# Q1D · Pragmatics and discourse

Subject: Natural Language Processing

Exam: TEE

Reader: https://deep-learning-study-room.vercel.app/nlp/#tee/papers/final-2025/final-2025-q1d

Canonical: https://deep-learning-study-room.vercel.app/read/nlp/tee/papers/final-2025--final-2025-q1d/

Actual final examination · 2 December 2025 · 100 marks · 3 hours

Question. Compare pragmatic and discourse analysis with the help of appropriate examples. [5 marks]

### Answer

**Pragmatic analysis** interprets an utterance using the situation, speaker intention, shared knowledge and conversational expectations. **Discourse analysis** studies how multiple utterances form a connected text or conversation.

| Basis | Pragmatic analysis | Discourse analysis |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Focus | Intended meaning in context | Relationships and coherence across utterances |
| Useful information | Speaker, listener, place, time and common knowledge | Previous sentences, entities, topics and rhetorical relations |
| Typical tasks | Interpret requests, implicatures and deixis | Resolve references and analyse cohesion, coherence and discourse structure |
| Example | “It is cold here” may be a request to close a window | “Riya bought a book. She read it.” links She to Riya and it to book |

In “Can you pass the salt?”, literal syntax asks about ability; pragmatic interpretation usually identifies a polite request. In “The road flooded. Therefore, the school closed,” discourse analysis identifies a cause–result link between the sentences.

The levels interact: resolving “she” across a conversation may require both earlier text and real-world context. They are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.

**Yaad rakho:** Pragmatics: bolne ka intention. Discourse: sentences ka connection.