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Introduction to linguistics
Lecture 7: Pragmatics (2)
Sources
• Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, Nina
Hyams. 2003. An introduction to language.
– Chapter 5: The meaning of language, pp. 214-216
• Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia
of language, p. 121.
Functions of utterances
• People communicate not only to announce
facts.
• Apart from utterances that communicate
information,
• there are utterances which are
like actions
:
– When one says, e.g.
I apologise, I promise, I name
this shi
p, s/he performs an action:
– an action of apologising, promisig, naming, etc.
Speech acts
• Speech act
– an act that a speaker performs
when making an utterance.
• John L. Austin (1962) said that speech acts can
be analysed on three levels:
– Locutionary act
– Illocutionary act
– Perlocutionary act.
Speech acts
• Locutionary act
– what we literally say.
• Illocutionary act
– the real action performed
by the utterance;
– the real intended meaning: e.g. praising,
criticising, agreeing.
• Perlocutionary act
– an attempt to achieve a
response from the hearer: frighten, amuse,
etc.;
– the effect achieved on listeners.
A three-level analysis
• Example: the child won't go to sleep, the
parent says,
I'll turn your light off
.
– The locutionary act:
just uttering the sentence.
– The illocutionary force of the utterance:
a threat.
– The perlocutionary effect:
getting the child to
quiet down and go to sleep.
• The illocutionary force of an utterance and its
perlocutionary effect
may not coincide
: the
child may not go to sleep.
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Implicature
• Implicature
– 'hidden' meaning; explains how it is
possible to mean more than what is actually said.
• It refers to the
implications
which can be
deduced
from the utterance and context:
• John is meeting a woman this evening
.
– Implication: the woman is not his mother, sister or
wife.
• Implicatures are part of what the speaker
means
,
but not part of what is said.
Implicature
• Implicatures depend on context, e.g.:
He’s never been convicted of a crime
.
• Context 1:
– A: Can I trust him?
– B: Well, he’s never been convicted of a crime
(you can’t
trust him: the best thing you can say about him is that he
hasn’t been convicted).
• Context 2:
– A: Can he join the police academy?
– B: Well, he’s never been convicted of a crime
(yes he can;
he fulfils one of the requirements of the academy).
Grice's theory of implicature
• The success of a conversation depends on
– what speakers actually say and
– their whole approach to the interaction (their
cooperation).
• The principles include four basic
maxims of
conversation
which jointly express a general
co-operative principle
(Grice 1975).
• The maxims are not rules – they just describe
what happens in a conversation.
The co-operative principle (CP)
• Co-operative principle:
a speaker’s
conversation should be
as effective and
cooperative as possible
.
• It includes four basic maxims:
1. Maxim of Quality
– make your contribution
one that is true, specifically:
– Do not say what you believe to be false.
– Do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence.
The co-operative principle (CP)
2. Maxim of Relevance
– make your
contribution relevant (to the point).
3. Maxim of Quantity
– make your contribution
as informative as it is required.
– Do not make your contribution more informative
than it is required.
4. Maxim of Manner
– be clear:
– Avoid obscurity or ambiguity.
– Be brief and orderly.
The co-operative principle (CP)
• The maxims can
be observed, violated
or
flouted
.
• Violating the maxims can lead to
conversational break-down
:
– a speaker that is obscure, unclear or ambiguous
can be misinterpreted.
• However, people may wish to
flout
one of the
maxims (disobey them on purpose).
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Observing the maxims
A. Do you have any children?
B. I have one son
.
• If B really has
only one child
, B is
observing
the maxim of quantity:
– B says just enough to answer the question.
• If B
also has daughters
, B is saying less than
required to answer the question,
– then B
violates
the m. of quantity (and possibly
the m. of quality if B is lying).
Flouting the maxims
A. Can you tell me the time?
B. Well, the news has just begun
.
• Semantically, B’s answer makes no sense.
• But there's a lot of information implied.
Speaker A means:
– Do you have the ability to tell me the time of the
present moment, as indicated on a watch, and if
so please tell me the time.
Flouting the maxims
• Speaker B means:
– No, I don't know the exact time of the present
moment, but I can provide some information from
which you may be able to deduce the appropriate
time, namely
the news has just begun
.
• On the surface, the maxims are violated, but
in fact speaker B is following the CP.
– thanks to our ability of understanding
implicatures, most of the information does not
have to be stated.
Flouting the maxims
A. Teheran is in Turkey, isn't it?
B. And London's in Armenia, I suppose?
• B deliberately utters a falsehood (flouts the
m. of quality) to indicate the obvious
incorrectness and ignorance of A.
• B is not uncooperative – pretends to violate
the maxim to achieve a certain goal: to imply
that A is uneducated.