Pragmatics
Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specific events, the intentional acts of speakers at times and places, typically involving language.
Different theorists have focused on different properties of utterances. To discuss them it will be helpful to make a distinction between ‘near-side pragmatics’ and ‘far-side pragmatics.
Near-side pragmatics is concerned with the nature of certain facts that are relevant to determining what is said. Far-side pragmatics is focused on what happens beyond saying: what speech acts are performed in or by saying what is said, or what implicatures (see below for an explanation of these terms) are generated by saying what is said.
Near-side pragmatics includes, but is not limited to resolution of ambiguity and vagueness, the reference of proper names, indexicals and demonstratives, and anaphors, and at least some issues involving presupposition. In all of these cases facts about the utterance, beyond the expressions used and their meanings, are needed.
Far-side pragmatics deals with what we do with language, beyond what we (literally) say. This is the conception according to which Voltaire’s remarks belong to pragmatics. It’s up to semantics to tell us what someone literally says when they use expressions of a given type; it’s up to pragmatics to explain the information one conveys, and the actions one performs, in or by saying something.
Pragmatics is usually thought to involve a different sort of reasoning than semantics.
pragmatics involves perception augmented by some species of ‘ampliative’ inference — induction, inference to the best explanation, Bayesian reasoning, or perhaps some special application of general principles special to communication, as conceived by Grice (see below) — but in any case a sort of reasoning that goes beyond the application of rules, and makes inferences beyond what is established by the basic facts about what expressions are used and their meanings.
The facts with which pragmatics deals are of various sorts, including:
Facts about the objective facts of the utterance, including: who the speaker is, when the utterance occurred, and where;
Facts about the speaker’s intentions. On the near side, what language the speaker intends to be using, what meaning she intends to be using, whom she intends to refer to with various shared names, whether a pronoun is used demonstratively or anaphorically, and the like. On the far side, what she intends to achieve by saying what she does.
Facts about beliefs of the speaker and those to whom she speaks, and the conversation they are engaged in; what beliefs do they share; what is the focus of the conversation, what are they talking about, etc.
Facts about relevant social institutions, such as promising, marriage ceremonies, courtroom procedures, and the like, which affect what a person accomplishes in or by saying what she does.
⠀ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatics/