Semantics refers to the meaning of words in a language and the meaning within the sentence. The field of semantics has three basic concerns:
the relations of words to the objects denoted by them, the relations of words to the interpreters of them, and, in symbolic logic, the formal relations of signs to one another.
Pragmatic meaning looks at the same words and grammar used semantically, except within context. In each situation, the various listeners in the conversation define the ultimate meaning of the words, based on other clues that lend subtext to the meaning.
Examples to denote the difference:
She hasn’t taken a shower.
He was so tired he could sleep for days.
In both of these examples, the context and pragmatic meaning really define the sentence.
In the first, did the speaker really mean to say that the woman has not ever taken a shower, not even once? Although the sentence says just that, the listener in the conversation may understand, based on other factors, that the speaker means that the woman they are referring to has not taken a shower ... today.
In the second example, we have a guy who is so tired he can sleep for days. Is he really going to sleep for days? Semantically, we would need to take that sentence to mean exactly that. But, in casual conversation, the listeners and speaker might tell you that the guy was just saying he was really, really tired, and using those words to convey that meaning, instead of saying, 'he was really tired'.
Similarities:
The only obvious similarity between the two branches is that they both deal with the meanings of words and sentences but in different ways.
However, they are intricately linked, for instance, some categories in semantics require the application of pragmatics in order to arrive at a satisfactory interpretation as has been demonstrated in the above mentioned example.
Also, deictic words take some elements of their meanings from the context in which they are uttered. As an example, the pronoun “he” cannot be fully interpreted unless we know to whom the pronoun refers.
Differences:
The semantic dimension refers to the study of the relations of words to which they refer whereas the pragmatic dimension refers to the study of the relationship between words, the interlocutors and the context.
Semanticists adopt a narrow scope because they deal with only text and analyze the meaning of words and how they are combined to constitute meaningful sentences. In contrast, pragmatics adopts a wider scope beyond the text itself, they consider the facts surrounding the utterance such as the contextual factors, knowledge of the world surrounding the context of the message, the speaker’s intended meaning and the hearer’s inferences in order to interpret that utterance.
For example, take the sentence "crack the window"
It could mean: to open the window
or, it could also mean: to make a crack/opening in a window
To understand what the speaker is talking about, it is essential to the context in which it is being said. Hence, the need for pragmatics.
There are other differences which involve further study of:
Moreover, there are certain conjunctions such as "so" and "but" which can be studied only within a pragmatic framework than a semantic one.
for instance, "So?" could mean multiple things depending on the context in which it has been said.
the relations of words to the objects denoted by them, the relations of words to the interpreters of them, and, in symbolic logic, the formal relations of signs to one another.
Pragmatic meaning looks at the same words and grammar used semantically, except within context. In each situation, the various listeners in the conversation define the ultimate meaning of the words, based on other clues that lend subtext to the meaning.
Examples to denote the difference:
She hasn’t taken a shower.
He was so tired he could sleep for days.
In both of these examples, the context and pragmatic meaning really define the sentence.
In the first, did the speaker really mean to say that the woman has not ever taken a shower, not even once? Although the sentence says just that, the listener in the conversation may understand, based on other factors, that the speaker means that the woman they are referring to has not taken a shower ... today.
In the second example, we have a guy who is so tired he can sleep for days. Is he really going to sleep for days? Semantically, we would need to take that sentence to mean exactly that. But, in casual conversation, the listeners and speaker might tell you that the guy was just saying he was really, really tired, and using those words to convey that meaning, instead of saying, 'he was really tired'.
Similarities:
The only obvious similarity between the two branches is that they both deal with the meanings of words and sentences but in different ways.
However, they are intricately linked, for instance, some categories in semantics require the application of pragmatics in order to arrive at a satisfactory interpretation as has been demonstrated in the above mentioned example.
Also, deictic words take some elements of their meanings from the context in which they are uttered. As an example, the pronoun “he” cannot be fully interpreted unless we know to whom the pronoun refers.
Differences:
The semantic dimension refers to the study of the relations of words to which they refer whereas the pragmatic dimension refers to the study of the relationship between words, the interlocutors and the context.
Semanticists adopt a narrow scope because they deal with only text and analyze the meaning of words and how they are combined to constitute meaningful sentences. In contrast, pragmatics adopts a wider scope beyond the text itself, they consider the facts surrounding the utterance such as the contextual factors, knowledge of the world surrounding the context of the message, the speaker’s intended meaning and the hearer’s inferences in order to interpret that utterance.
For example, take the sentence "crack the window"
It could mean: to open the window
or, it could also mean: to make a crack/opening in a window
To understand what the speaker is talking about, it is essential to the context in which it is being said. Hence, the need for pragmatics.
There are other differences which involve further study of:
- the two theories of locution and illocution which clarify the importance of and illustrate the difference between pragmatics and semantics in terms of their approaches to analyzing sentences.
- The principle of compositionality which claims that we do not need to know anything other than the context to understand the meaning of the sentences.
Moreover, there are certain conjunctions such as "so" and "but" which can be studied only within a pragmatic framework than a semantic one.
for instance, "So?" could mean multiple things depending on the context in which it has been said.
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