Pragmatics and Textualism

Abstract

In theoretical linguistics the word “pragmatics” refers to the roles of context and communicative intentions in the production of meaning. Those roles include contextual disambiguation and the communication of implicit content via “pragmatic enrichment.” Textualism is sometimes characterized as the view that the meaning of statutory texts should not take context into account, but that characterization is misleading. Not only do self-identified textualists explicitly maintain that context should be considered when interpreting statutes—all good textualists must do so. Absent consideration of context, the meaning of statutory texts would be pervasively ambiguous, sparse, and incomplete. Good textualism requires pragmatics.

“Pragmatics and Textualism” investigates the role of context in statutory interpretation and construction via the articulation of Plain Meaning Textualism, a normative and conceptual theory that maintains that statutory actors should be bound by the plain meaning of a statutory text. The phrase “plain meaning” is used to name the content communicated by a statutory text to its primary intended readership by enactment and official promulgation. Plain meaning textualism is developed by exploring fundamental ideas in the philosophy of language and theoretical linguistics and then building a model of the complex, multistage process of statutory communication.

Keywords: interpretation, construction, statutes, pragmatics, semantics, statutory interepretation, context