Pragmatics is a fifteen-unit course available in the first
semester of the second year for Master 2 Language and Culture students. Pragmatics as a program of study develops out of the desire to
properly explain the nature of language and how it works in the context
of people and situations. Much of the progress made in this discipline
may be attributable to reactions of linguistic scholars and all those
interested in communication to the formal approach to language study,
especially structural linguistics and those that believe that language is a
purely mental process. Pragmatics and other sociolinguistic sub-fields
attempt to demonstrate the social dimensions of language and explain
the difference between linguistic forms and what speakers actually say
and mean in different social contexts. Pragmatics has been defined as
the study of speaker/context meaning showing how language users
manipulate language forms, distort or reorganise sentences in order to
express their intentions.
- Teacher: SAIDA TOBBI