

It is ambiguity in the form of a morpheme or a word. In homophony, homonyms, and homographs, we have sort of ambiguity.

• 1. Homophones refer to the two or more written forms have the same pronunciation, but different orthographic form. Such as: bare/bear, to/too/two, meat/meat, flour/flower.
  2. Homonyms refer to one form written or spoken has two or more unrelated meanings, for example:

(Yule, 2017: 338)

• 1. Homograph: words that have different pronunciations, different meanings, but the same spelling. For example:
     • bow as in arrow vs bow as in bending or taking a bow at the end of a performance
     • close as in next to vs close as in shutting the door
     • desert as in dry climate vs desert as in leaving alone

(Kreidler, 1998:52)

• 1. Polysemy: It refers to two or more forms, written or spoken with the same form and related meanings. The meaning of a word can be defined by the context. For example, we use the words head to refer to the: –
     • head at the top of our body
     • Top on the glass of the bottle
     • The person in charge.
     • The same as the word mouth:

The mouth of the river/cave/part of the face

(Yule, 2017: 338)

We conclude that, lexical ambiguity in the example: [You have a green light]. Without knowing the context or speaker’s intention, it’s difficult to infer the meaning, because it could be:

• • • The space that belongs to you has a green light.
    • You are driving through a green light
    • You no longer have to wait to continue driving, because the green light is on. Or when saying:[ I’m walking near the bank]

2 .Structure Ambiguity:

Hudson states that structural ambiguity exists when a phrase or a sentence has two or more meanings, either of grouping or function (grammatical relation). As cited in (Al-Aabedi, 2015:60)

Ex: Ali saw the man with binoculars.

The sentence could be interpreted by two meanings:

1. Ali saw a man by using binoculars
2. Ali saw a man who was holding binoculars.
   1. Grouping ambiguity: in this type, the individual words are unambiguous but their combination can be interpreted in two or more different ways or interpretations. For instance:

• 1. Function ambiguity: function ambiguity is less common than grouping ambiguity. It can be either:

1. Some prefixes and suffixes have more than one meaning, which will lead to misunderstandings:
   • Desirable, readable, debatable
   • Visiting neighbors can be boring. Here visiting is the present participle of visit, the sentence concerning

• Either: neighbors (subject), who visit us is boring.
• Or: neighbors (direct object), who get visited.

1. form-words may also have several meanings, which may confuse some contexts.

Ex:

• • Will you join us for dinner tomorrow?

[Do you mean you in the singular or in the plural?]

In this case, we are relating to the surface structure.

(Halpem,2003:90)

We conclude: that often, we derive more meanings from what we hear, or read, than what is actually in the message. We depend on our intuition or our background knowledge. In this case, the message implicates some additional meaning that accounts for our inference. The sentence:

o Albert Thompson opened the first flour mill in Waterston.

In this sentence, You don’t know whether it is true or not, if it is true, there must exist (at some period) a person named Albert Thompson and a place called Waterston (presuppositions), that Albert Thompson opened a flour mill, and that there was no Flourmill before that (entailments). You know that if this sentence is true, the sentence:

o [Albert Thompson did not open the first flour mill in Waterston] is false.

(Kreidler, 1998:56)

2.2. Pragmatics and Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics is usually considered to be concerned with the physical processes

involved in speech production and perception. It involves producing sound signals which are sufficient to generate perception patterns in the listener, and which correlate with the idea the speaker intends to communicate. On the other hand, Phonology is seen as the linguistic component which describes the meaningful sound patterns which generate physical phonetic processes within a language. Sometimes we can communicate and convey meaning in our utterances by sounds.

There are special cases, in which natural language utterances are regarded as not arbitrary:

• Iconicity: (Crystal; 2008,234) it refers to the signals, whose physical form closely corresponds to the situations or objects, to which they refer, it is property of animal communication, for example, where a call expressing fear is used only in a fear-producing context. In language for humans, only a small number of items could be argued to possess such directly symbolic (iconic) properties, e.g. onomatopoeic expressions such as cuckoo, growl. In other words from the Longman dictionary by (Richards and Schmidt; 2002,83), it is non-arbitrary relationships between meanings and expressions. Layons (1981, 13) Iconic sign contains a similarity between the form of the song and what it signifies, and the signs which lack this property regarded as non-iconic. One kind of iconic is onomatopoeic words.

Richards and Schmidt in their dictionary (2002, 373) define Onomatopoeic words, words are considered to be imitative of nature (imitate the nature of their meanings), it is similar to the thing to which it refers. For example:

• The bow-wow of the dog
• The tick-tock of the clock

There are other words, regarded as semi-onomatopoeic words, such as splash,

or BOOM.

• • Prosodic features; spoken utterances contain, in addition to the words, other features as intonation features and stress-pattern. In other words; they are features that appear when we put special sounds together in a connected speech

to communicate our feelings or attitudes, it depends on intonation, stress, and

rhythm. As mentioned in the Longman dictionary (Richards and Schmidt; 2002, 431), as sound characteristics that affect whole sequences of syllables. They may involve relative loudness or duration of syllables, changes in the pitch of a speaker’s voice, and the choice of pitch level. Prosodic features are an integral part of the utterances, and they aren’t regarded in any sense, as secondary or optional. They regarded as iconic, not wholly. (Lyons; 2005, 14)

Pragmatics and Semantics

The two members of linguistics, semantics, and pragmatics, can deal with the meaning of language and connect language to the world. Each member deals with meaning differently; but, many students of linguistics confuse the two terms. The only similarity between the two is that they both deal with the meaning of words and sentences but in different ways.

The fields of pragmatics and semantics are related to one another. As an example, some categories in semantics require the application of pragmatics to have a satisfactory interpretation. Deictic words, for instance, take some elements of their meanings from the context in which they are uttered.

• The pronoun “she” cannot be fully interpreted unless we know who the pronoun refers to.

Semantics is the study of meaning. A lot of study areas related to language are covered. Semantics help in getting a sense of meaning in context to writers, speakers, and readers of learners. It also helps in known that how the meanings got to change over some time. It is concerned with the conceptual meaning related to words. Semantics deals with the meaning according to vocabulary and grammar, it does not focus on the context. The focus is only on the general rules used for a language.

On the other hand, Pragmatics is all about questions of use, whereas Semantics is all about the question of meaning. It deals with that aspect

meaning which is dependent on the context. Semantics deals with the study of what signs indicate while Pragmatics deals with the relation of signs to their users and interpreters.

[Cited from an internet source: 1] https://semanticsvspragmatics.wordpress.com/

1. Section Three

3. 1. pragmatic and other fields outside linguistics (macro-linguistics)

3.1. 1. pragmatics and discourse analysis

Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis involve the study of language in its contexts of use. Pragmatics focuses on the effects of context on meaning, and Discourse Analysis studies written and spoken language concerning its social context. Pragmatics and discourse analysis are two fields of study that are sometimes regarded as interdisciplinary because both share interest in those aspects of language that are context-dependent.

Barron and Schneider (2014: 1) suggest that the study of discourse is not perceived as falling outside the realm of pragmatics: Rather it can be seen as an integral part of it. Hence, the pragmatics of discourse and the pragmatics of utterance represent two complementary levels of analysis, correspondingly emphasizing more universal and more local aspects of human interaction. Whereas the latter concentrates on investigating speech acts as the fundamental units of analysis, the former investigates how speech acts can combine into larger units. The two-level analysis referred to above has been termed as micropragmatics and macropragmatics. It is assumed that several approaches to discourse analysis are pragmatic because they are more concerned with interactional issues than with syntax. These include some recent trends such as discourse pragmatics and critical pragmatics.

A cutting (2002:2) believes that pragmatics and discourse analysis have much in common in the sense that both investigate context, text, and function. Both fields concentrate on the significance of words in communication and how] interlocutors convey more than the words they utilized. Additionally, both of them study discourse and text focusing on how pieces of language become significant and integrated for their users. Furthermore, the two fields are interested in function

3.1.2.Pragmatcs and Sociology.

Sociology is the study of society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture that surrounds everyday life. It is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. On the other hand, Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language, is used, and society’s effect on language. As we know that Pragmatics is the study of the intended meaning, thus, it is important for the interaction between the people in the society. This interaction created a term called pragmatic sociology.

Pragmatic sociology seeks to explore the moral dimensions of how people engage with the (social) world, and, in this, to reduce the gap between ‘neutral’ sociological affairs. it concerned with investigating the methods, and more precisely, the practical reasoning and reflexive “accounts” that people use on daily interactions and that make social life an ongoing, practical achievement. pragmatic sociology quickly focused its attention on one, a very specific category of “practical reasoning,” namely, the range of arguments and principles of evaluation which individuals organize in the process of trying to define what may be the most proper or real action or standard of action, and whereby they grope for or re-establish social agreement. pragmatic sociology displayed from the very beginning a principled openness to macro-sociological, and even more precisely, macro-cultural analysis, which was deeply involved in the exploration of what otherwise are commonly seen as micro-sociological aspects of everyday action and interaction. In this respect, it would be useful to situate.

3.1.3. Pragmatics and Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior, according to the American Psychological Association. Psychology is a multifaceted discipline and includes many sub-fields of study such areas as human development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior, and cognitive processes. On the other hand, Pragmatics is the study of the ability of natural language speakers to communicate more than that which is explicitly stated. The ability to understand another speaker’s intended meaning is called pragmatic competence. An utterance describing pragmatic function is described as meta-pragmatic. These two fields are combining to form pragma- psychology. How do speakers of different languages refer to objects, persons, animals, places, periods, and even texts or text passages? When speakers make these so-called ‘deictic’ references, they communicate in certain – linguistic and nonlinguistic – contexts, and these contexts influence the shape of our utterances. Pragmatics processes and our interactions in daily life are linked to our mental processes. Natural languages are context-bound – and it is dixies that ‘concerns how languages encode or grammaticalize features of the context of utterance or speech event, and thus also concerns ways in which the interpretation of utterances depends on the analysis of that context of utterance’. This context-dependence of linguistic reference is known as ‘indexicality’ and it is taken by philosophers such as Hilary Putnam (1975: 187; see also 193) as a ‘constitutive feature of human language’ and a general characteristic of language and interaction. Indexicality can broadly be defined as ‘the study of expressions relying on the context of use to select items of discourse’. on the other hand, it is the phenomenon of a sign pointing to (or indexing) some object in the context in which it occurs. A sign that signifies indexically is called an index or, in philosophy, an indexical. Such phenomena can’t be done without our mental processes, cognition, and psychological affairs. Such are the pronounces [he, she, it, they]

[Gunter Senft, 2014:42]

Speakers tend to compose their utterances in such a way that the message they want to get across is hardly ever fully encoded by the meanings of the words and the

grammar they use. Instead, speakers rely on hearers adding conceptual and emotive content while interpreting the contextually appropriate meanings and intentions behind utterances. This perception, which is relevant in all kinds of indirect, figurative, or humorous talk, lies at the heart of the linguistic discipline of pragmatics. If pragmatics is the study of meaning-in-context, then cognitive pragmatics can be broadly defined as including the study of the cognitive principles and processes involved in the analysis of meaning-in-context. While it would seem only natural that pragmatics as such should have addressed such cognitive issues anyway, it has mainly been due to the historical rooting of this discipline in the philosophy of language that psychological aspects have not been in the pragmatic attention to date. Thus, the most fundamental role for the relation between pragmatics and psychology is the cognitive aspects of language users’ ability to compute or infer intended meanings in the role of hearers and to give hints as to how to decode intended meanings in the role of speakers.

[Internet source: ] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316846158_Cognitive_Pragmatics

3.1.4. Pragmatics and Politics

There are Elements of Pragmatics in Political Discourse. Politics is about “language in context.” Put simply, there could be no political discourse outside a political context, and without the support of language. Seen from this perspective, pragmatics plays a decisive role in the process of political communication. It involves the relation between pragmatics and critical discourse, which may involve the investigation of persuasive devisees through the president’s speech.

Anita Fetzer (2013) published a book entitled “The Pragmatics of Political Discourse” The volume endorses pragmatic perspective to the analysis of political discourse as complicated mediated discourse. The chapters cross the disciplinary and methodological boundaries of speech act theory, social positioning theory, and argumentation theory and rhetoric. They address the strategic use of address terms and irony, the form and function of questions, and the expression of certainty in the contexts of parliamentary discourse, interview, talk show, phone-in program, and motion of support across different discourse domains. Different cultural contexts are represented, including Africa, the Middle East, different parts of Europe, and the United States.

3.1.5. Pragmatics and Stylistics

Leech (1983: 5) states that meaning is “derived not from the formal properties of words and constructions, but from how utterances are used and how they relate to the context in which they are uttered”. Investigating such a kind of relationship is the concern of pragmatics which is, according to Leech (ibid.), a theory of appropriateness. Following Levinson (1983: 5), pragmatics is not directly interested in language, but in what people do with language, its uses, and users. Thus, the simplest definition of pragmatics is that it is “the study of language use” (ibid.). Speakers try by language to change either the world (e.g., by getting another person to do something) or the state of mind or knowledge of others (for instance, by telling them something new). Pragmatics, as such, investigates what language users mean, what they do, and how they do it in real situations.

On the other hand, for stylistics, Babajide (2000: 123) defines it as “the study of style” wherein style is “the effectiveness of a mode of expression”. The determinates of any stylistic choice are many: “speaker’s emotional attitude towards his message, his hearer, or the world in general at the moment of communicating, as well as the context or situation” (ibid.). Style is often said to involve a deviation from the norm or standard use of language to achieve rhetorical and persuasive effects. In practice, stylistics is divided into ‘literary’ and ‘non-literary’ stylistics although the methods used in either case are based on linguistic insights and terminology (ibid.).

The relation to pragmatics and stylistics, it can be concluded that pragmatics is a theory of appropriateness, whereas stylistics is a theory of effectiveness. Then, pragmatics, as Hickey (1993: 578) points out, coincides with stylistics in that both are directly interested in speaker’s choices from among a range of grammatically acceptable linguistic forms. Yet, pragmatics looks at choice as the

means chosen to perform actions (request, inform, etc.), whereas stylistics studies choice within the particular interest in the consequences on the linguistic level and the effects produced on the hearer (aesthetic, affective, etc.) (ibid.). Consequently, one can argue that style is a contextually determined language variation, while pragmatics is an area of study which analyzes the relationships between language and context. However, the context tends to be perceived somewhat differently in each case. For stylistics, context is usually the situation that makes a certain way of speaking more likely, whereas pragmatics sees a context as composed of the knowledge, beliefs, assumptions, earlier utterances of the language user themselves so that “The dog bit John” is used to talk about the dog and “John was bitten by the dog” to talk about John (Hickey, 1993: 578).

Stylistics and pragmatics are combined together to form the topic Pragmastylistics are, thus, stylistics but with a pragmatic component added to it (Hickey, 1993: 578). According to Davies (2007:106), it is concerned with showing the extent to which pragmatics contributes to the study of literature; it looks at the usefulness of pragmatic theories to the interpretation of literary texts. To elaborate, pragmastylistics offers more complete explanations for many unexplained phenomena than stylistics or pragmatics can do alone (ibid.). It is a branch of stylistics that applies ideas and concepts from linguistic pragmatics to the analysis of literary texts and their interpretation (ibid.). Pragmastylistics, thus, involves the study of all conditions which allow the rules and potential of a language to combine with the specific elements of the context to produce a text capable of causing specific internal changes in the hearer’s state of mind or knowledge (ibid.).

Conclusion

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies how context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction, and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, linguistics, and anthropology. Through this paper, We conclude that pragmatics is a necessary branch within linguistics. It overlaps with other fields inside and outside linguistics. Such a kind of relationship lead to the emergence of new linguistic fields like discourse pragmatics, pragmastylistics , applied pragmatics, and others. The basic tenets of each of these new fields of linguistic study are pointed out.

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