By Lawrence B. Solum
Introduction
This Lexicon entry provides an introduction to the distinction between semantics and pragmatics–ideas that play a fundamental role in theoretical linguistics and the philosophy of language. Although the terminology is unfamiliar to many lawyers, the basic idea behind the distinction is fundamentally important to theories about the interpretation and construction of legal texts. “Semantics” deals with the meaning of words and phrases as well as the role that syntax (grammar) and punctuation play in communication. “Pragmatics” deals with the role of intention and context. Lawyers sometimes express this distinction using other words. The lawyer’s idea of literal meaning is related to semantics, whereas the notion of contextual meaning is connected to pragmatics.
Before going further, it is important to note that the word “pragmatism” may have associations in legal theory that are only remotely connected to the notion of “pragmatics” in theoretical linguistics. “Pragmatism” is associated with the consequentialist approach to normative legal theory developed by the great judge and scholar, Richard Posner. But a pragmatic approach to the interpretation and construction of legal texts is not the same thing as the “pragmatics,” which focuses on the role of intention and context in the production of legal meaning.
The Foundations of the Semantics-Pragmatics Distinction
The distinction between semantics and pragmatics is rooted in ideas about how communication works. When someone uses words to communicate, we might be tempted to assume that the meaning of what they say can be recovered by carefully parsing each word or phrase and then reconstructing the relationship between these terms by attending to the grammar and punctuation that connects them. In other words, we might think that semantics can do all the work of interpretation. But that would be a mistake, because it would ignore the roles of intention and context in the production of meaning.
One important role of context stems from the fact that words and phrases in a natural language such as English are pervasively ambiguous: they have more than one meaning or sense. So, the word “bank” in a statute might represent a financial institution or the land abutting a river. If we tried to interpret the statute without taking context into account, we might not be able to discover which sense of “bank” was intended. Fortunately, readers of statutes do consider context. So, if the statute is the Clean Water Act, it would be likely that “bank” meant the land abutting a river, but if the statute was the Banking Act of 1933, it would be almost certain that “bank” meant a financial institution.
Another important role of context and intention stems from the fact that written texts (and oral utterances) are rarely (if ever) fully explicit. Putting it another way, much of the content of what we say and write is implicit. Consider the following simple example:
Jack and Jill are married.
Literally, this sentence means something like: “It is the case that Jack is married, and it is the case that Jill is married.” But in context it is likely that this sentence conveyed an important additional information, which we can put in brackets.
Jack and Jill are married [to each other].
If we provide some additional context, this becomes especially easy to see:
Have you heard the good news? Jack and Jill are married. Finally!
The implicit [to each other] is conveyed implicitly. And this enables us to see that semantics is not doing all the work! Pragmatics is playing a key role.
A Typology of Pragmatics
Another way to appreciate the role of pragmatics and how it is different from semantics is via a simple typology that enables us to differentiate the different ways that pragmatics operates
Contextual Disambiguation–Although words in English and other natural languages are frequently ambiguous (have more than one sense), readers and listeners are able to disambiguate (pick out the intended sense) by attending to context. The “bank” example discussed above illustrates this role of pragmatics.
Implicature–“Implicature” (a word coined by Paul Grice) refers to the phenomena whereby a speaker or author says one thing, but means something quite different. The classic example is a letter of recommendation that says, “Joseph was punctual and regularly attended class.” In context, if this is the best that can be said of Joseph, the real message of the letter is something like, “Don’t hire Joseph.”
Impliciture–The word “implicture” (coined by Kent Bach) is a technical term that refers to unstated content. The example of “Jack and Jill are married [to each other]” illustrates the idea of implicit but unstated content to which the word “implicit-ure” refers.
Presupposition–Sometimes, we say something that presupposes something else. For example, if I say, “Cass is no longer the director of OIRA,” my statement presupposes that Cass was at one time the director of OIRA, even though I did not say that explicitly.
Modulation–We can use words in new ways that are nonetheless conveyed to listeners or readers via their understanding of the context. For example, the phrase “recess of the Senate” in the Recess Appointments Clause may have conveyed a new idea, the intersession recess of the newly created Senate. Indeed, the word “modulation” itself was used in a new way when it was first used to refer to the linguistic phenomenon of modulation.
This typology is not intended to be exhaustive. There may well be other recurring pragmatic mechanisms.
Semantics
If pragmatics is about context, then we might say that semantics is about features of language use that recur across contexts. One important aspect of pragmatics involves the meaning of individual words and of phrases. Legal interpretation frequently focuses on this aspect of semantics with lawyers and judges arguing about the proper “definition” of a key word or phrase in a statute. But there are other semantic mechanisms that contribute to meaning, including syntax (or grammar). Understanding a sentence requires us to understand the relationship between its parts and hence to understand how nouns, verbs, prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs operate. Written communication involves punctuation marks: lawyers know all too well that the placement of a comma can change the meaning of a sentence.
Compositionality
Sometimes meaning is compositional–the meaning of a whole sentence can be gleaned from the meaning of each individual word and the syntactic relationships between words. When lawyers talk about the literal meaning of a sentence in a statute or other legal text, they are frequently referring to the compositional meaning.
But not all meaning is compositional. This is clear in the case of idioms. If I say, “Congress kicked the can down the road,” I am not saying anything about a can that was kicked further along some highway or byway. The meaning of my utterance was not compositional! Likewise, the meaning of any sentence that includes implicit content is not compositional–because the implicit content cannot be gleaned from the words alone.
Conclusion
There is much more to be said about the semantics-pragmatics distinction, but the aim of this Lexicon entry has been very modest. The overwhelming majority of law students enter law school with no exposure to either linguistics or the philosophy of language. But lawyers have to deal with meaning, and the semantics-pragmatics distinction is an essential tool for tackling the interpretation of legal texts in a rigorous way. This is especially important for textualists, who aim to recover the communicative content of constitutions, rules, regulations, and statutes.
Related Lexicon Entries
- Legal Theory Lexicon 051: Vagueness and Ambiguity
- Legal Theory Lexicon 079: Communicative Content and Legal Content
- Legal Theory Lexicon 086: Context and Meaning
- Legal Theory Lexicon 094: Words and Concepts, Sentences and Propositions
- Legal Theory Lexicon 098: Speaker’s Meaning and Sentence Meaning
Bibliography
- Kent Bach, Conversational Impliciture, 9 Mind & Language 124 (1994).
- Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Harvard Univ. Press 1989).
- Lawrence B. Solum, Pragmatics and Textualism, 33 J. L. & Pol’y 2 (2025).
Link to the Most Recent Version of this Lexicon Entry
Legal Theory Lexicon 099: Semantics and Pragmatics
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