What is Pragmatics Pragmatics is a way of investigating how sense can be made of certain texts even when, from a semantic viewpoint, the text seems to be either incomplete or to have a different meaning to what is really intended Consider a sign seen in a children,'s wear shop window Baby sale -lots of bargains". We know without asking that there are no babies are for sale -that what is for sale are items used for babies. Pragmatics allows us to investigate how this meaning beyond the words can be understood without ambiguity. The extra meaning is there not because of the semantic aspects of the words themselves but because we share certain contextual knowledge with the writer or speaker of the textWhat is Pragmatics • “Pragmatics is a way of investigating how sense can be made of certain texts even when, from a semantic viewpoint, the text seems to be either incomplete or to have a different meaning to what is really intended. Consider a sign seen in a children's wear shop window: “Baby Sale - lots of bargains”. We know without asking that there are no babies are for sale - that what is for sale are items used for babies. Pragmatics allows us to investigate how this “meaning beyond the words” can be understood without ambiguity. The extra meaning is there, not because of the semantic aspects of the words themselves, but because we share certain contextual knowledge with the writer or speaker of the text