The Nexus between Semantics and Pragmatics

Language (vocal symbols) is a major instrument of communication. Both in theory and practice, fields of language study evolve to capture areas of focus. In this regard, the basic concerns of research in semantics, and the approaches to such concerns, diverge. Semantics and pragmatics commune in the elucidation of the concept of meaning. This study investigates the nexus between semantics and pragmatics, exploring insights from the “literatures” of both fields. Early scholars of language studies investigate the communicative potentials of language, and establish that the use of language in human communication does not only reveal the nature of meaning, but also accounts for speaker-based underpinnings in the negotiation of meaning. Studies in language and linguistics acknowledge the series of connections that abound among fields of knowledge. As a field of language study, semantics is concerned with the study of meaning. On the other hand, pragmatics explains the context-based use and interpretation of verbal and non-verbal elements of communication. Hinging on Ogden and Richards Theory of Meaning, this study concludes that the nexus between semantics and pragmatics is established in discrete aspects which include: reference-making, felicity and truth condition, cross-cultural dimensions of meaning, plurality of meaning, uptake, perlocution, sentential and extra-sentential features of meaning.