Quo Vadis, pragmatics? Alternative conceptions in making sense of a heterogeneous discipline

Abstract

Abstract This is a review article discussing some aspects of the scope and the content of The Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics (Amsterdam: Elsevier) edited by Jacob L. Mey. The presentation of the Encyclopedia's arrangement and coverage is used as an opportunity to discuss the status of pragmatics as a discipline. Several arguments are offered pro and contra more restricted or broader conceptions of pragmatics and potential ways of justification for the pragmatic quest: (i) I distinguish between the externally determined (as a social practice) and the internal (‘family romance’) perspective on pragmatics; (ii) in considering the latter perspective, I propose two main metaphorical scenarios in facing the problem of unification of our understanding of pragmatics as an autonomous discipline—the feminist and the male chauvinist point of view. The first part of the article is an attempt aiming at the ‘internal reconstruction’ of the field of pragmatics according to the two metaphorical scenarios—a feminist and a male chauvinist one. The second part considers the place of pragmatics as a social practice, i.e. as serving a purpose in the life of society. Here the point is made that there are three basic possibilities to practice pragmatics: (a) to conceptualize it as a way to fight for social justice and this is the orientation of the Editor of the Encyclopedia under review; (b) to orient pragmatics toward optimizing the social performances in the current social order, i.e. to appropriate the communication studies orientation (where the latter is currently much more pronounced) or to serve society through the development of user-friendly information technologies; or (c) to orient pragmatics to the study of language-and-mind in a way that is partially escapist from the needs of society. The case is made for cognitive pragmatics, although this orientation may be interpreted as more asocial compared to the other two alternatives.