A Superficial Study On Pragmatic Reasoning In Communication

Communication permeates our daily and relies on specific tools. Language, especially natural language, is the most basic and important tool among them. Thus, speech communication becomes the major way of communication, which consists of two coexistent aspects: expression and understanding. During the course of communication, pragmatic reasoning is the joint of how the speaker expresses himself in a proper way and how the hearer understands it. Pragmatic reasoning is frequently and widely used in communicative activities. Thus, it is indicated that to probe the pragmatic reasoning in communication is of great importance.Staring from the relationship between thought, logic and language, the present study finds out that reasoning in communication is a kind of pragmatic reasoning on the basis of defining natural language and natural logic of language. By Comparing several kinds of definition of pragmatic reasoning, the paper points out that according to Cooperation Principle, Relevance Theory and Context, the course of pragmatic reasoning is the process of explicit meaning deduces implicit meaning. Thus the paper focuses on the following aspects: guidance principle—Cooperation Principle and Relevance Theory; the relationship between pragmatic reasoning and context, in which context is the basis and functional kernel; the mechanism of pragmatic reasoning, which is defined as specific enthymid reasoning; and eight characteristics of pragmatic reasoning. Finally, the present study explores several major types of pragmatic reasoning: indexical reasoning, implicit reasoning and prepositional reasoning.