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Semantics and Pragmatics

Semantics is the study of meaning encoded in a language's vocabulary and patterns for building meaning, while pragmatics is concerned with how these tools are used in context during communication. Pragmatics considers context, world knowledge, and the interaction between semantics and context. An utterance has a unique context while a sentence is abstract. Pragmatics interprets utterance meaning by considering context, while semantics studies sentence and word meaning without context. Interpretation involves the literal meaning, explicature which disambiguates meaning using context, and implicature which hints at additional implied meaning.

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288 views10 pages

Semantics and Pragmatics

Semantics is the study of meaning encoded in a language's vocabulary and patterns for building meaning, while pragmatics is concerned with how these tools are used in context during communication. Pragmatics considers context, world knowledge, and the interaction between semantics and context. An utterance has a unique context while a sentence is abstract. Pragmatics interprets utterance meaning by considering context, while semantics studies sentence and word meaning without context. Interpretation involves the literal meaning, explicature which disambiguates meaning using context, and implicature which hints at additional implied meaning.

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Akbar Wijayani
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS

STUDY MEANING
AFRITA GRYSTINA AKBAR WIJAYANI 09 DIK A REG

Overview
Semantics is the study of the toolkit for meaning: knowledge encodes in the vocabulary of the language and in its patterns for building more elaborate meanings Pragmatics is concerned with the use of these tools in meaningful communication. Pragmatics is about the interaction of semantics knowledge of the world, taking into account contexts of use.

example
Hold out your arm a. Hold out your arm denotes a situation that the speaker wants. b. Hold out denotes an action. c. Arm denotes a part of a person. d. Your arm denotes the arm of the person being spoken to.

Semantic information and pragmatic consideration in the interpretation of the previous example Semantic Arm upper limb or horizontal side bar on some types of chair Your arm left upper limb or right upper limb Hold out extend or refuse to capitulate Pragmatics Mr. Os earlier question was about wand wielding, so arm is most likely upper limb Preferred hand is probably the one for wands and Harry is right handed. Mr. O has a tape measure out and measuring Harrys arm will require access to his arm, so Mr. O wants him to extend his right upper limb.

Pragmatics distinguished from Semantics


Utterances and sentences Utterances are the raw data of linguistics. Each utterance is unique, having been produced by a particular sender in specific situation. Utterances are tied to a sender, a time, can never be repeated, tied to context. The abstract linguistics object on which an utterance is based is a sentence. Sentences is abstract, no tied to contexts.

So,
If you are dealing with meaning and there is no context to consider, then you are doing semantics. If there is a context to be brought into consideration, then you are engaged in pragmatics. So, pragmatics is the study of utterance meaning. Semantics is the study of sentence meaning and word meaning.

Three stages of interpretation


Literal meaning of a sentence is based on just the semantic information that you have from your knowledge of English. Without wondering who might say or write he words, when and where. No context. i.e: that was the last bus. -Something salient (that) is equated -at an earlier time (was is a past tense form) -to either the final (last) or the most recent (last) bus.

An explicature is a basic interpretation of an utterance, using contextual information and world knowledge to work out what is being referred to and which way to understand ambiguous expression. i.e : that was the last bus. (see page 6). They are interpretation based on two ways: linguistics context (Anns and charleyss utterances respectively) and non-linguistic context (it is late at night in Anns case; Charley and the bus driver can both see bus after bus departing).

Implicature : what is hinted at by an utterance in its particular context, what the senders agenda is. i.e: kind of relationship of people who were speaking. At the end, literal meaning is the semantics of sentence in the abstract. Explicature is the pragmatics of reference and disambiguation.Implicature is the pragmatics of hint

Types of Meaning
Senders meaning is the meaning that the speaker or writer intends to convey by means of an utterance. Senders meaning is something that addressees are continually having to make informed guessed about. Addressees can give indications in their own next utterance of their interpretation or by performing other action. The sender of fellow addressees will sometimes offer confirmation, correction, or elaboration. Senders meanings are the communicative goals of senders and the interpretational targets for addressees. Sentence meaning = literal meaning Utterance meaning is the meaning explicature and implicature- that an utterance would likely be understood as conveying when interpreted by people who know the language, are aware of the context, and have whatever background knowledge the sender could reasonably presume to be available to the addressee(s).

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