Semantics is how we say something. Pragmatics is how we do something.
For example, if you were told to, “Crack the window,” and the room was a little stuffy, and the speaker had just said prior to this that they were feeling a little warm, then you would know, pragmatically, that the speaker would like you to open the window a ‘crack’ or just a little. If you were with a friend who was locked out of his home, and you were standing at a back door trying to get inside, your friend might say ‘crack that window’ and literally mean to put a ‘crack’ in the window, or break the window.
As the example above shows, considering both the pragmatic and semantic meaning of your sentence is important when communicating with other people. Although semantics is concerned only with the exact, literal meaning of the words and their interrelations, pragmatic usage focuses on the inferred meaning that the speakers and listeners perceive.
Semantics is how we say something. Pragmatics is how we do something.
For example, if you were told to, “Crack the window,” and the room was a little stuffy, and the speaker had just said prior to this that they were feeling a little warm, then you would know, pragmatically, that the speaker would like you to open the window a ‘crack’ or just a little. If you were with a friend who was locked out of his home, and you were standing at a back door trying to get inside, your friend might say ‘crack that window’ and literally mean to put a ‘crack’ in the window, or break the window.
As the example above shows, considering both the pragmatic and semantic meaning of your sentence is important when communicating with other people. Although semantics is concerned only with the exact, literal meaning of the words and their interrelations, pragmatic usage focuses on the inferred meaning that the speakers and listeners perceive.