What Is Pragmatic And How Can It Benefits For Companies

What Is Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the discipline that studies language concerning context and its interpretations. That is, what goes beyond words and has more to do with the people who interact. Therefore, when we want to emit a message, we not only have to see what this is like but also many other factors that are also within this chain. There is a gap between what is said and what comes, and this is very easy to reduce if you are know-how.

Again, this gap widens a lot when we talk about a digital environment, since, as we have commented in other posts such as the importance of bold, the type of reading that is done on the internet is not the same as in a book, nor is the attention the same as in a spoken conversation. Therefore, although our message is clear and concise, we must bear in mind that it will not only depend on whether the message arrives as we want and has the impact we seek.

Why Is It Useful For My Company

Any business seeks to have a substantial impact on listeners/readers when publishing or advertising or, in general, when it wants to communicate with its audience. Therefore, having some basic notions of pragmatics can grant great benefits to your company, because knowing how the language works will allow you to review the impact you have on your readers, both occasional and periodic.

What Do I Need To Know About Pragmatics

So, now that we know what pragmatics is and its importance in the transmission of information, let’s see how it can help your company.

• Knowledge Of The Common World

To begin with, the listener/reader must know what you are talking about. For this reason, although we sometimes take for granted that there are things that are known because we know them, it is very important to dedicate a little space to explain it in detail so that anyone can understand it. 

A very simple example that is continually given is the use of Anglicisms. We can usually find many Anglicism on web pages, and, although we know them because it is our comfort zone, because we work on those words, or because we have studied them, we must add their version or their explanation or definition to the side, since, on the contrary, we can make readers lose interest by not knowing what we are talking about.

• Intentionality

This is perhaps the most key point that we are going to address since we must be clear about our objective in each message we issue. Even if the language we use is clear and concise, wrong conclusions can be drawn from what we are trying to say. For example, it would not occur to us to try to sell a product on our website using this expression: “Buy it if you dare, and you will see” because we understand that this can be likened to a threat, although in reality, if we only look at the language used, don’t be saying that.

This is called implicature, that is, that which is extracted from the words we use but which is not explicitly there. And in fact, this can also be an advantage. We can use implicatures to get something across or say it between the lines, without putting it in writing, and it’s a widely used marketing technique.

• The Principle Of Relationship

What is this? The relationship principle is part of Grace’s pragmatic theory, which establishes the importance of saying what is necessary, without overdoing it. That is to say, that what we are talking about has a common thread and a relationship between all its parts, since, without it, what we will achieve is that the reader loses all possible interest in our content.

• Avoid Ambiguities

This is one of the trickiest parts! There are many types of ambiguities and, although we think that it is very easy not to commit them. We must be careful with them. Sometimes these are due to the organization of sentences. Although on some occasions, the order of the factors does not alter the product. In language, it is not usually like that.

On the other hand, beware of polysemic words! This type of story is very common and sometimes very useful for playing word games, for example. But in others, they can play a trick on us since, if we do not specify, we can confuse the reader.

It was this last part that encouraged us to make this post. We sent a questionnaire to one of our clients to create posts for social networks, in this case, the client was a winter sports center, and the questionnaire was for their athletes.

Also Read: Top Digital Marketing Tips To Interact With Your Customers On Social Networks