A little about me..
2nd year. Majoring in English Language & Linguistics.
I find solace in long periods of
Hence, "snorlax".
(Note: That's a pokemon.)
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Ever wondered why advice like "say the right thing, at the right time" exists?
Would it be appropriate to say “I'm so exhausted I think I'm gonna die!” when attending a funeral? If you were naturally an insensitive person, you would beg to differ. However generally, people restrain from using such expressions because of the situation.
Pragmatics, is that. Although the example provided in the previous paragraph is in relation to verbal situations, it is not limited to only that. Pragmatics can even extend to visual communications. Instead of saying the right thing, it becomes display or show the right thing at the right time. 'Time' here does not solely refer to time of the day according to the clock (as in, the time I am writing this is 1.38AM). Its meaning refers to context. Context, in relation to pragmatics, as defined by Leong Ping, Deterding & Low (2006, p. 113) is “the environment within which an expression is situated”.
I have used the term “pragmatics” repeatedly thus far. You may have already established a blurry idea of pragmatics in your minds. So, what exactly is pragmatics? Apart from it being something that tortured me last semester whilst taking Introduction to English Language & Linguistics II from having to learn direct and indirect speech acts and remembering the Gricean maxims, unc.edu (2002) offers an objective definition. unc.edu (2002) defined pragmatics as the study of how meanings are influenced by the context or the current situation.
Since visual syntax, semantics and pragmatics comes as a package as they are branches of semiotics (Lester. 2006), it is important to distinguish the differences, especially with semantics and pragmatics as they are similar to one another. The traditional linguistics definition of syntax, according to Lester (2006) is the application of rules in order to create sentences, in other words, grammar. When translated to visual-speak, some of the “grammars” of visual communication are rules of colours and rules of lines. Semantics on the other hand, according to Leong Ping, Deterding & Low (2006, p. 113) is “the study of meanings of language”. As cited by Korta and Perry (2006) on stanford.edu, according to Kempson (1988), semantics and pragmatics is different because semantics deals with just the meanings of a word, whereas pragmatics is dependent on how the speaker uses those meanings in context. In a way, semantics is how the word “beast” in a dictionary would be defined, whereas with pragmatics, “beast” can be used in slang with a positive connotation, which is different from its dictionary meaning.
So, why is pragmatics important in visual communication? It is useful in order to avoid misrepresentation, especially on sign boards or advertisements as well using as pictures that can be understood and accepted by the group of targeted audiences.
Putting pragmatics in visual communication into practice:
Although black is a colour commonly used in Western funerals, in Chinese funerals this is not an accepted colour when attending funerals. In a sense, pragmatics is also reliant on cultural codes or community codes. In the case above, cultural codes.
s. Singapore: McGraw Hill.
