In defense of a pragmatic conception of language

Abstract

We argue in favour of a pragmatic view within the framework of contemporary analytic philosophy of language. We distinguish two views of pragmatics: the first has context as the key notion, and the second understand language as action. We take the second view as defining pragmatics in a more fundamental sense, examining two of its main representatives: Wittgenstein with his notion of the language game and Austin with his Speech Act Theory. We suggest that Speeeh Act Theory developed in certain ways can be adopted as the paradigm of a pragmatic view of language and of language analysis.