Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Abstract Pragmatics and discourse analysis are two distinct, yet interrelated, fields of study that both encompass a wide range of research approaches and perspectives. While pragmatics began as a domain of formal linguistics concerned with meaning at the utterance level, over the past three decades, the scope of pragmatics research has shifted to focus on meaning in larger stretches of discourse. Moreover, the scope of context considered in the interpretation of situated meanings has expanded in contemporary discursive pragmatics research, with much of this socially oriented scholarship absorbing influences from adjacent disciplines. Currently, multimodal approaches to discourse analysis (MDA) are growing in influence in pragmatics research because of their potential to account for meaning‐making systems that extend beyond the linguistic. This entry provides a brief historical overview outlining the relationship between pragmatics and discourse analysis, discusses several of the dominant theoretical influences on discursive approaches to pragmatics, and presents some of the major characteristics of empirical work on discursive pragmatics.