-卡纸
外国语
2010
级
6<
/p>
班
王丽红
2
the relation between semantics and
pragmatics
Introduction
Language is
the bridge
connecting the man and the physical
world .in
other words,
language
is
the
reflection
of
man’s
knowledge
about
the
objective
world,
by
the
language,
we are able to express our ideas so as to
communicate with others for kinds
of
purposes. And whether with body language or formal
written or spoken language,
the meaning
is the core of the meaning varies in the
different situations
or
context
even
with
the
same
syntactic
form
of
a
what
makes
these
differences ? Among the study of
linguistics on the meaning, the are two main kinds
study of meaning, semantics and
pragmatics. The two
are close but
different
in
the
study of meaning. Over the past years
,many linguists do many research on the study
of
the
meaning
and
make
attempt
to
take
semantics
,instead
of
the
syntax,s
the
prerequisite of the study of the
linguistics . But the deeper the study ,the more
they
find
the
necessity
of
relating
the
semantics
and
the
context,
which
produce
the
existing of pragmatics. So this paper
is mainly dealing with the relation between the
semantics and pragmatics.
definition of semantics and pragmatics.
Semantics is the study of meaning,
which focuses on the relation between signifiers,
such as words, phrases, signs, and
symbols, and what they stand for.
Linguistic
semantics
is
the
study
of
meaning
that
is
used
to
understand
human
expression
through
language.
Other
forms
of
semantics
include
the
semantics
of
programming languages, formal logics,
and
semiotics.
Pragmatics
is
the
study
of
meaning,
which
focuses
on
the
specified
conversational
context.
In
a
given
languages,
linguistic
pragmatics
is
the
study
of
meaning
that
the
transmission
of
meaning
depends
not
only
on
structural
and
linguistic
knowledge
(e.g., grammer, lexicon, etc.) of the
speaker and listener, but also on the context of
the utterance, any preexisting
knowledge about those involved, the inferred
intent of
the
speaker,
and
other
factors.
In
this
respect,
pragmatics
explains
how
language
users are able to
overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies
on the manner,
place, time etc. of an
utterance.
The inner relation between
semantics and pragmatics.
In
conclusion, semantics is the level of linguistics
which has been most affected by
pragmatics,
but
the
relation
between
semantics
(in
the
sense
of
conceptual
semantics)
and
pragmatics
has
remained
a
matter
of
fundamental
disagreement.
Three
logically distinct positions in this debate can be
distinguished (Leech, 1981). 1)
Pragmatics should be subsumed under
semantics. 2) Semantics should be subsumed
under
pragmatics.
3)
Semantics
and
pragmatics
are
distinct
and
complementary
fields of
study. The reductionist approach, runs counter
into the fact that there are
linguistic
phenomena
such
as
entailment
which
are
relatively
uncontroversially
semantic,
and there are also linguistic phenomena such as
conversational implication
which are
relatively uncontroversially pragmatic(Huang,
2007).The complementarist
viewpoint is
more widely accepted in which semantics and
pragmatics is considered
as
two
different
components
in
language
system.
They
are
independent
and
complementary.
It
is
on
the
basis
of
complementarism
that
there
becomes
the
boundary between semantics and
pragmati
cs.
2,The difference
between semantics and pragmatics.
The
difference can be divided in two ways .
firstly,
it
is
the
relation
between
language
and
context.
Semantics
is
the
study
of
meaning
isolating
from
the
context,is
purely
the
linguistic
meaning
,which
just
concerns
the
language
only
while
pragmatics
is
the
study
of
meaning
related
to
language users, to conversational
context. We can include that semantics concerns
the
relation
between
the
symbols
and
reference,and
pragmatics
deals
with
the
relation between symbols and users. For
example, when A say,---you are a fool .B say
what does fool means? And C say what do
you mean by a fool? In this case ,b actually
want
to
know
the
literary(conceptual)
meaning
of
the
word
FOOL.
And
c
want
to
know the situational meaning of a a
extent , we can say ,pragmatics not only
conclude the linguistic meaning but
extra meaning implied by the speech users.