Pragmatics as Pragma-sociolinguistics of Discourse

Abstract

In construing pragmatics as pragma-sociolinguistics of discourse, a tripartite perspective of pragmatics is brought to the fore: it is a contextual perception of language use; it is a socially underpinned use and interpretation of human communication; and it concerns discourse (language in use). In discourse, language is functional because of the discrete pragma-sociolinguistic elements of communication deployed by language users/participants. Since discourse is indeed, language in use or language in action, a pragmatic study of discourse explains how social context, physical context and linguistic context impinge on “what is said” within and beyond the sentence. Hinging on Adegbija’s (1982) Pragmasociolinguistic Approach, this study concludes that pragmatics is essentially the pragma-sociolinguistics of discourse because: it is a social idea of discourse; it is linguistic action; it is situated/contextualized discourse; it is reference-making; and it is organized discourse.