Computational Approaches to Pragmatics: Understanding Context in Communication

Abstract

The field of pragmatics focuses on how context influences meaning in human communication, including the roles of intention, inference, and situational factors in interpreting language. With the rise of artificial intelligence and natural language processing, computational approaches to pragmatics have gained prominence, offering new methods to analyze and simulate the complex ways in which humans understand context in communication. This paper explores the intersection of pragmatics and computational models, surveying key methods such as machine learning, probabilistic models, and formal logic-based approaches to capture implicit meanings, conversational implicatures, and speaker intent.