Pragmatics

So I came across this term often when I read about theory, and it has always given me a headache. I recall looking it up again and again, and yet I can never quite get it to stick in my head. If you want to try, check this link for wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics
or for a more succinct summary of its denotation:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pragmatics

Huh! And here's a quote from wiki that justifies my confusion with the term:
"Pragmatics is regarded as one of the most challenging aspects for language learners to grasp, and can only truly be learned with experience."

This reminds me of words such as "deconstruction" and "Derrida"... not to mention "Deleuze" and his "Rhizomes" (I was just reading A Thousand Plateaus when this term came up).

I am a bit annoyed by all the confusion these words create. These words are enigmas, riddles demanding to be solved. How do you succinctly summarize them? It can't be done. They are nuanced, distant, foreign. The world's most gifted intellectuals are driven to study these things until their brains hurt, and it requires a dispension of common sense (or rather, conventional sense). When they can talk about it to each other and agree, then it seems that indeed some kind of understanding was achieved. But of what practical use was it?

The problem is that not enough people obtained this understanding. It is at odds with most conventional forms of understanding. In essence, these intellectuals have worked very hard to break down all the assumptions that made their lives functional with others, and created a new system that is only compatible with a very small number of people. Less can be achieved as a result. This is the same thing that made Marxist philosophy so powerful: it could be dumbed down to reach a HUGE number of people. It changed the face of the world. Very PRACTICAL idea, communism, even if it didn't actually work. We at least know that it doesn't work because it had an EFFECT.

Anyways, this is just an expression of my annoyance. Let me examine the term pragmatics itself, so that I don't forget it again.

It's an "ology" really. Just an other "study of" something. More specifically, it studies connotations-- but it is more encompassing than the connotation of one word. It examines the meaning that language can convey under varying circumstances.

Kind of silly, in a way, when you consider that connotations can change significantly from person to person, from one time period to the next, if you're holding a gun or not, etc. Of course it's important when you go into a room filled with people belonging to a culture completely foreign to your own. (If the fremen of Dune spit at you, it's good)

So it might seem that I've done a good job of cementing in the basic meaning of the word. Of course, it has roots deep into philosophy, linguistics, sociology, so I've really just scratched the surface. Just like having a short description of history as "records of the past" doesn't quite do justice what's being done in this vast field.

This world is getting bigger and bigger, after all.