PE1101 English Language Studies and Teaching I

PE3011 English Language Studies and Teaching I Lecture 11 : Semantics and Pragmatics (Reading : Fromkin and Rodman, ch. 5) Semantics and Pragmatics Semantics is the study of word and sentence meaning while pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning.

What does it mean by an adult? What features did you supply when you tried to explain the word ‘adult’?

Studying semantic properties

Different words and morphemes have different semantic properties, which we can classify different features.

Semantic features include + animate, - animate + human, - human + male, - male + agency, -agency + approval -approval + connotation -connotation

table Cow Girl woman Boy man animate - + + + + + human - - + + + + male - - - - + + adult - + - + - +

Slaves King Victims Boy Man Manager Human + + + + + + Agency - + - Neutral N +

Woman Man Mistress Black Ching Gweilo Approval

Exercise 1 (Fromkin & Rodman, p.204), A, B, C, D & G.

This kind of feature analysis would help you to explain why sentences (a - b) below are acceptable but sentences (c - d) are not.

(a) The boy is reading a book. (b) The dogs are eating. (c) The hamburger ate the man. (d) The dog is reading a book.

They also help us to see if our society is fair to a group of people, or to see the different values of our society.

(e.) Mary is Peter’s mistress. (f.) The gweilo seems to enjoy better treatment. (g.) The Ching doesn’t know how to use a fork. (h.) The black speaks with a funny accent.

Lexical Relations

A way to identify meanings of a word

Antonymy

Two forms with opposite meanings (binary opposition, i.e., either / or) e.g., long vs short fat vs thin big vs small quick vs slow alive vs dead above vs below

Complementary antonyms (binary opposition) alive – dead present - absent, awake - asleep.

Gradable antonyms (degree) big - small, hot - cold, quick - slow.

Synonymy closely related meanings which are often, but not always, intersubstitutable in sentences. broad - wide hide- conceal almost - nearly cab - taxi liberty - freedom answer - reply

“sameness of meaning” ≠ “total sameness”

Mary is a mature student. ?Mary is a ripe student.

Can I borrow your light? ?Can you lend me a fire?

I spilled the soup on the floor. ? I poured the soup on the floor. Hyponymy

One word is one of the kind the meaning of another, daffodil – flower dog – animal spinach – vegetable.

Homophony different written forms and meanings but with the same pronunciation bare – bear meat – meet flour – flower pail - pale sew - so

Homonymy

Same written / spoken forms but having two or more unrelated meanings. bank (of a river) bank (financial institution) pupil (at school) pupil (in the eye).

Some linguists also regard words with different spellings but the same pronunciation (homophones) as homonyms.

Homonyms can create ambiguity. A word or a sentence is ambiguous if it can be understood or interpreted in more than one way. The sentence

She cannot bear children. is ambiguous because it may mean “She is unable to give birth to children”, or “She cannot tolerate children”. Additional context may help to disambiguate the sentence.

e.g. She cannot bear children if they are noisy. She cannot bear children because she is sterile.

Exercise 2 (p.205, Fromkin & Rodman), a-g.

Understanding meanings intended:

Meanings of words derived from outside of the immediate context (deitic expressions). e.g., here there this that now then yesterday, and most pronouns

e.g. They’ll have to do that tomorrow, because they aren’t here now.

Also, called intertextual readings/listenings: meanings of ideas derived from past experiences, other texts, other contexts, one’s own personal history, etc.

The many T.V. commercials Many Chinese were outraged when they heard that the Japanese visited the Shinto Shrine

 Meanings can thus be neutral and can also be subjective Exercises 19 (Fromkin & Rodman, pp.212)

Entailments

Entailments are relations between sentences. Sentence A entails another sentence B if and only if whenever A is true, B is also true, and the information that B conveys is contained in the information that A conveys.

e.g. John is a bachelor. entails John is male. John is single. John is an adult.

Mary is pregnant. entails Mary is female. but does not entail Mary is married.

Contradiction

Contradiction is intimately linked to entailment. In judging a sentence contradictory, we deem that it is false no matter what the facts might be, that it describes no possible situation. A contradicts B is equivalent to saying that A entails not B. e.g. Mary kissed John passionately (A), but she didn’t touch him (B).

In the above sentence, “Mary kissed John passionately” (A) contradicts “She didn’t touch him” (B), because whenever a person kisses another person passionately (A), he/she must touch the other (not B), i.e. A entails not B.

Presuppositions

If a sentence A presupposes another sentence B, then A implies B, suggesting that B is true and also that the truth of B is somehow taken for granted or treated as uncontroversial.

e.g. The present queen of France lives in Italy. presupposes There is a queen of France.

Your brother is waiting outside for you. presupposes You have a brother.

Exercises 11 & 12 (Fromkin & Rodman, pp.208-209) Exercises 17 (Fromkin & Rodman, pp.210) c, d, e, h, & i

Pragmatics Speech Acts the type of “act” performed by a speaker in uttering a sentence. e.g., “requesting” “command” “questioning” “informing”

Direct speech acts vs indirect speech acts

What could be some possible readings of these following questions?

“Can you ride a bicycle?” “Can you swim?” “What’s the time now?” “Could you pass me the salt?” “You came home late last night, John.”

Questions as direct speech acts signal politeness and less threatening as orders.

Maxims of Conversation

What makes a joke a joke? What make the New World Mobility T.V. commercial series funny?

What kinds of conversations can irritate you?

What kinds of lectures can bore you?

An underlying assumption in most conversational exchanges seems to be that the participants are in fact cooperating with each other. There are four maxims of conversation.

1. Make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more, or less, than is required.

2. Do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack confidence.

3. Be relevant.

4. Be clear, brief and orderly.

Juxtaposing two entirely unrelated (usually in binary opposition), and unexpected items can cause a joke.