ABSTRACT
Theextrasententialordiscoursecompetencewhichprovidesspeakersofalan-
guagewithknowledgeaboutlanguageuse,thatis,knowledgeoftheappropriatenessof
somegrammaticallywell-formedsentenceinaparticularcontext,hascometobecalled
pragmaticcompetence.Giventheexistenceofsuchcompetence,itremainsforusnot
onlytodescribeit,butalso,onamoretheoreticallevel,tosituateitwithrespecttoother
typesofknowledge.Anumberofpossibilitiessuggestthemselves,rangingfromthe
viewthatpragmaticcompetenceisnotlinguistic,andderivesfromotherhumancog-
nitiveorsocialabilities,totheviewthatpragmaticcompetenceisaslinguisticas,say,
semanticcompetence,andmustthereforebeexplicitlyincorporatedintoourtheoryof
language.Suchviewsassumeaunitarypragmaticcompetence;however,asresearchin
pragmaticsdevelops,itwillbecomeincreasinglypossibletoidentifyandclassifythe
varioustypesofextra-semanticcontributionstoutteranceinterpretation.
