II. Pragmatics

2.1 Definition of Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a newly developed research field in each branch of the linguistics which takes language meaning as the study subjects, and which is to study language understanding and its use. Up to now, there is no consensus on the definition and category of pragmatics, but there is a consensus that “context is one of the core concepts of pragmatics”. People’s normal communication are always inseparable from the specific context, these context includes communication occasions, the time of communication, the location of the communication, the nature of the communication, the participants of communication, the relationship between each other, the knowledge and belief in the objective world, the experience in the past , the mood at that time, and the context. The context directly influences our understanding and use of words. In other words, people want to determine whether certain specific speech acts is appropriate according to its context. Getting out of context makes the judgment itself distorted or lose its values. Another key concept in pragmatics is significance. He Zhaoxiong pointed out in his Essentials of Pragmatics that: “Among many definitions of pragmatics, there are two basic concepts, one is the meaning and the other is context” (153). In the long run, the development of pragmatics is the result of semantic research development and extension, so it can be said that pragmatics is a study of meaning. The meaning studied in pragmatics is different from the formal semantics studies: pragmatics is the study of the specific meaning that language can bring when it is used in a certain context. From this, it can be seen that the effect of context on meaning is very important in the study of pragmatics.

2.2 Research Objects of Pragmatics

Pragmatics not only researches the special utterances in a particular situation, but also studies how to understand and use language through the context. Pragmatics is different from grammar study because of its own purposes and values, and it is the study of human language itself. In the use of language, the speakers are often not simply to express the static meaning of the language components and symbolic units, and the listeners are usually to understand the real intention of the speakers through a series of psychological inference. To truly understand and properly use a language, it is not enough to only understand the pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar of the language, but the pragmatic functions of language and vocabulary.