There exists a thin line between semantics and pragmatics; at
times it becomes difficult to differentiate or draw a line between them due to
their similarities but they can also be differentiated.
Semantics
Semantics is the branch of linguistics that focuses on drawing
meanings from linguistic expressions and their correspondence with other words.
There are several ways in which the term semantics has been
defined. It is the study of the meaning of linguistic items. It is also defined
as the branch of linguistics that deals with the study of sentence structure in
terms of meaning etc. The basic focus of semantics is it's dealing with
meaning.
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that deals with studying
meaning about the context in which the speaker uses a particular utterance. It
is the study of the actual use of language.
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Similarities
From the above definitions of semantics and pragmatics, the two
basic similarities between the two can be highlighted as both of them are the
branches of linguistics, and both deal with the study of meaning.
Firstly, linguistics is the
scientific study of language. Both semantics and pragmatics are the two
branches of linguistics that deal with the aspect of meaning. Secondly, the
term “meaning”
encompasses several ideas and there is absolutely no fixed notion of defining
what the word “meaning” refers to. In
linguistics, meaning is generally considered as either linguistic or
non-linguistic meaning.
The linguistic meaning deals with the linguistic expressions and
draws meaning from them whereas the non-linguistic meaning includes features
such as prosodic, paralinguistic fractures, implicatures, speech acts, and many
such notions other than the meaning of linguistic expressions. However, it
cannot be declared that semantics and pragmatics deal with linguistic and
non-linguistic meaning respectively.
This is due to the reason that both semantics and pragmatics
deal with language systems. In both of these branches of linguistics, the
context shared knowledge, and past experiences play an important part-whole
analyzing a simple sentence. Therefore, rather than taking the two as binary
oppositions, they are taken one at a time.
Consider the notion of “presupposition” which is
defined as “an implicit assumption about an event or a
person based on shared knowledge”. The presupposition is
highlighted with the help of a presupposition trigger which is a linguistic
expression. So, one may say that it comes under the heading of semantics as it
deals with linguistic expressions. However, the presupposition taken is not
always explicitly stated which suggests that it is a pragmatic phenomenon.
For instance:
● Have you stopped beating your wife?
In the above sentence, the word “stopped” and “your”
are presupposition triggers and they are also linguistic expressions. However,
the presupposition that “the person used to beat his wife”
and he “has a wife” is not explicitly
stated. So, there exists a thin line that separates pragmatics from semantics
which sometimes forces presupposition to be considered as semantic phenomena
and sometimes as a pragmatic one.
Differences
Just like the similarities, the differences between the two are
also prominent. Within a language system, semantics deals with the ability to
use language whereas, pragmatics deals with the actual use of language. In
terms of meaning, semantics focuses on linguistic meaning and pragmatics on
linguistic meaning regarding the context.
In pragmatics, certain aspects such as “politeness”, speech
acts”, “implicatures”, and “cooperative principles”
are studied in detail as they focus on language in use i.e. language in a
particular context. However, they may not always negate the linguistic
expressions.
In conclusion, one may say that semantics and pragmatics being
the branches of linguistics and dealing with meaning are quite similar and
sometimes one fails to draw boundaries between the two. However, they focus on
certain aspects of meaning i.e. semantics dealing with linguistic and
pragmatics dealing with the intended meaning. But this does not mean that they
do not consider the other aspects of meaning which leads to the overlapping of
the two notions. Therefore, one may say that meanings are “slippery
customers” and they do not remain constant.
This great difference is elaborated by Syeda Areeba Fatima, one of the contributors at the School of Literature.
