The course aims to provide students with insights into the use of language in communication, possible interpretations of utterances depending on the contexts and situations in which they are used, speech acts, maxims of conversation, and implications of the study of pragmatics for language teaching.
The course is about how meaning varies from one context to another in terms of utterance meaning. It examines how what is said fulfils different functions in different contexts. In this course, it is also discussed how people cooperate to carry out effective communication. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to discuss important concepts in pragmatics and analyze naturally occurring linguistic data for both structure and function.