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A Brief Sketch on the Origin and Development Of 26 Philosophy and Progress Philosophy and Progress: Vols. LIII-LIV, January-June, July-December, 2013 inquire into the nature, origin and usage of language. Though ISSN 1607-2278 (Print), DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/pp.v53i1-2.21946 the history of philosophy of language possesses almost the entire time-span of linguistic study including ancient Indian, Greeko-Roman, Chinese and Arabian contribution to modern Chomskyan analysis, pragmatic school of linguistic thought starts mainly in the 50s of the last century. The tradition of philosophy of language comprises two very famous schools of thought—ideal school of philosophy and ordinary school of A BRIEF SKETCH ON THE ORIGIN AND philosophy (Haung, 2007). The former school originated by DEVELOPMENT OF PRAGMATICS the philosophers Gottlob Frege, Alfred Tarski, and Bertrand Russell tries to study the logical system of artificial * intelligence, which consequently turns into the development of Hakim Arif formal semantics— the abstract symbolic interpretation of language with formation of rules—developed later by their followers such as Richard Montague, David Donaldson and Pragmatics—dealing with the nature of language usage or David Lewis. The latter school of thought, on the other hand, contextual meaning of language expression—passes a long flourished at Oxford in the 1950s by J.L. Austin gives attention history to establish its own identity in the world academic on natural language rather than its abstract symbolic form. arena. Although pragmatics is now identified as one of the core Later J.L. Austin himself and H.P. Grice— a follower of branches of linguistics, it originally derives from a special Austin— developed the theory of speech acts and theory of branch of philosophy of language. This paper providing a brief conversational implicature respectively in this tradition. sketch of the origin of pragmatics isolates not only its Other famous followers as well as philosophers of language of philosophical tradition but also the nature of interaction with the latter tradition are Peter Strawson, John Searle and Ludwig semiotics and linguistics. Finally, it describes how pragmatics Wittgenstein (Recanati, 2004). In their approaches to language assimilated with two prominent knowledge traditions of the study they were profoundly interested in eliciting various world maintaining two different names and identities as well. aspects of language like meaning, form and origin from the 1. Pragmatics and philosophy of language misty of symbolic logic to the straightforward scientific observation and analysis. The origin of pragmatic interpretation of language lies in philosophy of language— a branch of philosophy enriched 2. Linguistics tradition and the pragmatic ‘waste-basket’ with the contribution of philosophers’ writings dedicated to Pragmatics was given a metaphor as the ‘waste-basket’ of linguistics in middle of the twentieth century. This metaphor * Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Dhaka . not only denotes a negative connotation of this discipline but Email: [email protected] A Brief Sketch on the Origin and Development of Pragmatics 27 28 Philosophy and Progress also undermines its position in the core areas of linguistics at 2.1 Approaching the study of language as science that time. But Mey (2001) positively considers it as the Following Hjelmslev (who got influenced Leibniz’s earlier indicative of the distinct ‘status’ of pragmatic study in the early notion of ‘conceptual calculus’) there starts an initiative to treat days, which eventually helped shape the skeleton of a new discipline called ‘Pragmatics’. linguistics not only as a science, but also an ‘algebra’ of language in the middle of the last century. The proponents of The debate of ‘abstract versus concrete’ principle of this endeavor explain language with formal reasoning and language investigation, apart from the tradition of philosophy abstract symbolism, as usually done in mathematics and in of language mentioned above, also continues in linguistics in formal logic. Supporting such a view of linguistic 1950. In fact, the consequence of this debate and the interpretation, Chomsky (1957) introduces his famous dominance of abstract method of language study occurring at ‘transformational-generative grammar’ with universal this period have been explained metaphorically in the history algebraic formula that includes logical symbols and of linguistics. More specifically, at that time there imagined a mathematical abstractions. These algebraic formulas work well group of linguists who were working with various aspects of languages including their abstract principles on a working table to elicit the inner structure of syntactic elements of a language and a waste-basket putting in front of them. The nature of their even without getting their meaning. While Chomsky achieves a working procedure, especially leaving the abstract features of great success in interpreting syntactic element excluding its language on the table as well as throwing other unsolved meaning, semantics ultimately gets divorced, hence is regarded elements of ordinary language to the wastebasket has been as the ‘wastebasket of syntax’ (Mey, 2001). envisaged in the following quotation. Later, following Chomsky, as there develops a trend to By placing the investigation of the abstract, potentially dispose of all semantic elements of sentence to the universal, features of language in the centre of their work wastebasket, the basket gets filled to its edge. In addition, tables, linguists and philosophers of language tended to push people in their daily life, use more complex phenomenon than any notes they had on everyday language use to the edges. mathematical abstractions, and frequently create innovative As the tables got crowed, many of those notes on ordinary language in use began to be knocked off and ended up in the sentences that go beyond the imagination of linguistic and wastebasket. (Yule, 1996:6) philosophical interpretations. Hence linguists and/or philosophers can neither figure out the underlying structuring In fact, the metaphoric use of an wastebasket and rules of these sentences with their limited algebraic formula of indicating it as the worthless place for throwing notes and syntax, nor explain these with the techniques of truth features of ordinary language mainly derived from the concept conditions derived from semantics. So, they drop many of Israeli philosopher and linguist Yehoshua Bar Hillel (1915- unsolved questions of sentences to the metaphoric basket called 75) who considered semantics the ‘waste-basket of syntax’ pragmatic wastebasket, which further becomes not-too-tidy in (Mey, 2001). Hillel’s hypothesis demands further explanation to unveil the waste-basket metaphor of pragmatics. size and overflow (Mey, 2001). A Brief Sketch on the Origin and Development of Pragmatics 29 30 Philosophy and Progress Hence, with a view to formulating the techniques to meaning that depend on contextual information beyond interpret the unsolved problems of the pragmatic wastebasket, the words of sentence itself and on the interpreter’s there starts another trend of linguistic analysis initiated by a inferential ability. group of Chomsky’s dissatisfied students notably Jerry Katz, 2. Semantics deals with the literal meaning of words and the J.R. Ross, George Lakoff in the late 1960s and 1970s (Haung, meaning of the way they are combined, which taken 2007). In doing so, they not only challenge Chomsky’s way of together from the core of meaning, or the starting point interpretation, especially the abstract as well as mental entity of from which the whole meaning of a particular utterance is language, which detach it from the functional elements, but constructed. Pragmatics deals with all the ways in which also design essential rules of languages with the help of literal meaning must be refined, enriched or extended to theories of speech acts, conversational implicature derived arrive at an understanding of what a speaker meant in uttering a particular expression. from ordinary school of philosophy in order to interpret the elements and items of ordinary languages left into the In fact, two aforesaid statements clearly identify a sharp pragmatic wastebasket by generative grammarians. Following borderline of both semantics and pragmatics, though these two these trend in 1970s a handsome number of linguistic research human sciences commonly describe the meaning of language. works were carried out by Charles Fillmore, Laurence Horn Put clearly, the discipline investigated narrates the literal and Gerald Gazder where, metaphorically saying, the meaning, and the meaning achieved from the combined disorderliness of the aspects of this basket, finally, come into expression of a group of linguistic components of a language, order. whereas pragmatics points out speaker intended meaning modified by contextual factors and variations (Arif 2012). For 3. Pragmatics and Semantics: A comparison example, the semantic meaning of the sentence, ‘I feel cold Like pragmatics semantics, one of the core fields linguistics, now’ indicates a statement a person catching cold due to also concerns meaning of various linguistic components as its staying in an icy place. But if someone utters this statement focal area of investigations. But these two associated branches inside the air-cooled room, the pragmatic meaning will of linguistics deal with meaning from totally different definitely be a request by the speaker to stop the air cooler perspectives.
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