The Pragmatic Function Of Language According To Malinowski

Malinowski developed a theoretical view on language as an extension of field studies within the scope of ethnography and characterized it as “pragmatic”. The reason why he made such a characterization, is a common functional feature, which he argues exists in the languages of literate societies as well as in illiterate native tribal languages: In general, language has a pragmatic function. According to Malinowski, the view that language is a process that runs parallel to and exactly corresponds to the mental process, and that the function of language is to reflect or copy human mental reality in a secondary stream of verbal equivalents, is wrong. For Malinowski, the main function of language is not to express thought, not to copy mental processes. Thus, Malinowski opposes theories of language and meaning with a “mentalist” or cognitivist” character, as often found in the literature of philosophy, as well as in the writings of some ethnographers such as Boas. Language in general has an active performative role in human behavior, whether it is languages in so-called “primitive” tribes or in so-called “civilized” societies. Malinowski considers language a necessary component of all concerted human actions. According to him, language has essentially a social action character, not only in the types of prescriptive expressions to prompt the interlocutor/interlocutors to action in cases of collective work in social life (hunting, agriculture, war, etc.), but also in the types of expressions intended for casual conversation. In our article, we argue that Malinowski is a great ethnographer and the founder of linguistic anthropology, as well as the nameless hero of field of the pragmatics. We also point out the similarities between his approach to the pragmatic function of language and Austin's analyzes of the performative function of language and his theory of speech acts.