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Questions and Answers
What is the purpose of prominence in prosody?
What happens when there is a deviation from the unmarked situation in prosody?
What is the function of intonation in prosody?
What is the difference between a marked and unmarked situation in prosody?
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What is the effect of a rising intonation on the meaning of a sentence?
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What is the purpose of Prosody in communication?
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What is an example of a marked situation in prosody?
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What is the difference between prominence and intonation in prosody?
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What is the result of a deviation from the usual prosody pattern?
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What is the purpose of prosody in language?
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Study Notes
Understanding Meaning
- Semantics is the systematic study of meaning.
- Pragmatics is the interpretation of meaning (speaker intention) vs. what is said.
- Competence in using language vs. ability to interpret meaning.
Utterance
- Utterance is a pragmatic term (intention by including aspects of the context; shared knowledge, knowledge about the speaker etc.).
- Examples:
- A: Can you answer the phone?
- B: I’m in the bath.
- A: Where’s John?
- B: There is a yellow car outside the house?
- Utterance can consist of a single word, a single phrase, or a single sentence, or a sequence of sentences.
- Grammatically incomplete sentence fragments can be utterances.
Speech Act Theory
- Utterances can have different meanings depending on the context and intention.
- Examples:
- (1) ‘Hello’ (Yes or No)
- (2) ‘Not much’ (Yes or No)
- Speech Act Theory looks at the communicational intention behind an utterance.
Types of Meaning
- Literal meaning: propositional content (e.g., "It's hot in here" referring to the temperature)
- Speaker intention: includes aspects of the context and shared knowledge (e.g., requesting to turn on the AC)
Importance of Studying Meaning
- For normal people: effective communication
- For commercial organisations: effective marketing and branding
- For legal scholars: accurate interpretation of laws and contracts
- For literary scholars: analysis of literary works
Linguistics
- Identifying meaningful elements of specific languages (e.g., English words and affixes)
- Describing how elements combine to express complex meanings (e.g., phrases and sentences)
Human Language vs. Animal Communication Systems
- Human language: stimulus-free, complex, and creative
- Animal communication systems: stimulus-bound, limited, and non-creative
Prosody
- Affects expression and interpretation of meaning
- Two important features: prominence and intonation
- Prominence: emphasis on certain words or syllables (e.g., marked and unmarked situations)
- Intonation: voice going up or down (e.g., fall=finality, rise=non-finality)
Examples of Marked and Unmarked Situations
- I’m going to a party. (unmarked)
- I CAN go to a party. (marked)
- A: I agree with you that it’s hopeless. B: No, I said it was hopeful. (marked)
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Description
This quiz covers the basics of semantics and pragmatics in linguistics, including the study of meaning and interpretation.
