Conclusion

This chapter has surveyed some of the most important factors affecting language users’ choices of linguistic form. With reference to sociocultural appropriacy and persupposition, we have examined the context-embedded nature of speaker meaning and intention and how the hearer is able to determine these by relying on shared knowledge, context, and conventional expression. Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Leech’s Politeness Principle and Austin and Searle’s Speech Act Theory have been examined cross-culturally to show that each speech community is pragmatically as well as grammatically unique. In terms of comprehending and producing discourse competently in the target language, it is as important to understand the pragmatics of the target culture as it is to understand the grammar and vocabulary of the target language.