Page 447 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Castro called Gorbachev a bad Marxist, and then Gor- bachev insulted him.
Here, one has to know such things as that President Bush would never have used the expression 'real Marxist' as other than a compliment to a statesman whose political and personal views are known to be inspired by Marx; hence Gorbachev's would-be insult- ing retort makes no sense at all. On the other hand, among Marxists, one can imagine that being called a 'bad Marxist' is indeed an insult, so the second sen- tence makes perfect sense. Again, the problem is how to put such things in a grammatically identifiable shape.
For the time being, the findings may be recap- itulated as follows. In the study of language, there seem to be certain features and elements that cannot be captured in a strictly linguistic (or grammatical) view on language. When one looks closer at these features and elements, they seem to be related in some way to the 'outer' world (what used to be called, somewhat denigratorily, the 'extralinguistic'), that is, to the world of the users and their societal conditions.
2.3.5 A Preliminary Definition
From what has been said so far, the following pre- liminary definition of pragmatics can be offered.
Pragmatics is the study of language in a human context of use. Language use is the process by which people communicate, for various purposes, using linguistic means. This process is governed by the con- ditions of society, inasmuch as these conditions deter- mine the users' access to, and control of, those means. Hence, pragmatics can also be described as a societally oriented and societally bound linguistics.
A further elaboration of these societal aspects will be given in Sect. 4. The relationship of pragmatics to the 'linguistic means' mentioned above will be dis- cussed in the following section.
2.4 Pragmaticsand Linguistics: Delimiting and Defining
A definition of pragmatics would not be complete unless it took into account where pragmatics begins and, possibly, where it ends. To define' means 'to impose a boundary' (cf. the Latin word finis 'end'; plural fines 'frontier'). 'Defining pragmatics' thus implies determining its frontiers with other, adjoining fields of research within (and possibly also outside) linguistics.
Nobody has been able to postulate, in a convincing way, any such defining boundaries; nor have the defi- nitions that have been offered provided any possibility of delimiting pragmatics clearly and neatly to every- body's satisfaction. A real 'definition' in this sense is thus just as impossible to provide as a 'grammatical' definition in the sense of the previous section. Most authors either confine themselves to a strictly linguis-
tically oriented definition (like the one criticized in Sect. 2.3.3) or resort to a definition that, while incor- porating as much societal context as possible, necess- arily remains somewhat diffuse as regards the relation between pragmatics and the other areas of linguistics, including their relative autonomy.
It seems natural at this point to raise the question of why such clear, sharply demarcated boundaries are needed at all, when pragmatics is apparently in a ste- ady evolutionary flux, and boundary markers, once placed, will have to be removed constantly anyway. A 'pragmatic' definition of pragmatics is required that avoids the Scylla and Charybdis of the above alter- natives.
In the literature, such an idea seems to have been received with some enthusiasm. The most prominent representative of this 'pragmatic eclecticism' is Geoffrey Leech, who advocates complementarity as his solution to the dilemma. This is what he says about the relation between pragmatics and its nearest linguistic neighbor, semantics:
The view that semantics and pragmatics are distinct, though complementary and interrelated fields of study, is easy to appreciate subjectively, but is more difficult to justify in an objective way. It is best supported negatively, by pointing out the failures or weaknesses of alternative views.
(1983:6)
Leech distinguishes three possible ways of structuring this relationship: semanticism (pragmatics inside sem- antics), pragmaticism (semantics inside pragmatics), and complementarism (they both complement each other, but are otherwise independent areas of research).
As an instance of semanticism, one can mention the early suggestions for dealing with the 'presupposition problem' (see above); what the transformationalists called 'deep syntax' was in reality semantics-inspired, and the presuppositions (which, after all, had a prag- matic background) were forced inside the semantico- syntactic chimera called 'semantax' in order not to disturb the unity and indivisibility of linguistics under the watching eye of Divine Syntax.
In contrast to this, consider the way in which Austin dealt with the problem. For him, the only real issue at stake was the effect that 'words' have when uttered, and the 'things' that can be 'done' with them. In Lee- ch's terminology, this means that the pragmatic aspect of language is the only really interesting one: clearly a case of pragmaticism.
Finally, it seems plausible to assume that the main reason why Austin's work remained unknown to so many linguists for such a long time was precisely the same anxiety that radical views traditionally inspire in those who are concerned about territorial rights and privileges, and who hence worry about boundaries. Obviously, being a syntactician or a semanticist, one
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