Introduction to Pragmatics_SoSe2025

This course offers a basic introduction to linguistic pragmatics. We will be concerned with aspects of meaning that go beyond truth-conditional content, with a focus on how language is used in context: how it reflects and changes that context. These include phenomena like presuppositions (notions that a speaker or an utterance present as taken for granted), and conversational implicatures (inferences that arise through reasoning about the speaker’s adherence to conversational maxims like ‘Be as informative as you can’). Phenomena like these will lead us to consider the view that meaning in conversation is a product of the lexical meaning of words, the syntax/semantics of the linguistic constructions employed, and how these interact with the context of use and language users’ assumptions.

The course is geared towards students who want to acquire core concepts in pragmatics needed to begin or advance their studies in linguistics and related disciplines such as psychology, information science, natural language programming, philosophy, literature, etc.