Pragmatics
- 1. PRAGMATICS: THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE USE AND COMMUNICATION PART 1 CHAPTER9,AN INTRODUCTIONTO LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION SIXTH EDITION,ADRIAN AKMAJIAN ZARA ARIAN DECEMBER, 2014
- 2. PRAGMATICS
- 3. PRAGMATICS the study of language use, and in particular the study of linguistic communication in relation to language structure and context of utterance. For instance, pragmatics must identify central uses of language, it must specify the conditions for linguistic expressions (words, phrases, sentences, discourse) to be used in those ways, and it must seek to uncover general principles of language use.
- 4. PRAGMATICS the most pervasive characteristic of human social interaction, so pervasive that we hardly find it remarkable, is that we talk. When we focus on what people use language to do, we focus on what a person is doing with words in particular situations; we focus on the intentions, purposes, beliefs, and desires that a speaker has in speaking. Inner speech or self talk External or normal speech
- 5. LINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION What is (successful) linguistic communication? How does (successful) communication work? What makes it possible for the speaker to communicate to the hearer?
- 7. THE MESSAGE MODEL A speaker has some message in mind that she wants to communicate to a hearer.The speaker then produces some expression from the language that encodes the message as its meaning. Upon hearing the beginning of the expression, the hearer begins identifying the incoming sounds, syntax, and meanings; then, using her knowledge of language, she com-poses these meanings in the form of a successfully decoded message. the speaker acts as a ‘‘transmitter,’’ the hearer acts as a ‘‘receiver,’’ and the vocal-auditory path (the sound wave) is the relevant channel
- 9. PROBLEMS OF THIS MODEL First: ambiguity the Message Model must be supplemented by principles that take contextual appropriateness into account to compensate for the pervasive ambiguity of natural language. E.g. Flying planes can be dangerous.
- 10. PROBLEMS OF THIS MODEL Second: underdetermination of reference the Message Model must be supplemented by mechanisms for successfully recognizing the intention to refer to a specific person, place, or thing. E.g. the shrewd politician can be used on different occasions to refer to different people such as Winston Churchill or Bill Clinton
- 11. PROBLEMS OF THIS MODEL Third: underdetermination of communicative intention What is missing in the model so far is an account of the speaker’s communicative intention, which is not, in general, uniquely determined by the (linguistic) meaning of the expression uttered, but is part of the message communicated. E.g. I’ll be there tonight might be a prediction, a promise, or even a threat, depending upon the speaker’s intentions in the appropriate circumstances.
- 12. PROBLEMS OF THIS MODEL Forth: nonliterality The Message Model does not account for the additional fact that we often speak nonliterally; that is, we may not mean what our words mean. Common cases of this are irony, sarcasm, and figurative uses of language such as metaphor. E.g. Oh, that’s just great can, in the appropriate context, be taken to mean the opposite of what the words mean.
- 13. PROBLEMS OF THIS MODEL Fifth: indirection the Message Model does not account for the fact that we some-times mean to communicate more than what our sentences mean. E.g. it would be quite natural to say My car has a flat tire to a gas station attendant, with the intention that he repairs the tire: in this case we are requesting the hearer to do something not reporting.
- 14. PROBLEMS OF THIS MODEL Sixth: noncommunicative acts. Communicating a message is not always the purpose of our remarks, and this model does not connect at all with these other uses.(speech acts or perlocutionary acts)
- 15. SUCCESSFUL COMMUNICATION ACCORDING TO THE MESSAGE MODEL Linguistic communication is successful if the hearer receives the speaker’s message. It works because messages have been conventionalized as the meaning of expressions, and by sharing knowledge of the meaning of an expression, the hearer can recognize a speaker’s message—the speaker’s communicative intention.
- 16. THE INFERENTIAL MODEL in the course of learning to speak our language we also learn how to communicate in that language, and learning this involves acquiring a variety of shared beliefs or presumptions, as well as a system of inferential strategies. The presumptions allow us to presume certain helpful things about potential hearers (or speakers),and the inferential strategies provide communicants with short, effective patterns of inference from what someone utters to what that person might be trying to communicate.
- 18. DIRECT AND LITERAL COMMUNICATION We say what we mean and we mean what we say
- 19. DIRECT STRATEGY Utterance act:The hearer recognizes what expression the speaker has uttered. Operative meaning:The hearer recognizes which meaning of the expression is intended to be operative on this occasion. Speaker reference:The hearer recognizes what the speaker is referring to. Direct:The hearer recognizes what the speaker is intending to communicate directly.
- 20. LITERAL STRATEGY Contextual appropriateness:The hearer recognizes that it would be contextually appropriate for the speaker to be speaking literally. Literal:The hearer recognizes what the speaker is intending to communicate literally (and directly). The violation of conversational presumption contextual inappropriateness.
- 21. NONLITERAL COMMUNICATION what we mean to communicate is not compatible with what our expression literally means.
- 22. TYPICAL EXAMPLES OF EXPRESSIONS THAT ARE SOMETIMES UTTERED NONLITERALLY • The white house(the president or staff) issued a statement. • She is a ball of fire.(she’s got a lot of energy)
- 23. STRATEGIES FOR NONLITERAL COMMUNICATION Contextual inappropriateness:The hearer recognizes that it would be contextually inappropriate for the speaker to be speaking literally. Nonliteral:The hearer recognizes what the speaker is communicating nonliterally (and directly).
- 24. INDIRECT COMMUNICATION We mean something more than what we mean directly. E.g.The door is over there. (used to request someone to leave) E.g. I’m sure the cat likes having its tail pulled. (used to request the hearer to stop pulling the cat’s tail)
- 25. STRATEGIES FOR INDIRECT COMMUNICATION Contextual inappropriateness:The hearer recognizes that it would be contextually inappropriate for the speaker to be speaking merely directly—in particular, merely claiming that the cat does not like having its tail pulled. Indirect:The hearer recognizes what the speaker is also communicating indirectly—in particular, that she is requesting the hearer to quit pulling the cat’s tail.
- 26. SUCCESSFUL COMMUNICATION ACCORDINGTO THE INFERENTIAL MODEL Linguistic communication is successful if the hearer recognizes the speaker’s communicative intention. Linguistic communication works because the speaker and the hearer share a system of inferential strategies leading from the utterance of an expression to the hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s communicative intent.
- 27. PROVERBS Proverbs are traditional sayings having a fixed general sentential form, alluding to a common truth or general wisdom, with some (rudimentary) literary value, used to guide action, explain a situation, or induce a feeling or attitude.