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Pragmatics

'a wastebasket of linguistics' C. W. Morris o syntax relationship of signs to other signs o semantics relationship of signs to the objects o pragmatics relationship of signs to their interpreters (users)

philosophy of language --> 2 theories speech act theory conversational implicature (logic of conversation / co-operative principle)

the the the the

study study study study

of of of of

speaker meaning contextual meaning how more gets communicated than is said solidarity and distance

Disciplines Basic universal pragmatics language-specific pragmatic o (E: frequency of discourse markers; Jap: honorifics) contrastive pragmatics cross-cultural pragmatics inter-language pragmatics o 2nd language learners - 'getting our pragmatics wrong' and revealing the social outsider in us concepts speaker meaning utterance context o not only immediately relevant 'co-text' o also e.g. situational context o and cultural context speech act speech event

presupposition o something the initiator of communication assumes to be the case prior to making utterances o I've spoken to John on the underground. entailment (logical implicature) o logically follows from what is stated in the utterance I've never been to Liverpool. (>can entail: I'd like to go, I don't know much about Liverpool) implicature o speaker-oriented (S communicates meaning via implicature) inference o listener recognises the meaning (decodes the implicit meaning)

speaker > implicature > utterance < inference < listener

Speech Act John Austin (1962) How to Do Things with Words o language as parole, not langue o to say is to perform intentions + effects 2 types of utterances o constatives utterances describing certain situations can be classified as true or false o performatives cannot be classified as true or false doing something by saying can be classified as well- or ill-formed

types of acts locutionary o physical act of saying something o sequence of certain sounds illocutionary o what the utterance counts as o what it's all about o e.g. promising, naming... perlocutionary o effect on the listener Explicit vs. implicit acts

performative verbs - communicative intention is explicitly worded o I promise you I tell you I warn you... o IFIDs o to congratulate, to sentence o often after hereby performative hypothesis o all utterances can be reformulated as performatives (I hereby V you that) o implicit performatives Open the door! o explicit performatives I hereby tell/order you to open the door.

Felicity conditions felicitous vs. infelicitous utterance o felicitous - one, that is successfully formed

Speech act classification John R. Searle

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Declarations (performatives) Representatives Expressives Directives Commissives speaker causes something I promise you... We found the defendant guilty speaker believes something to be true The Earth is flat/round speaker feels something I'm really sorry... Congratulations speaker wants something to get somebody to do something for him Could you pass me the salt? speaker commits him/herself to do some action (promises, threats, pledges) I'll be back at five...

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Direct and indirect speech act relationship between the structural forms and particular communicative functions/intentions structural forms communicative functions function giving information

vs.

structure statement

question

asking for information | inquiring

directive Conversational principles

giving commands/request

1. Co-operative principle (CP) o Paul Grice (1975) o 4 maxims (principles) of quality the factual validity of the utterance Be true. of quantity Be brief. of relevance Be relevant. Speak to the point. of manner Be clear. Use easy-to-understand language. Don't use complicated syntax, vocabulary flouting violation of co-operative principles of maxim of quality I have millions of bottles in my cellar. exaggerations, hyperbole, metaphors, irony, sarcasm

of maxim of quantity mark the sense of the occasion, respect can say less than is required rudeness, bluntness of maxim of relevance signal the change of subject of maxim of manner ambiguous utterances, puns, jokes

2. Politeness principle (PP) o Geoffrey Leech o number of maxims Don't impose. (Tact maxim) Give options. Make your receiver feel good. (Approbation maxim) o "a white lie" - merciful lie

Irony principle

Some issues in pragmatics cohesion o the way the text holds together o something tangible o past tense unifying the text coherence o the link between the ideas o underlying deixis o personal (I, you, he, she, my friend) o spatial (here, there) o temporal (now, then) o social (professor, sir) o She'll do it here tomorrow. hedging o a strategy by which the speakers mitigate and soften the IF of their utterances, thus projecting themselves from potential unfavourable judgements from others o Well, I think, I suppose, kind of, or something like that

the text is coherent if it contains a lot of cohesion

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