Introduction: A Critical Eye on Critical Pragmatics

Abstract

We journey into the realm of pragmatics when we ask how speakers manage to convey more than or go beyond what they literally say. In fact, such considerations paved the way to what we may now call “Classical Pragmatics”, which developed sometime around the mid-sixties by authors like John L. Austin, Paul Grice, and John Searle. Together, their innovative research contributed to identifying failures with and offering solutions to problems concerning the “code model” of communication. There is no doubt that pragmatics constitutes a crucial aspect of (the study of linguistic) communication, however, there is little consensus on its precise nature and role. Critical Pragmatics establishes an important and novel step in understanding the nature and roles played by the semantic and pragmatic systems and their interface.