Abstract
Before Chomsky, rules of language were regularly prescriptive in nature. After Chomsky, rules became syntactic and generative because language is rule governed and predictable. But such rules fail to rein in meaning, which defies predictability and testability. Language philosophers and pragmatists, therefore, turned their attention to extralinguistic conditions, to how language users use language as determined by societal conditions. Their work has resulted in the formulation of pragmatic principles, including the cooperative principle, politeness principles, and the principle of relevance. However, pragmatic principles are not self-reflective, whereas metapragmatic principles are: they cultivate metadiscursive awareness and account for those underlying forces that, be they local or crosscultural, motivate or constitute particular pragmatic principles.
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More From: Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 14-Volume Set
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