The pragmatic perspective focuses on how people play the communication game. Communication can be thought of as a patterned interaction, since it takes at least two people to interact and can become patterned over time if we continue to interact and behave in a predictable way. It is like a game because communication has goals, rules, challenges and interaction that are found in games too.
While games are over in a short period of time, communication is ongoing and builds on what has been laid down before. Another factor that differentiates communication and games is that communication is influenced by culture, where as a game of chess or soccer does not have cultural influences on how it is played. Cross-cultural communication is very difficult if you do not understand what offends or pleases the other party, since rules are not written down. Lastly communication considers the personality of the person we are communicating with and the context, but when we play a game it is played with anyone and not necessarily based on the personality of the players, for example a basketball game or a video game.
When communicating with someone we need to consider the social and emotional aspects too and understand the consequences of what we say verbally or non verbally. We each have our own unique ways of communicating with others and interpret our interactions in varying ways!!!
Great post. Very insightful on the pragmatic perspective and how communication is like a game. I used the workplace as a good example of the pragmatic perspective at work. On the other hand your right about considering personality as something that the pragmatic perspective would probably not take under consideration.I also touched upon not wanting to use the same set of deceit that apply to games when communicating with someone you care about. Just a thought but games have winners and communication should not be about winning but understanding, right?
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