In contrast to semantics, which investigates the independent contextual meanings of linguistic forms, pragmatics deals with the non-conventional primarily denotative load, which the speaker/writer's intention shapes within each communicative context, and to which the listener/reader is called to revert.

This book surveys the main pragmatic theories from a sociolinguistic perspective. It is aimed at three categories of readers: first, at all those who wish to have an initial encounter with pragmatics - students, educators, the general public; second, at researchers who ponder the relationship between philosophical pragmatics and the communicatively suspect trends in linguistics; and third, at translators primarily but also other language workers, historians, teachers of language courses, literary critics, etc., who have the task of delving into natural texts written in distant temporal or socially unfamiliar contexts.