Lakhasly

The purpose of this Chapter is to provide some indication of the scope of linguistic pragmatics.1 The origin and historical vagaries of the term pragmatics The modern usage of the term pragmatics is attributable to the philosopher Charles Morris (1938), who was concerned to outline (after Locke and Peirce)1 the general shape of a science of signs, or semiotics (or semiotic as Morris preferred).First, the historical origin of the term pragmatics will be briefly summarized, in order to indicate some usages of the term that are divergent from the usage in this book.In passing, some analytical notions that are useful background will be introduced.1.

The purpose of this Chapter is to provide some indication
of the scope of linguistic pragmatics. First, the historical origin of the
term pragmatics will be briefly summarized, in order to indicate
some usages of the term that are divergent from the usage in this book.
Secondly, we will review some definitions of the field, which, while
being less than fully satisfactory, will at least serve to indicate the
rough scope of linguistic pragmatics. Thirdly, some reasons for the
current interest in the field will be explained, while a final section
iillustrates some basic kinds of pragmatic phenomena. In passing,
some analytical notions that are useful background will be
introduced.

1. 1 The origin and historical vagaries of the term
   pragmatics
   The modern usage of the term pragmatics is attributable
   to the philosopher Charles Morris (1938), who was concerned to
   outline (after Locke and Peirce)1 the general shape of a science of
   signs, or semiotics (or semiotic as Morris preferred). Within
   semiotics, Morris distinguished three distinct branches of inquiry:
   syntactics (or syntax), being the study of "the formal relation of
   signs to one another ", semantics, the study of "the relations of
   signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable" (their
   designata), and pragmatics, the study of "the relation of signs to
   interpreters" (1938: 6). Within each branch of semiotics, one could
   make the distinction between pure studies, concerned with the