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Pragmatics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics.[1] It studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the linguistic knowledge (e.g. grammar, lexicon etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, knowledge about the status of those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and so on.[2] In this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance.[1] The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence. Pragmatic awareness is regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of language learning, and, though it can be taught, often comes only through experience.[citation needed]
Contents
1 Etymology 2 Structural ambiguity 3 Origins 4 Areas of interest 5 Referential uses of language 6 Non-referential uses of language 6.1 Silverstein's "pure" indexes 6.2 The performative 6.3 Jakobson's six functions of language 7 Related fields 8 Pragmatics in philosophy 9 Significant works 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 External links
Etymology
The word pragmatics derives via Latin pragmaticus from the Greek (pragmatikos), meaning amongst others "fit for action",[3] which comes from (pragma), "deed, act",[4] and that from (prass), "to pass over, to practise, to achieve".[5]
Structural ambiguity
The sentence "You have a green light" is ambiguous. Without knowing the context, the identity of the speaker, and their intent, it is not possible to infer the meaning with confidence. For example: It could mean you have green ambient lighting. Or that you have a green light while driving your car.
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Or it could be indicating that you can go ahead with the project. Or that your body has a green glow. Or that you have in your possession a light bulb that is tinted green. Similarly, the sentence "Sherlock saw the man with binoculars" could mean that Sherlock observed the man by using binoculars; or it could mean that Sherlock observed a man who was holding binoculars.[6] The meaning of the sentence depends on an understanding of the context and the speaker's intent. As defined in linguistics, a sentence is an abstract entity a string of words divorced from non-linguistic context as opposed to an utterance, which is a concrete example of a speech act in a specific context. The closer conscious subjects stick to common words, idioms, phrasings, and topics, the more easily others can surmise their meaning; the further they stray from common expressions and topics, the wider the variations in interpretations. This suggests that sentences do not have meaning intrinsically; there is not a meaning associated with a sentence or word, they can only symbolically represent an idea. The cat sat on the mat is a sentence of English; if you say to your sister on Tuesday afternoon: "The cat sat on the mat", this is an example of an utterance. Thus, there is no such thing as a sentence, term, expression or word symbolically representing a single true meaning; it is underspecified (which cat sat on which mat?) and potentially ambiguous. The meaning of an utterance, on the other hand, is inferred based on linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the non-linguistic context of the utterance (which may or may not be sufficient to resolve ambiguity). In mathematics with Berry's paradox there arose a systematic ambiguity with the word "definable". The ambiguity with words shows that the descriptive power of any human language is limited.
Origins
Pragmatics was a reaction to structuralist linguistics as outlined by Ferdinand de Saussure. In many cases, it expanded upon his idea that language has an analyzable structure, composed of parts that can be defined in relation to others. Pragmatics first engaged only in synchronic study, as opposed to examining the historical development of language. However, it rejected the notion that all meaning comes from signs existing purely in the abstract space of langue. Meanwhile, historical pragmatics has also come into being.
Areas of interest
The study of the speaker's meaning, not focusing on the phonetic or grammatical form of an utterance, but instead on what the speaker's intentions and beliefs are. The study of the meaning in context, and the influence that a given context can have on the message. It requires knowledge of the speaker's identities, and the place and time of the utterance. The study of implicatures, i.e. the things that are communicated even though they are not explicitly expressed. The study of relative distance, both social and physical, between speakers in order to understand what determines the choice of what is said and what is not said. The study of what is not meant, as opposed to the intended meaning, i.e. that which is unsaid and unintended, or unintentional. Information Structure, the study of how utterances are marked in order to efficiently manage the common ground of referred entities between speaker and hearer Formal Pragmatics, the study of those aspects of meaning and use, for which context of use is an important factor, by using the methods and goals of formal semantics.
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""non-referential use of language."" A second way to define the signified and signifier relationship is C.S. Peirce's Peircean Trichotomy. The components of the trichotomy are the following: 1. Icon: the signified resembles the signifier (signified: a dog's barking noise, signifier: bow-wow) 2. Index: the signified and signifier are linked by proximity or the signifier has meaning only because it is pointing to the signified 3. Symbol: the signified and signifier are arbitrarily linked (signified: a cat, signifier: the word cat) These relationships allow us to use signs to convey what we want to say. If two people were in a room and one of them wanted to refer to a characteristic of a chair in the room he would say "this chair has four legs" instead of "a chair has four legs." The former relies on context (indexical and referential meaning) by referring to a chair specifically in the room at that moment while the latter is independent of the context (semantico-referential meaning), meaning the concept chair.
The performative
Main articles: Performative utterance, Speech act theory J.L. Austin introduced the concept of the performative, contrasted in his writing with "constative" (i.e. descriptive) utterances. According to Austin's original formulation, a performative is a type of utterance characterized by two distinctive features:
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It is not truth-evaluable (i.e. it is neither true nor false) Its uttering performs an action rather than simply describing one However, a performative utterance must also conform to a set of felicity conditions. Examples: "I hereby pronounce you man and wife." "I accept your apology." "This meeting is now adjourned."
The six factors of an effective verbal communication. To each one corresponds a communication function (not displayed in this picture).[8]
The six functions of language Referential Poetic Emotive-----------------------Conative Phatic Metalingual The Referential Function corresponds to the factor of Context and describes a situation, object or mental state. The descriptive statements of the referential function can consist of both definite descriptions and deictic words, e.g. "The autumn leaves have all fallen now." The Expressive (alternatively called "emotive" or "affective") Function relates to the Addresser and is best exemplified by interjections and other sound changes that do not alter the denotative meaning of an utterance but do add information about the Addresser's (speaker's) internal state, e.g. "Wow, what a view!" The Conative Function engages the Addressee directly and is best illustrated by vocatives and imperatives, e.g. "Tom! Come inside and eat!" The Poetic Function focuses on "the message for its own sake"[9] and is the operative function in poetry as well as slogans.
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The Phatic Function is language for the sake of interaction and is therefore associated with the Contact factor. The Phatic Function can be observed in greetings and casual discussions of the weather, particularly with strangers. The Metalingual (alternatively called "metalinguistic" or "reflexive") Function is the use of language (what Jakobson calls "Code") to discuss or describe itself.
Related fields
There is considerable overlap between pragmatics and sociolinguistics, since both share an interest in linguistic meaning as determined by usage in a speech community. However, sociolinguists tend to be more interested in variations in language within such communities. Pragmatics helps anthropologists relate elements of language to broader social phenomena; it thus pervades the field of linguistic anthropology. Because pragmatics describes generally the forces in play for a given utterance, it includes the study of power, gender, race, identity, and their interactions with individual speech acts. For example, the study of code switching directly relates to pragmatics, since a switch in code effects a shift in pragmatic force.[9] According to Charles W. Morris, pragmatics tries to understand the relationship between signs and their users, while semantics tends to focus on the actual objects or ideas to which a word refers, and syntax (or "syntactics") examines relationships among signs or symbols. Semantics is the literal meaning of an idea whereas pragmatics is the implied meaning of the given idea. Speech Act Theory, pioneered by J.L. Austin and further developed by John Searle, centers around the idea of the performative, a type of utterance that performs the very action it describes. Speech Act Theory's examination of Illocutionary Acts has many of the same goals as pragmatics, as outlined above.
Pragmatics in philosophy
Pragmatics (more specifically, Speech Act Theory's notion of the performative) underpins Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity. In Gender Trouble, she claims that gender and sex are not natural categories, but socially constructed roles produced by "reiterative acting." In Excitable Speech she extends her theory of performativity to hate speech and censorship, arguing that censorship necessarily strengthens any discourse it tries to suppress and therefore, since the state has sole power to define hate speech legally, it is the state that makes hate speech performative. Jaques Derrida remarked that some work done under Pragmatics aligned well with the program he outlined in his book Of Grammatology. mile Benveniste argued that the pronouns "I" and "you" are fundamentally distinct from other pronouns because of their role in creating the subject. Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari discuss linguistic pragmatics in the fourth chapter of A Thousand Plateaus ("November 20, 1923--Postulates of Linguistics"). They draw three conclusions from Austin: (1) A performative utterance does not communicate information about an act second-handit is the act; (2) Every aspect of language ("semantics, syntactics, or even phonematics") functionally interacts with pragmatics; (3) There is no distinction between language and speech. This last conclusion attempts to refute Saussure's division between langue and parole and Chomsky's distinction between surface structure and deep structure simultaneously. [10]
Significant works
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J. L. Austin's How To Do Things With Words Paul Grice's cooperative principle and conversational maxims Brown & Levinson's Politeness Theory Geoffrey Leech's politeness maxims Levinson's Presumptive Meanings Jrgen Habermas's universal pragmatics Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson's relevance theory
See also
Formal Pragmatics Entailment Indexicality Anaphora Deixis Origo Implicature Practical reason Presupposition Speech act Sign relation Semiotics Semantics Charles Sanders Peirce (and also see: Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography) Paul Grice Gricean maxims William James Exegesis Sitz im Leben
Notes
1. ^ a b Mey, Jacob L. (1993) Pragmatics: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell (2nd ed. 2001). 2. ^ Shaozhong, Liu. "What is pragmatics?" (http://www.gxnu.edu.cn/Personal/szliu/definition.html) . http://www.gxnu.edu.cn/Personal/szliu/definition.html. Retrieved 18 March 2009. 3. ^ (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper /text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpragmatiko%2Fs) , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus 4. ^ (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper /text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpra%3Dgma) , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus 5. ^ (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper /text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpra%2Fssw) , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus 6. ^ http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-903Spring-2005/CourseHome/ 7. ^ Silverstein 1976 8. ^ Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music, p. 241. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-15275-9. 9. ^ a b Duranti 1997 10. ^ Deleuze, Gilles and Flix Guattari (1987) [1980]. A Thousand Plateaus. University of Minnesota Press.
References
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Austin, J. L. (1962) How to Do Things With Words. Oxford University Press. Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. (1978) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge University Press. Carston, Robyn (2002) Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Clark, Herbert H. (1996) "Using Language". Cambridge University Press. Cole, Peter, ed.. (1978) Pragmatics. (Syntax and Semantics, 9). New York: Academic Press. Dijk, Teun A. van. (1977) Text and Context. Explorations in the Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse. London: Longman. Grice, H. Paul. (1989) Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Laurence R. Horn and Gregory Ward. (2005) The Handbook of Pragmatics. Blackwell. Leech, Geoffrey N. (1983) Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Levinson, Stephen C. (1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. Levinson, Stephen C. (2000). Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. MIT Press. Lin, G. H. C. (2007). The significant of pragmatics. Mingdao Journal, Vol, 3, 91-102 ERIC Collection as ED503682 <http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b /80/42/c1/95.pdf> Mey, Jacob L. (1993) Pragmatics: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell (2nd ed. 2001). Kepa Korta and John Perry. (2006) Pragmatics (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatics/) . The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Potts, Christopher. (2005) The Logic of Conventional Implicatures. Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sperber, Dan and Wilson, Deirdre. (2005) Pragmatics (http://www.dan.sperber.com/pragmatics.htm) . In F. Jackson and M. Smith (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy. OUP, Oxford, 468-501. (Also available here (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/deirdre/papers/Pragmatics2005.doc) .) Thomas, Jenny (1995) Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. Longman. Verschueren, Jef. (1999) Understanding Pragmatics. London, New York: Arnold Publishers. Verschueren, Jef, Jan-Ola stman, Jan Blommaert, eds. (1995) Handbook of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Watzlawick, Paul, Janet Helmick Beavin and Don D. Jackson (1967) Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York: Norton. Wierzbicka, Anna (1991) Cross-cultural Pragmatics. The Semantics of Human Interaction. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Yule, George (1996) Pragmatics (Oxford Introductions to Language Study). Oxford University Press. Silverstein, Michael. 1976. "Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cultural Description," in Meaning and Anthropology, Basso and Selby, eds. New York: Harper & Row Wardhaugh, Ronald. (2006). "An Introduction to Sociolinguistics". Blackwell. Duranti, Alessandro. (1997). "Linguistic Anthropology". Cambridge University Press. Carbaugh, Donal. (1990). "Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact." LEA. Mira Ariel (2010). Defining Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-73203-1.
External links
Journal of Pragmatics (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/505593 /description#description) , An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language Studies Liu, Shaozhong, "What is Pragmatics?", Eprint (http://www.gxnu.edu.cn/Personal/szliu /definition.html) Dan Sperber discusses Pragmatics (http://www.philosophytalk.org/pastShows
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/LanguageInAction.html) from Philosophy Talk Radio Program (http://www.philosophytalk.org) wiki project in comparative pragmatics: European Communicative Strategies (ECSTRA) (http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/SLF/EngluVglSW/mediawiki/index.php/ELiX_Wiki:Projects /ECSTRA) (directed by Joachim Grzega) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pragmatics&oldid=488742298" Categories: Pragmatics Semiotics Social psychology Greek loanwords
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