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Introduction to linguistics

Lecture 6: Pragmatics (1)

Sources

• Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, Nina

Hyams. 2003. An introduction to language.

– Chapter 5: The meaning of language, pp. 207-211

• Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia

of language, p. 120.

Semantics vs. pragmatics

• Semantics

studies the meaning that can be

determined from a sentence, phrase or word.

• But in a conversation, we follow a large

number of social rules,

– e.g. we don’t tell jokes during a funeral.

Semantics vs. pragmatics

• Pragmatics

: the study of meaning, as it

depends on context (speaker, situation).

• Pragmatics describes:

– The choice of language in social interaction.
– The effect of this choice on others.

• Speakers use different grammatical

constructions and vocabulary in different
contexts.

Pragmatics

• Social norms that influence the choice of

language include:

– Norms of

formality

(formal and informal lg);

– Norms of

politeness

.

• The lg used when talking to others reflects

social class

,

status

, degree of

intimacy

, etc.

Basic terminology

• Speech event

– a communicative exchange.

• Utterance

– a stretch of speech preceded and

followed by silence or a change of speaker

– Sentence

– the term used when discussing

grammar.

• Discourse

– a continuous stretch of spoken

language larger than a sentence.

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Context: types

• Linguistic context

– the discourse that

precedes the phrase or sentence to be
interpreted.

– e.g.

bank

has different meanings depending on

other words in an utterance:

– I keep all my money in this

bank

vs.

– People were sunbathing on the river

bank

.

Context: types

• Situational context

– the external world that

influences meaning:

– e.g. the meaning of the sign

bank

depends on its

physical location.

Context

• It's impossible to fully analyse the meaning of

a sentence without its context, e.g.:

• Flying planes can be dangerous

.

– Context helps to

disambiguate

this sentence:

1. Pilots must be well trained because

the act of

flying planes

can be dangerous;

2. Flying planes (=

planes that are flying

) can be

dangerous for migrating birds.

Deixis

• In a language, there exist

words and phrases

that cannot be fully understood without
additional contextual information

.

• Such expressions are called

deixis

[ ]

(from Greek 'pointing') or

deictic expressions

.

• The interpretation of deixis depends fully on

situational context

,

– and is always interpreted only with the reference

to the

speaker

.

Deixis: types

• Person deixis

: we need to know who the speaker,

hearer and other participants are to interpret it,
e.g.:

– Pronouns:

I hate him

– who

I

and

him

refer to?

• Time deixis

: we need to know the time of

speaking to understand such expressions as, e.g.:

– now, then, recently, last Thursday

.

– BIG SALE NEXT WEEK

– if this notice is undated, you

won’t know when the sale is or was.

Deixis: types

• Place deixis

: to understand it we need to

know the place of the utterance, e.g.:

– Bring that here and take this there

.

• Other deictic expressions showing spacial

relations:

– come/go,
– bring/take,
– this place/that place
– yonder mountains

, etc.

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Anaphora vs. cataphora

• Deixis includes words that refer backwards or

forwards in utterances.

• Anaphora (anaphoric reference)

[

]

–

refers to something within a text that has
been previously identified, e.g.:

– in "

Susan dropped

the plate

.

It

shattered loudly

"

the word "

it

" refers to the phrase "

the pl

ate".

Anaphora vs. cataphora

• Cataphora (cataphoric reference

) [ ] –

refers to something within a text that has not
yet been identified, e.g.:

– in "

He

was very cold.

David

promptly put on his

coat

"

– we don’t know who "

he

" is until the individual is

also referred to as "

David

".