Linguistics and Pragmatics Quiz 02

Pragmatics (1)

• Introduction to pragmatics, English in Use
• Dr. Thorsten Brato, Department of English and American Studies, University Regensburg

Recap: The Evolution of Linguistics

• 17th/18th/19th Century: Historical comparative language studies, language families
• 20th Century: Traditional language studies, Prescriptivist, descriptive, structuralism
• 1950s-today: Generative grammar, universal grammar, language usage, hyphenated linguistics

Recap: Language in Use

• Linguistics in everyday life (language teaching, intercultural communication, technology, health sciences, advertising, creative arts)

1 Introducing Pragmatics: Context

• Example of a conversation about a trip to Arran
• (See specific example in the document; note the context, including the situation and background knowledge.)

1 Introducing Pragmatics: The Three Types of Context

• Situational context: What speakers see around them, immediate physical presence, situation at the moment of speaking
• Background knowledge context: Cultural background knowledge, general knowledge, interpersonal knowledge, specific possibly private knowledge, knowledge from past interactions
• Co-textual context: Context of the text itself, references to other parts of the text

1 Introducing Pragmatics: Semantics and Pragmatics Compared

• Semantics: Context-invariant, speaker independent meaning, meaning potential, what does x mean? (conventional meaning, what is said), meaning relations and combinations
• Pragmatics: Context-sensitive, speaker dependent meaning, concrete meaning in a given context, what does the speaker mean? (non-conventional meaning, what is meant), bridging the gap between what is said and what is meant

1 Introducing Pragmatics: Important Concepts

• Context, Deixis and reference, Inference, presupposition, and entailment, Speech Act Theory, Cooperation and implicature, Politeness, Inter- and crosscultural pragmatics, Conversation and discourse analysis

2 Deixis and Reference: Deixis

• Activity 2 focused on Example 3
• Personal, possessive, demonstrative pronouns, and adverbial constructions of time and place have semantic (context-independent) and pragmatic (context-dependent) meaning
• These constructions are called deixis or deictic expressions

2 Deixis and Reference: Central Deictic Dimensions

• Person deixis: Different people involved in a communicative event (I/we, you, he/she/they)
• Place deixis: Location relative to the location of a participant in the speech event and related place adverbials, demonstratives, prepositions, verbs of motion (e.g., here, there, near, far)
• Time deixis: Reference to time in relation to the moment of the utterance (now, soon, tomorrow, yesterday)

2 Deixis and Reference: Non-central Deictic Dimensions

• Social deixis: Relates to the social status of people involved (e.g., Sir/Madam, Your Honour)
• Discourse deixis: Providing a means of increasing text coherence by referring to the specific parts of the discourse (e.g., in conclusion, in any way)
• Manner and degree deixis: Describing objects using gestures (e.g., small, like this)

2 Deixis and Reference: Deictic and Non-deictic Definite References

• Most 1st & 2nd person pronouns are deictic
• With 3rd person pronouns, context is important
• Examples 4 & 5 illustrate deictic vs. non-deictic definite references

2 Deixis and Reference: Reference

• Definite: One or more specific entities (persons, things, places, times)
• Indefinite: The identity of the referent is not known or not relevant
• Generic: Reference is made to a whole class or group, rather than an individual

2 Deixis and Reference: Definite Reference

• Examples 6, 7, & 8 focus on examples illustrating definite reference in language.

2 Deixis and Reference: Definite Reference (continued)

• Example 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 illustrate different linguistic examples of definite references.

2 Deixis and Reference: Generic Reference

• Examples 15, 16, & 17 illustrate generic references in language.

3 Inference: Entailment

• Entailment is one of two semantic inferences based on conventional meaning
• A proposition x entails proposition y if the truth of y follows necessarily from the truth of x

3 Inference: Presupposition

• Presuppositions are predictions assumed true when a sentence is uttered
• Examples regarding John and his computer repair

3 Inference: Entailment vs. Presupposition

• Entailment fails when negated and is less context-dependent
• Presupposition still holds when negated and is more context-dependent
• Examples relating to entailment and presupposition

3 Inference: Pragmatic Inference

• Situational knowledge: Example 21 - understanding the context related to a news broadcast.
• Interpersonal knowledge: Example 22 - understanding the context related to a walk request
• World knowledge: Example 24 - understanding the context of train departure.
• Linguistic knowledge: Example 25 - understanding context related to acceptance

4 Speech Act Theory: Introducing Speech Acts

• A speech act is an utterance by a speaker to a listener in a specific context

4 Speech Act Theory: Example 26

• The example of "You look younger than ever!" is used to illustrate speech acts

4 Speech Act Theory: Searle's Typology of Illocutionary Acts

• Assertives: Describe the world, e.g., "Germany is a country in Europe."
• Directives: Attempts to get someone to do something, e.g., "Please send me an email."
• Commissives: Promises or threats about future actions, e.g., "I will write to you every day."
• Expressives: Expressing feelings and opinions, e.g., "Hi, Happy birthday!"
• Declarations: Perform an action by pronouncing a formula that changes the world, e.g., "I hereby declare you husband and wife."

4 Speech Act Theory: Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

• Example: Illustrating direct and indirect speech acts and locution, illocution, and perlocution.

Keywords

• (Note: A list of keywords is included in the document. Review them for a full list.)