Pragmatics

Jacob Louis Mey (30 October 1926 – 10 February 2023) was a Dutch-born Danish professor of linguistics, specializing in pragmatics. He was professor emeritus in the Institute of Language and Communication at the University of Southern Denmark, after retiring in 1996.

In semiotics, linguistics, sociology and anthropology, context refers to those objects or entities which surround a focal event, in these disciplines typically a communicative event, of some kind. Context is "a frame that surrounds the event and provides resources for its appropriate interpretation". It is thus a relative concept, only definable with respect to some focal event within a frame, not independently of that frame.

A word is a basic element of language that carries meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. Different standards have been proposed, depending on the theoretical background and descriptive context; these do not converge on a single definition. Some specific definitions of the term "word" are employed to convey its different meanings at different levels of description, for example based on phonological, grammatical or orthographic basis. Others suggest that the concept is simply a convention used in everyday situations.

Scott A. Schwenter is Professor of Hispanic Linguistics at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where he has taught since 1999. He is a variationist morphosyntactician and pragmaticist, whose research addresses grammatical issues in both Spanish and Portuguese. His work has included both experimental and corpus-based approaches, making use of multivariate statistical analysis to examine broad-scale patterns across different varieties of Spanish and Portuguese.

In the philosophy of language and linguistics, a speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. For example, the phrase "I would like the mashed potatoes; could you please pass them to me?" is considered a speech act as it expresses the speaker's desire to acquire the mashed potatoes, as well as presenting a request that someone pass the potatoes to them.

In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. The field has been represented since 1986 by the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA).

Context as Other Minds (—subtitled The Pragmatics of Sociality, Cognition and Communication—) is a book, by Talmy Givón, published by John Benjamins in 2005.

The International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) is a scientific organization that focuses on the study of language use. It was established as a non-profit organization in 1986.

Intercultural Pragmatics is a peer-reviewed academic journal published quarterly by Mouton de Gruyter. It covers both theoretical and practical aspects of pragmatics in an intercultural context, aiming at promoting discussion among researchers within different disciplines, such as theoretical and applied linguistics, psychology and communication studies.

Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. In this sense, it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate, and perceive the world around them. Intercultural communication focuses on the recognition and respect of those with cultural differences. The goal is mutual adaptation between two or more distinct cultures which leads to biculturalism/multiculturalism rather than complete assimilation. It promotes the development of cultural sensitivity and allows for empathic understanding across different cultures.