| name | pragmatics-communication |
| description | Pragmatics and communicative competence across languages -- speech acts (Austin/Searle), Grice's conversational maxims and implicature, politeness theory (Brown & Levinson), face-threatening acts, discourse structure, turn-taking, repair strategies, register and formality, cross-cultural communication, communicative strategies (circumlocution, approximation, appeal for assistance), and the gap between grammatical competence and communicative performance. Use when teaching communication skills, analyzing cross-cultural misunderstandings, building conversational fluency, or understanding why grammatically correct sentences can be pragmatically inappropriate. |
| type | skill |
| category | languages |
| status | stable |
| origin | tibsfox |
| modified | false |
| first_seen | "2026-04-11T00:00:00.000Z" |
| first_path | examples/skills/languages/pragmatics-communication/SKILL.md |
| superseded_by | null |
Pragmatics & Communication
Pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning -- how speakers use language to accomplish social goals beyond the literal content of their words. A learner who masters phonology, grammar, and vocabulary but lacks pragmatic competence will produce sentences that are technically correct but socially inappropriate, confusing, or even offensive. This skill covers communicative competence as a learnable meta-skill.
Agent affinity: baker (sociolinguistic contexts, code-switching), bruner-l (scaffolding communicative practice, narrative)
Concept IDs: lang-listening-comprehension, lang-conversation-strategies, lang-intelligible-speech, lang-formality-register
Communicative Competence
Hymes (1972) introduced the concept of communicative competence as a response to Chomsky's purely grammatical competence. Knowing a language means not only knowing what is grammatically possible but also what is:
- Feasible -- can it be processed and produced in real time?
- Appropriate -- does it fit the social context?
- Actually done -- do speakers actually say this, or is it grammatically possible but never used?
Canale & Swain (1980) expanded communicative competence into four components:
| Component | What It Covers | Example |
|---|
| Grammatical | Phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon | Producing well-formed sentences |
| Sociolinguistic | Register, politeness, cultural norms | Choosing "Could you pass the salt?" over "Give me the salt" at a dinner party |
| Discourse | Coherence, cohesion, text organization | Structuring a narrative with beginning, middle, end; using "however" to signal contrast |
| Strategic | Communication strategies for breakdowns | Circumlocution when you lack a word: "the thing you use to open bottles" for "corkscrew" |
Speech Act Theory
Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) established that utterances are not merely descriptions of the world but actions performed through language.
Three Levels of a Speech Act
- Locutionary act. The literal meaning of the words. "It's cold in here."
- Illocutionary act. The intended action. A request to close the window.
