Pragmatics definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (3)

noun The study of language as it is used in a social context, including its effect on the interlocutors.
noun The branch of semiotics that deals with the relationship between signs, especially words and other elements of language, and their users.

I was discouraged in part because of the track I was seen to be on, heading for a career in academic research in the syntax-pragmatics boundary.
I started focusing more intently on applying formal work to areas of discourse or pragmatics, working closely with Ellen Prince, who had made a very successful career in the same vein.
With potentially sensitive words, everything depends on the phonology and the pragmatics - in other words, how they're said and what the intentions are.
Scalar implicatures: Scalar implicatures: Experiments at the semantics-pragmatics interface. — CiteULike: Everyone's library
So, given sheer pragmatics, the presence of the campaign is an own goal. — Stand Firm