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Pragmatics Pragmatics as an approach to discourse is chiefly concerned with three concepts (meaning, context, communication) that are themselves extremely vast.Issues in the Study of Language and Literature: Theory & Practice Gricean pragmatics, particularly his ideas about speaker meaning and the cooperative principle, as useful approach to discourse analysis.Earlier studies on pragmatics defined it as a branch of semiotics, the study of signs, but contemporary discussions of pragmatics all take the relationship of sign to their user to be central to pragmatics.The scope of pragmatics is so wide that it faces definitional dilemmas similar to those faced by discourse analysis.Jacob Mey (2001) defines pragmatics as the study of the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society.Schiffrin (1994) focuses on 176 ?It is an approach that focuses on meaning in context.

Pragmatics
Pragmatics as an approach to discourse is chiefly concerned with three concepts (meaning, context, communication) that are themselves extremely vast. The scope of pragmatics is so wide that it faces definitional dilemmas similar to those faced by discourse analysis. Earlier studies on pragmatics defined it as a branch of semiotics, the study of signs, but contemporary discussions of pragmatics all take the relationship of sign to their user to be central to pragmatics. Jacob Mey (2001) defines pragmatics as the study of the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society. Schiffrin (1994) focuses on
176 ▪ Issues in the Study of Language and Literature: Theory & Practice
Gricean pragmatics, particularly his ideas about speaker meaning and the cooperative principle, as useful approach to discourse analysis. It is an approach that focuses on meaning in context. The Gricean pragmatics or theory has been described as “the hub of pragmatics research” (Schiffrin, 1994:190) hence its choice as a good demonstration of pragmatic approach to discourse analysis. Speaker meaning allows a distinction between semantic meaning and pragmatic meaning, and also suggests a particular view of human communication that focuses on intentions. Grice separates natural meaning from non-natural meaning. While the former is said to be devoid of human intentionality the latter is roughly equivalent to intentional communication. A critical feature of non-natural meaning is that it is intended to be recognized in a particular way by a recipient. Implicit in this understanding is a second intention - the intention that a recipient recognize the speaker’s communicative intention. Grice’s framework allows the speaker meaning to be relatively free of conventional meaning. It shows that what the speaker intends to communicate need not be related to conventional meanings at all, and not conventionally attached or related to the words being used. Mey (2001:48) affirms that logical and semantic criteria are not sufficient to comprehend a speaker’s intention. Rather, knowledge of the persons involved in the situation, their background and the context have to be taken into account. The Gricean pragmatics, therefore, provides a way to analyze the inference of a speaker meaning: how hearers infer the intentions underlying a speaker’s utterance.
Grice developed the cooperative principle on the assumption that conversation proceeds according to a principle that is known and applied by all human beings. According to him, we interpret language on the assumption that its sender is obeying four maxims which are:
Quantity:

1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange)


2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required
   Quantity:
   Try to make your contribution one that is true


3. Do not say what you believe to be false


4. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
   Relation: Be relevant
   Manner:
   Be perspicuous


5. Avoid obscurity of expression
   Discourse Analysis – Ikenna Kamalu & Ayo Osisanwo (2015) ▪ 177


6. Avoid ambiguity


7. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)


8. Be orderly
   A maxim can be followed in a straightforward way, a maxim can be violated because of a clash with another maxim, or can be flouted. Schiffrin (1994) demonstrates how the maxims of quantity and relevance can be analysed in discourse. She also reveals how reference and referring terms (definite and indefinite forms; explicit and inexplicit forms) function as pragmatic processes in speaker-hearer interaction. She used the maxims of quantity and relevance to describe the conditions under which people use different expressions to communicate referential intentions in discourse. She concludes by showing that referring sequences are the outcome of pragmatically based choices concerning the provision of appropriate quantities of information in relevant ways, and thus that discourse structures are created (in part) by the cooperative principle. What the Gricean pragmatics, therefore, offers to discourse analysis is a view of how participant assumptions about what comprises a cooperative context for communication ( a context that includes knowledge, text, and situation) contribute to meaning, and how those assumptions help to create sequential patterns in talk.