Linguistics has been divided into many categories. Some would say that those categories are the main pillars on which the entire linguistic side of a language rests its weight. Two of those pillars are Pragmatics and Semantics. This article would be all about semantic and pragmatic meaning and analysis, the importance of semantics and pragmatics, the difference between pragmatics and semantics with examples, and much more
Pragmatics:
Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that deals with the
meaning of the background or the context of the conversation. Here the listener
doesn’t only pays attention to the speaker’s words or their meanings but also
heeds on the intention of what the speaker really means. So therefore in Pragmatics,
one is not only concerned about what is in front of him and is visible but also
things that are hidden, and to get them, one needs to be vigilant and careful
about the tone, situation, and mutual understanding between the speaker and the
listener. Pragmatics is also used to create humor, for example upon some
profound observation about something one says to that person making the
observation “No sh*t Sherlock”. As we all know Sherlock Holmes is a novel
character who is known for his great observations and wisdom and thus uttering
this would mean that that person’s wisdom and observation matches with the
observation and wisdom of that novel character. But if that person gives a
ridiculous observation about something he knows nothing of, would mean that
that person is nothing like Sherlock and that his observations are completely
opposite to Sherlock’s i.e. stupid. So one could say that using pragmatics one
could use one utterance, sentence, or phrase to mean things that have different
intentions.
Pragmatics example:
One person says to the other “It’s freezing cold here”. This
information isn’t new to the other person (to which the first person is talking
to). He knows already that yes it is cold indeed. What the first person wanted
to say to the other one was “Would you please close the door”. His intentions weren’t literally visible in
his utterance. The second person was able to understand that utterance because
he knew the context or the background, which was that by closing the door “the
freezing cold” will stop.
Also if one asks the other person who is watching a news
channel “What is the time right now?” to which that person replies “It’s twenty
minutes before the 9 am news bulletin”. Here, the replier knows the context and
the background that the person asking the question doesn’t necessarily want to
know about the actual time but rather wants to know when the news bulletin will
be aired. So in pragmatics, the core concern is the context or the background
of an utterance, phrase, or sentence containing pragmatics.
We all have experienced situations where we find ourselves the most awkward ones in the group. People in the group talking to each other about a certain topic you have no idea of, they would say things and you would get nothing from the conversation. So when you pass comment on that subject, the others will definitely know that you have no clue what the conversation is being held about. This happens mainly because you have no shared assumptions with the members of that group. So this means that to understand a sentence one not only should see the literal words in that sentence but also what is its background or contextual knowledge.
Semantics:
Semantics is the branch or the pillar of linguistics that
deals with the meaning of the words used in an utterance, phrase, or sentence.
Here one is concerned about the literal meaning and not what the speaker really
means or what are his/her intentions. The focus is on the objectivity of the
meaning of the words rather than their subjectivity. It is also known as
semiology or semiotics. The meaning that it conveys to us has two sorts of
meanings; Natural or artificial.
For example, the natural meaning of the word “car” is an
object that has four wheels and one can drive it. Whereas the artificial meaning
uses metaphors and similes that don’t have that literal meaning in them. For
example, her smile is like sunshine. Here sunshine doesn’t literally mean
sunshine but rather beautiful.
Semantic defines its meanings in seven different ways:
1) Conceptual meaning or meaning through concepts:
2)
As the name goes, in
Conceptual meaning we use the literal words to define some specific object that
has some specific characteristics or features. For example, the word pencil
will give you a concept of what that object looks like and what it does i.e. a
pointy object at one end and something that one uses when writing something on
paper. The words are rigid and they have dictionary meanings. The speaker can’t
use the conceptual meaning whenever for his/her personal.
3) Associative or connotative meaning:
Words if said give us the meaning of the
associated ideas related to that specific word. For example, one would get the
meaning of “pain” or “health” when hearing the word “Syringe”. The Associated
meanings are completely different from the conceptual meanings as they do not
tell you the literal features that that object has. A speaker can use the
associative meaning of a word in different sentences.
4) Social Meaning:
Every speaker has a social background and
that background tells you a lot about that person. The words that the speaker
uses have some sort of meaning in them that tells us about that person’s social
background. Those meaning are social meanings and they tell us about
nationality, geographical region, locality, social status, and more about that
person in the society. For example, the phrase “Come on yaar” is mostly spoken
by Pakistanis and Indians, whereas the phrase “I gots to go” is mostly spoken
by black Americans and is a part of AAVE (Afro-American Vernacular English)
5) Emotive or Effective meaning:
The meanings that tell us about how the
speaker feels about a specific subject or situation and what are his emotions
or attitude towards it. For example, the phrase “Get lost” tells us that the
speaker is not pleased and wants the listener to get out of his sight. Likewise
the phrase “I like your style” tells us that the speaker is pleasant towards
the listener and is trying to make a compliment on his way of doing things
(i.e. his style)
6) Reflexive meaning:
7)
A word could have multiple
conceptual meanings and when one of those conceptual meanings is used way more
than the others, those other conceptual meanings kind of get hidden behind that
one prominent and popular meaning. This new emerging meaning is called
reflexive meaning and it happens in a huge period of time. For example, back in
the days, the word “Gay” was used as a synonym for the meaning “Happy” but now
after a huge period, it has taken a completely different meaning i.e.
homosexuality. So if now someone says that he couldn’t be gayer, the listener
would think that he is talking about his sexuality and that he couldn’t be more
homosexual than he is now.
8) Collocative meaning:
The meaning that a word gives when used
with some specific company of other words. The listener won’t be able to
understand the meaning of those words unless they are made in conjunction with
its company word. For example, conduct negotiations, do homework, make money,
etc. There are no alternatives for the words that collocate with their specific
company. Handsome and pretty both mean the same thing that is someone looking
so great but still, nobody would say “handsome girl” instead they’ll use the
word pretty with girl or woman and handsome with man or boy.
9) Thematic meaning:
The meaning tells us about the focus of the
speaker and what the speaker is mostly concerned about by ordering the words in
a sentence. For example, we have two sentences written below:
a) Ali saved the cat.
b) Cat was saved by Ali.
Notice that both the sentences mean the
same thing. In the first sentence, we see that the speaker is concerned about
the guy named Ali and what he did but by changing the order of words we could
see that the focus shifts from Ali and what he did to the cat and what happened
to it.
Conclusion:
Their relationship shows that there are
differences as well as similarities between semantics and pragmatics. The
similarities between semantics and pragmatics are the general focus or the concentration
on the meaning of the words in a language. Whereas the differences or as one
would say that the study of pragmatics vs semantics will tell us that the
meaning that it will convey to us, will that meaning be the meaning of the
words only (i.e. in Semantics) or will
it be the meaning of the words with special
emphasis on the background or context of those words (i.e. in Pragmatics). An
example of pragmatics in real life would be that if a person says to a boy that
he is looking blue today, by this he would mean that the boy is not feeling
pleasant rather he is in an unpleasant mood today whereas semantically if we
look at that same sentence, it would mean that the boy is literally blue.
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