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What Is Pragmatics? Speaker Meaning Speaker Meaning Analysis What is pragmatics? What is Pragmatics? Is it all right if I close the window ? It’s cold in here! Emmie Li 2008 Spring Fu Jen Catholic University http://140.136.213.100/claroline173 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 2 What is pragmatics? Speaker Meaning Example 1 見煙就罰，放火就抓。 Pragmatics is concerned with the interpretation of linguistic meaning in context. 1. The abstract meaning: the dictionary meaning; a zoological thing, “Son of a bitch” 2. The contextual meaning: the meaning in discourse; an undesirable man, 3. The force (illocutionary force): speaker’s intention; to insult a person. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 3 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 4 Speaker Meaning Analysis Example 2 Utterance Meaning: the speaker says what (From a TV serial “Everybody Loves Raymond”) he really means/ the meaning is expressed explicitly; Debra: Your parents seem nice. Force: the speaker means more than what he Raymond: Yeah, they seem nice. is actually saying/ more information is conveyed than the semantic meaning of the Example 3 utterance; 學生：老師作業可不可以不要今天交啊？ What is actually expressed by words is 老師：都最後一天了，還問我可不可以不要交！好 different from the actual meaning of the 啊，如果你不想交就不要交啊。 utterance. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 5 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 6 1 Lecture overview 1. Historical Origin Charles Morris (1903 – 1979) Historical origin Was concerned with the study of the Definition of pragmatics science of signs, which he called semiotic; Correlation of pragmatics with other Distinguished 3 branches of semiotics: syntactics (or syntax), which disciplines: humanities and social studies the formal relation among science; and semantics different signs; semantics, the study of the relation between the signs and the objects they denote; and pragmatics, the study of the relation Note: for the rest of this part of signs to their interpreters, i.e. I would like to refer you to people. the supplementary materials 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 7 in the course web. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 8 Definition of Pragmatics: the importance of being a user Hearer Collaboration Pragmatics Dealt with description of language use; (Performance) Almost all speech acts are necessarily Doing things with words The force (Speaker’s intention) collaborative in nature (the collaboration of the hearer is necessary in order for the speech act to ‘succeed’). LANGUAGE A is trying to watch television. His daughter, B, is reading on the settee: Traditional Linguistics A1: Do you want to change places? Dealt with description of the B1: I’m O.K. Speaker structure Listener A2: I can’t see the television. (Competence) B2: Can’t you? A3: Get off the settee! 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 9 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 10 Various Definitions of Pragmatics Context: What is it? Definition 1 Here are four subareas involved in fleshing out what we Pragmatics is the study of relations between mean by context. language and context. Example 4 physical context Funny: She is 65 years old. But she •causing amusement, laughter; epistemic context went a bit funny after •difficult to explain or linguistic context her husband died. understand; strange; •slightly unwell; social context I have funny feet. •slightly insane, eccentric. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 11 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 12 2 Context: What is it? Context: What is it? Physical context: we can think of this in terms of where the conversation is taking place, what objects are present, what actions are occurring, and so forth. Linguistic context: the linguistic context refers to what has been said already in the utterance. For example, if I begin a discussion by referring to Jane Epistemic context: the epistemic context refers to Smith and in the next sentence refer to "her" as what speakers know about the world. For example, being a top notch athlete, the linguistic context lets what background knowledge is shared by the me know that the antecedent of "her" (the person speakers is crucially part of your epistemic "her" refers to) is Jane Smith. knowledge when you have a conversation with someone else. Social context: the social context refers to the social relationship among speakers and hearers. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 13 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 14 Linguistic Context --- Assigning reference in context Pragmatics & Contextual Knowledge Two people come into a library and they are talking { And just think, if he hadn’t fallen out of bed, I’d really loud. They sit at your table and continue their never have found out about it! babbling. So, you look up at them and say: Do you know who he referred to? You don’t "Excuse me, could you please speak up a bit more? I missed what you said." if you are unable to assign reference to he. What do we know pragmatically about your utterance? Reference: the who or what which is being What contributes to our understanding of why its literal meaning (i.e. please speak up) departs so referred to in context. much from what its intended meaning is (i.e. shut up!)? 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 15 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 16 Pragmatics & Contextual Knowledge Pragmatics & Contextual Knowledge Consider some of the contextual properties of the utterance. Contextual knowledge allows for the hearer to comprehend that the intended meaning is distinct physical: the conversation occurs in a library from the literal meaning. epistemic: libraries are quiet places linguistic: sarcastic tone of voice (intonation cues are linguistic) Pragmatics is one of the subareas in linguistics. How does it different from others? social context: you have the right to ask someone to be quiet in a place where people are supposed to be quiet, especially if their rule-breaking is injurious to the needs of others, which overrides the social norm of not giving orders to total strangers. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 17 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 18 3 Delimitation : Various Definitions of Pragmatics How does Pragmatics correlate with other disciplines? Leech distinguishes between three possible Definition 2 (by cognitive pragmaticists) ways of structuring this relationship: Pragmatics is the study of how receivers of messages interpret utterances. Semanticism Pragmaticism Complementarism Definition 3 (socio-psychological pragmatics) (Searle) (Austin) (Leech, Levinson) Pragmatics is the study of the speaker’s meaning: Semantics Pragmatics what does the producer of the message mean, why Pragmatics does he choose to express his idea in a certain way. Pragmatics Semantics Pragmatics studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of Semantics society. Pragmatics/ semantics: both disciplines study meaning 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 19 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 20 Delimitation : Delimitation : How does Pragmatics correlate with other disciplines? Component vs. perspective Semanticism Component { When analyzing the meaning of an utterance, the reference of { Ever since Chomsky’s works and maintained faithfully by his words involved will be considered first. followers, the view that the grammar of a language consists of When I utter a promise. I make a promise because of the several ‘components’ has been very popular. Pragmatics is one semantics of the verb ‘to promise’. of the many components in the linguistic pie. Pragmaticism { The only issue is the effect that our words have when uttered, Perspective and the ‘things’ we can ‘do’ with them. { Verschueren (1999: 7): pragmatics does not constitute an additional component of a theory of language, but it offers a Complementarism different perspective. { Most traditionally oriented linguists prefer to assign pragmatics to a quiet corner, in a complementary relationship with the rest. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 21 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 22 How does Pragmatics differ How does Pragmatics differ from other subareas? from other subareas? Pragmatics A very good example to illustrate the discrepancies between pragmatics and other areas in linguistics is to Language Acquisition see how various approaches deal with a sentence like “天 Language Therapy 氣好熱啊.” Grammarians’ approach: how words in this sentence are Semantics Linguistics Phonetics formed in line with specific rules, Syntacticians’ point of view: how these words are related to one another, Syntax Phonology Semanticists’ approach: spelling out the natural, static or stable meanings of this sentence, Socio-linguistics Pragmaticians: associate this sentence with the “who when where and what is meant for by the speaker” issue. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 23 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 24 4 Pragmatics vs. sociolinguistics Pragmatics vs. sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is mainly concerned with the Pragmatics is mainly concerned with describing the systematic linguistic correlates of relatively fixed linguistic correlates of relatively changeable and stable social variables on the way an individual features of that same individual and the way in speaks. (region of origin, social class, ethnicity, sex, which the speaker exploits his/her (socio) linguistic age, etc.) repertoire in order to achieve a particular goal. Sociolinguistics tells us what linguistic resources Pragmatics tells us what the language user does the individual has. with the language. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 25 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 26 Sociolinguistics Pragmatics Example 1 From working class and not highly Example 1 The use of the intimate address educated. and reference form. F: Our Jen done that. F: Our Jen done that. M: How many coats did you put on it, Jen? M: How many coats did you put on it, Jen? J: How many what? J: How many what? Elderly, uses old-fashioned word Uses linguistic strategies to disrupt a M: Coats. instead of ‘vest’. M: Coats. serious conversation and turn it into J: Oh, quite a lot. J: Oh, quite a lot. a joke. F: And’ow about the waistcoats and socks? F: And’ow about the waistcoats and socks? M: Oh, she didn’t bother with those. M: Oh, she didn’t bother with those. F: She’m lazy. Came from the West Country, use of the regional F: She’m lazy. form ‘she’m’. 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 27 2007 NTPU Pragmatics 28 Assigning Sense in Context What is a sense? Sense refers to the meaning of a word, also refers to how Assigning the correct or intended sense to we see an object or the amount of information given polysemous or homonymous lexical items about an object.
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