Page 439 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

absorb the overflow from semantics, in the same way that semantics itself, a decade earlier, had been assigned the task of explaining whatever trans- formational generative syntax had been proved unable to cope with (see further Haberland and Mey 1977).
Thus, it does not come as a surprise that the eminent British linguist, Sir John Lyons, could have written the following, only 15 years before the publication of Leech's book: '[there is] no conflict between the peculiarly abstract approach to the study of language which is characteristic of modern "structural" linguis- tics and more "practical approaches'" (1968:50-51), without so much as mentioning pragmatics. Instead, Lyons indicates the existence of certain 'practical' and 'realistic' tendencies which, however, are not opposed (in his opinion) to 'real' linguistics, except in the minds of people who (for whatever reason) insist on creating such an opposition.
1.2 Pragmatics and Linguistics: Two Powers in Con- flict?
In the above quote from Lyons's book, mention is made of a 'conflict' between certain 'structural' (read: 'theoretical,' since the linguistic theory of the day was mainly interested in the structure, the system of a language, not in its use) and what Lyons calls 'more practical approaches' (such as having to do with the way in which people use their language—an approach which, in the 1990s, would be called 'pragmatic').
Another, somewhat related way of expressing this supposed conflict between the theoretically oriented and the more 'practical' (read: 'pragmatic') approach is to distinguish between an abstract, 'formal' way of describing language and a description of its 'actual' use. However, as Lyons admonishes, '[hjowever abstract, or formal, modern linguistic theory might be, it has been developed to account for the way people actually use language' (ibid.); hence there should not be any conflict. The problem is, rather, that (despite the good intentions on the part of the linguists), cer- tain people have seen fit to exploit an apparent 'con- flict' to further their own aims. Linguistics, including pragmatics, is a science, and, as such, it is universal and nonpartisan, says Lyons:
In this respect, linguistics is no different from any other science; and the point would not be worth stressing, if it were not the case that some linguists, out of sympathy with current developments, have seen a necessary oppo- sition between what have been called 'formalism' and 'realism' in the study of language.
(ibid.)
This last remark is indicative of the existence of what may perhaps be called a 'deeper' conflict: the people to whom Lyons refers are those who were also involved in the general move of the 1960s and 1970s to make science 'relevant' to the overall aims of society, rather than to the interests of the privileged few.One
has to recall that Lyons wrote his text at a time when the whole of the academic world was shaken by the violent upheavals that resulted from precisely such a deeper conflict: the year was 1968, and the conflict manifested itself most notably in the student move- ments of the 1960s and 1970s that started that same year in Paris.
Even though the 'current developments' have passed, their lasting effect is still felt throughout the world of science. In the early 1990s, the clamor for a 'socially relevant' science has largely been translated as a plea for an ecologically sound development of the sciences; still, it seems fair to say that the 'devel- opments' that Lyons was thinking of have resulted in a wholly different look at those sciences which directly deal with humans and their lives. The conflict of the
1960s has resulted in a heightened awareness of the importance of the 'human factors' in science, and in a critical stance toward 'science for its own sake.' It is precisely in this sense that pragmatics can be said to have inherited the push for a human-centered practice of the language sciences from those 'current devel- opments' of the 1960s. The conflict was never just in the minds of 'some linguists,' and its resolution has been one of the main motivations behind the devel- opment of modern pragmatics.
1.3 The Development of Pragmatics
Pragmatics, in the above context, thus appears to be the first, historically motivated approach towards a societally relevant practice of linguistics. Naturally, such an approach does not originate ex nihilo: at least three (and perhaps four) developments, or devel- opmental tendencies, can be distinguished, which to- gether (in unison or in counterpoint) have made prag- matics into what it is in the early 1990s.
1.3.1 The 'Antisyntactic' Tendency
This tendency can be seen as a reaction to the 'syn- tacticism' of the Chomskyan school of linguistics, whereby all of linguistic science (including phonology and semantics) was supposed to fit into the syntactic framework. Linguists such as George Lakoff and John Robert ('Haj') Ross were the first to protest against this syntactic straitjacket; of the numerous alternative 'frameworks' proposed in the late 1960s (such as 'Gen- erative Semantics' by Lakoff: more on this below, Sect. 1.4), none was truly pragmatic in orientation. Furthermore, these alternatives were (naturally as well as geographically) limited to North America; they never caught on in Europe.
1.3.2 The 'Social-Critical' Tendency
This tendency had its origin and heyday in Europe (starting independently in the UK, in Germany, and in Scandinavia, and spreading over most of the continent and later also outside, especially to Australia). Characteristic of this tendency is the need for a socially
Pragmatics
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