What do we learn in Pragmatics and Semantics?
Pragmatics teaches us about the meaning of words, phrases and full sentences. Semantics
teaches us the objective meanings of words that can be found in dictionaries.
Pragmatics is more concerned with the meanings that words in fact convey when
they are used, or with intended speaker meaning as it is sometimes referred to.
We can say that pragmatics attempts to analyze how it happens that often
more is communicated than said.
The meaning of discourse
is context-dependant, pragmatics examines the devices used by language users
(ex. deictic expressions, or anaphora) in order to express the desired meaning
and how it is perceived.
