What are the differences between

pragmatics and discourse analysis?

Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to
analyze written, vocal, or sign language use or any significant semiotic event.

The objects of discourse analysis—discourse, writing, conversation, communicative event—are

variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of sentences, propositions, speech, or turns-at-
talk. Contrary to much of traditional linguistics, discourse analysts not only study language use
'beyond the sentence boundary', but also prefer to analyze 'naturally occurring' language use, and
not invented examples. Text linguistics is related. The essential difference between discourse
analysis and text linguistics is that it aims at revealing socio-psychological characteristics of a
person/persons rather than text structure.

Discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of social science disciplines, including linguistics,
education, sociology, anthropology, social work,cognitive psychology, social psychology, area
studies, cultural studies, international relations, human geography, communication studies, and
translation studies, each of which is subject to its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis, and
methodologies.

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics which studies the ways in which 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. 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 (e.g., 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 this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to
overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance.

They are related fields but Discourse analysis deals with texts and pragmatics takes several units.
Besides, in discourse anaysis there are lots of elements that can be classified as pragmatical
features. Prototypical case is oral texts analysis. Oral texts always include context related
information.
There was a similar discussion many years ago at the Linguist List.

For many, the two are the same. But they can be very different when examining their core areas.

Linguistic pragmatics as theoretical pragmatics is more interested in utterance comprehension. That

is mostly related to utterance only, which is a relatively small unit. Discourse analysis, when
concerned with sampling and analysing discourse structures, is not that much focused on meaning
interpretation. It can be very structure-oriented.

Discourse occurs at macro-level which includes more well-known and global issues like feminism,
Islamism, etc. Discourse dictates the way language users employ the language (i.e. pragmatics).
Pragmatics occurs at micro-level and is the language use dictated by discourse.

Pragmatics handles language use in context. It is mainly engaged with the analysis of use of
sentences. Discourse analysis focuses more on one paragraph, one article. However, discourse
analysis can be done using a pragmatic framework, such as speech act theory. Please refer to
Holmes (2014) for more details.

The most important difference between discourse analysis and pragmatics is that while discourse
makes its main focus on organized set of utterances, pragmatics analyzes individual utterances in
context, i.e. organized set of words.

There is no consensus about this, but, briefly, it depends on what view of pragmatics you adhere to.
If your view is the narrow view (Anglo-American view or Micropragmatics'), then Pragmatics is just
one of the sources of DA (that is, you resort to Pragmatics when doing DA in order to study certain
phenomena such as reference, speech acts or implicatures), but if your view of pragmatics is the
Continental or broad view (Macro-pragmatics), then there is very little or no difference between
Pragmatics and DA, because both are defined as the study of language in use, of text and context
altogether, of the phenomenon of linguistic communication.
Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to
analyze written, vocal, or sign language use or any significant semiotic event.

The objects of discourse analysis—discourse, writing, conversation, communicative event—are

variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of sentences, propositions, speech, or turns-at-
talk. Contrary to much of traditional linguistics, discourse analysts not only study language use
'beyond the sentence boundary', but also prefer to analyze 'naturally occurring' language use, and
not invented examples. Text linguistics is related. The essential difference between discourse
analysis and text linguistics is that it aims at revealing socio-psychological characteristics of a
person/persons rather than text structure.

Discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of social science disciplines, including linguistics,
education, sociology, anthropology, social work,cognitive psychology, social psychology, area
studies, cultural studies, international relations, human geography, communication studies, and
translation studies, each of which is subject to its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis, and
methodologies.

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics which studies the ways in which 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. 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 (e.g., 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 this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to
overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance.

Pragmatics; the science of relation of signs to their interpreters (interrelationship between language,
messages and language uses

discourse is language functioning in a context (see Schmidt 2012)

I see language as a textile (fabric, cloth) or like a cake. discourse is a piece of that cloth or cake.
who made the cake, how, where, when, ... & of course the elements used make a difference.

pragmatics of discourse make differences

the prime minister in the British Parliament reports;behind him a group from his party say yeah.
facing him are a group from a different party they might also say yeah. but how they say it with a
rising or falling tone, will certainly make a difference

language functioning in either one of these two cases is discourse what makes the meaning of the
same text (yeah) different is pragmatics.
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context while discourse analysis deals with the "flow" (or
coherence) of language in use and the "patterns" 'above' and 'beyond'the sentence level.

Discourse analysis is allied to pragmatics on the one hand, and their fields of investigation are quite
different on the other. Pragmatics is traditionally labeled in contrast with semantics, and primarily
concerned with language in use. In modern linguistics, pragmatics is applied to the study
of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choice they make, the constraints they
encounter in using language in social interaction and effects their use of language has on the
other participants in an act of communication. Discourse analysis is specifically about the
understanding and examination of spoken or written language in actual communication. Discourse
analysis is to some extent more application-oriented as opposed to pragmatics; pragmatics sustains
Discourse analysis with theoretical preparation in turn.
What is the relation of pragmatics to
discourse analysis?
Pragmatics is a subfield in the philosophy of language, specifically those aspects of language that
relate to the manner in which words are used to mean more than its literal decontextualized
meanings and how we manage to understand such usage (e.g., implicatures, metaphors, etc.).

Discourse analysis is a term used to denote a wide gamut of analytic methods devised in order to
uncover the manner in which knowledge may be derived from the examination of language use. This
may include conversation analysis, narrative analysis, ethnomethodology, frame analysis and many
others.

Pragmatics is a subfield in the philosophy of language, specifically those aspects of language that
relate to the manner in which words are used to mean more than its literal decontextualized
meanings and how we manage to understand such usage (e.g., implicatures, metaphors, etc.).

Discourse analysis is a term used to denote a wide gamut of analytic methods devised in order to
uncover the manner in which knowledge may be derived from the examination of language use. This
may include conversation analysis, narrative analysis, ethnomethodology, frame analysis and many
others.

Pragmatics as explained by the Palo Alto group of psychologists is the study and practice of the
intention of a particular utterance. Is an utterance meant to convince, threaten, suggest, ask a
question, etc. In other words, what is actionable about an utterance and has the speaker made it
evident through tone, rhythm, or emphasis.

Discourse analysis is a wide field, which can include pragmatics, but I have seen it used most
frequently in attempts to understand preference, valence, and attitudinal analysis, either in common
everyday interaction or in speeches and other presentations. Obviously discourse analysis usually
requires a recording or transcription of language since it would be difficult to analyze a live
conversation or speech.
There are many ways to slice this question. One approach to making the distinction would be to
think of "discourse analysis" as having a greater focus on the form of the language (essentially an
extension of syntactic analysis above the level of the sentence - looking at cohesion, coherence, and
macrostructure), whereas pragmatics would look at the illocutionary (functional purpose) and
perlocutionary (response to) elements of the language used. Pragmatics analysis is part of
discourse analysis in this framing. This means that you can, conceptually, do discourse analysis that
ignores the pragmatic dimension of the discourse, even if that is rare. That said, much of the work
that falls under the label of discourse analysis is focused on the interface between the content and
purpose of the language being used and how the linguistic and social context influences the
meaning.

Pragmatics is often associated with theories of language use such as speech acts, relevance,
politeness...etc. Discourse analysis broadly analysizes meaning (of language use) in different
contexts, using different approaches, with different genres (e,g. ethnographic, multimodal,
conversational). One particular pragmatic approach can pass as type of discourse analysis.

Pragmatics and discourse analysis are two related ways of framing the manner in which language
interacts with contexts in defining realities. Of course, that interrelates the two approaches so closely
that a certain type of ambiguity remains in distinguishing them. However, although both are inscribed
by context and the organisation of language to produce meaning in specific contexts, if they are both
viewed in terms of systems, pragmatics can be considered as a sub-system of discourse analysis.
Pragmatics refers to specific frames of reality and context, and specific meanings being assigned to
the interpretation of a context and its reality by the choice of word, sign or symbol due to the nature
of the organisation of text and context, and hence the implied intentions of the initiator of the text.
Discourse analysis on the other hand, aiming at a broader view of reality, pursues framing and
meaning making through an emphasis on interdisciplinarity because of the complexity of context. It
pursues both meaning making and knowledge production through the frames of possibilities and
habits below the level of consciousness, including the ideological, the socio-cultural, the
philosophical, psychological, etc., dimensions of context and interaction. In effect, discourse analysis
moves beyond intention and implicature (pragmatics) towards making the levels of unconscious and
its possibilities conscious for meaning making, and knowledge production.
Pragmatics is a part of the discourse analysis, they are closely related. The pragmatics studies the
behavior of the subject who speaks in action and the analysis of the discourse studies, the verbal,
nonverbal and nonverbal languages.

What is the relation of pragmatics to discourse

analysis?

I think a better question might be what is the relation between discourse and pragmatics.
Discourse analysis is the breaking down of discourse and analyzing it for its meaning,
function, and structure. Pragmatics and discourse (verbal discourse) are intertwined and is
an interaction between or among individuals based upon familiarity of culture, perceptions
and formality. Language itself is derived from and interrelated with social factors that are
learned from your environment and from your culture. We often separate out components
of pragmatics and language to study them, but they are highly synergistic and complex.

Basically, discourse analysis is the pragmatic analysis of a text or a piece of spoken

discourse. Let us see the definition of pragmatics from Wikipedia:

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context
contributes to meaning.

Then it goes on to point out the difference between pragmatics and semantics:

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 (e.g., 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.

This is exactly what discourse analysis is about. While the meaning given in the text itself is
still important, one must remember that no text (or piece of spoken discourse) exists in a
vacuum. Every text has a context. There is always a reason why a text was written – or a
spoken phrase was uttered – in the first place. And the objective of discourse analysis is to
see how these factors contribute to the meaning of the text.