Pragmatics Cheat Sheet

The core ideas of Pragmatics distilled into a single, scannable reference — perfect for review or quick lookup.

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Quick Reference

Conversational Implicature

Meaning that a speaker implies and a listener infers from an utterance without it being explicitly stated, relying on shared assumptions about cooperative communication as described by Grice's Cooperative Principle.

Speech Act Theory

The theory, developed by J.L. Austin and John Searle, that utterances are not merely statements about the world but actions performed through language, classified into locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts.

Grice's Cooperative Principle

The principle that participants in a conversation are expected to cooperate by making their contributions as informative, truthful, relevant, and clear as required for the current purposes of the exchange.

Presupposition

Background information or assumptions that a speaker takes for granted as already known or accepted by the listener when making an utterance, and which remain constant whether the statement is affirmed or negated.

Deixis

Expressions whose meaning depends entirely on the context of the utterance, including the identity of the speaker, the time and place of speaking, and the gestural or discourse context. Categories include person, spatial, temporal, social, and discourse deixis.

Politeness Theory

A framework developed by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson describing how speakers manage 'face' -- the public self-image that every person wants to maintain -- through positive politeness, negative politeness, indirect speech, and off-record strategies.

Relevance Theory

A cognitive approach to pragmatics proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, which argues that human communication is driven by the search for relevance and that listeners interpret utterances by maximizing cognitive effects while minimizing processing effort.

Illocutionary Force

The intended communicative function of an utterance -- such as asserting, questioning, commanding, promising, or apologizing -- which may differ from its grammatical form.

Scalar Implicature

A type of conversational implicature that arises from the use of a weaker term on an informational scale, implying that the speaker is not in a position to use a stronger term.

Context

The totality of background conditions relevant to interpreting an utterance, including the physical setting, the participants' identities and shared knowledge, preceding discourse, social norms, and cultural conventions.

Key Terms at a Glance

Pragmatics:The branch of linguistics that studies how context contributes to the interpretation of meaning in language use.

Implicature:Meaning that is suggested or implied by an utterance rather than explicitly stated.

Speech Act:An utterance considered as an action, such as making a request, giving a promise, or issuing a warning.

Cooperative Principle:Grice's principle that speakers are expected to make conversational contributions that are cooperative, informative, truthful, relevant, and clear.

Maxim of Quantity:The conversational maxim requiring speakers to provide the right amount of information -- neither too much nor too little.

Maxim of Quality:The conversational maxim requiring speakers to be truthful and not say things they believe to be false or lack evidence for.

Maxim of Relation:The conversational maxim requiring that contributions be relevant to the topic at hand.

Maxim of Manner:The conversational maxim requiring speakers to be clear, avoiding obscurity, ambiguity, and unnecessary prolixity.

Presupposition:An implicit assumption embedded in an utterance that is taken as already known or accepted, surviving both affirmation and negation.

Deixis:The phenomenon in which the reference of certain expressions depends on the context of the utterance, including who is speaking, where, and when.

Illocutionary Force:The communicative intention behind an utterance, such as asserting, requesting, promising, or apologizing.

Locutionary Act:The act of producing a meaningful utterance with a particular sense and reference.

Perlocutionary Act:The effect or consequence an utterance has on the listener, such as persuading, alarming, or inspiring.

Indirect Speech Act:An utterance whose literal grammatical form does not match its intended illocutionary force, such as a question used as a request.

Face:The public self-image a person wants to maintain, comprising positive face (desire for approval) and negative face (desire for autonomy).

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