ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what pragmatics is and what it aims to explain. The term ‘pragmatics’ has been used in many ways and to cover a very wide range of things. This book focuses on pragmatics understood as being about how we work out (or ‘infer’) what to say, write, sign (in sign languages), and do when communicating and how we work out (‘infer’) what others are intending to communicate to us. The chapter briefly indicates some things which pragmatic theories have attempted to explain.
