General Linguistics
(5th year)
Lecture 5
LINGUISTIC PRAGMATICS
Contents
- Pragmatics: definition. Branches of pragmatics.
2. Speech act
Constituents of a speech act
Types of speech acts
Direct and indirect speech acts
Felicity conditions
- Pragmalinguistics
3.1. Message: interpretation
Frames and scripts
Background knowledge, presupposition, and implicatures
Pragmasemantics
3.2. Message: composition
Text linguistics
Discourse analysis
3.3. Conveying a message (general pragmatics)
Cooperative principle
Principle of politeness
Talking in turns
4. Situation of speech: Cross-cultural pragmatics.
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PRAGMATICS
Pragmatics is the brunch of linguistics which studies those aspects of meaning that cannot be captured by semantic theory. Pragmatics deals with how speakers use language in ways which cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge alone. These ways demonstrate, in particular, the speakers choice of linguistic units, the constraints that speakers encounter in social interaction, and the effects achieved by a message. In a narrow sense, pragmatics is concerned with what the speaker wants to say in his or her message, and with how listeners arrive at the intended meanings. This version of pragmatics is represented in the theory of speech acts. In a broad sense, pragmatics focuses on the general principles followed by humans when they communicate with one another. Hence, pragmatics is understood as the studies of both the intended content of a message and the ways it is conveyed. The two major branches of pragmatics are pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics.
Pragmalinguistics highlights the language used in speech. It is the study of language use from the viewpoint of the languages structural resources. For instance, it may start with the pronoun system of a language, and examine the way in which people choose different available forms to express the range of attitudes and relationships (such as deference and intimacy). Pragmalinguistics incorporates pragmasemantics which analyzes the senses acquired by linguistic units in particular texts. Pragmasemantics borders on semantics proper. They can be viewed as semantics of speech and semantics of language respectively. The other areas that study the message are text linguistics and discourse analysis. Text linguistics is primarily concerned with the organization of the message, or text, as a formal and semantic whole. Discourse analysis studies the organization of a text with regard to the situation of speech. In other words, it studies the text plunged into life. Text linguistics and discourse analysis, being immediately linked to pragmalinguistics, remain however individual linguistic fields. Another branch of pragmalinguistics is general pragmatics (or pragmatics proper), which studies the principles governing the communicative use of language, especially as encountered in conversations. It focuses on the ways of conveying the message rather than the message itself.
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Sociopragmatics examines the conditions on language use deriving from the social situation. For instance, it might begin with the social backgrounds of the participants of interaction and consider the way in which different factors (such as age, social status, gender, etc.) lead people to choose particular linguistic forms. Thus, sociopragmatics focuses on the speakers and the communicative situation. The latter serves as the context of interaction between the speakers who belong to one and the same culture (monocultural discourse) or to different cultures (cross-cultural discourse). The social background of the speakers is usually considered by sociolinguistics (to be discussed later). Cross-cultural discourse is studied within the framework of cross-cultural pragmatics.
SPEECH ACT
Speech act and its constituents.
When humans speak, they pursue some goal and achieve some result. Therefore, utterances are somewhat similar to physical actions, which explains the term speech acts. Speech act is a communicative activity defined with regard to the intention of the speaker and the effect achieved on the listener. In this context, the act itself is called a locutionary act; the communicative intention of the act is called the illocutionary force;andthe impact of the act upon the listener is called the perlocutionary effect.
The constituents of a speech act are the speaker (or writer), the listener (or reader), the message (an utterance or text), and the communicative situation (or situation of speech). These constituents relate to different branches of pragmatics (Figure 1).
Text linguistics and discourse analysis
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Pragmalinguistics
MESSAGE
Locution
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Pragmasemantics
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SPEAKER LISTENER
Illocution CONVEYING Perlocution
THE MESSAGE
Age, status, General pragmatics Age, status,
gender, culture, etc. gender, culture, etc.
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COMMUNICATIVE
SITUATION
Monocultural and cross-cultural
discourse
Sociopragmatics
Sociolinguistics
Figure 1: Speech act and branches of pragmatics
The types of speech acts are defined with regard to their illocutionary force that reflects the communicative intention of the speaker. There are different typologies of speech acts. One of the most accepted (see Grammar: Communicative Grammar) distinguishes three basic types: informative acts, obligative acts, and constitutive acts.
Informative speech acts encompass all speech acts that convey information to the listener, ask information of the listener or state that someone lacks information. The information is about what one knows, thinks, believes or feels. Informative acts are subdivided into assertive acts and information questions. Assertive acts, or representatives, depict the world as seen by the speaker. E.g. The earth is flat. They havent been there. I assume you are right. Information questions are inquiries about the lacking information. E.g. Where do you live?
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Obligative speech acts show that the speaker imposes an obligation on somebody. In directive acts (order, command, request, proposal, advice, warning, suggestion, invitation, etc.), an obligation is imposed on the listener, e.g. Give me a cup of coffee. Make it black. Dont touch that. Could you lend me a pen, please? Why dont we go to the movies tonight? In the commissive acts, the speaker imposes an obligation on himself or herself. Such acts (promise, offer, threat, menace, refusal, pledge, oath, etc.) show what the speaker intends to do. E.g. Ill be back. We will not do that.
Constitutive speech acts constitute, or create, a new social reality. Among such acts are declarative acts and expressive acts. Declarative acts change the physical world via an utterance (e.g. naming a person or thing, pronouncing somebody husband and wife, sentencing somebody to imprisonment, etc.). In order to perform a declaration appropriately, the speaker must have a special institutional role within a specific context. E.g. Referee: You are out! Jury Foreman: We find the defendant guilty. Expressive acts state what the speaker feels. They express the speakers psychological states (pleasure, likes, dislikes, joys, sorrow or pain). Among such acts are thanks, praises, greetings, apologies, condolences, reproaches, reprimands, etc. E.g. I am really sorry. Congratulations! Its so nice of you! In using an expressive, the speaker attempts to change the psychological world via an utterance. The verbs used in constitutive acts, such as to name, to sentence, to pronounce, to thank, to praise, to apologize, to greet, etc., both describe a speech act and express it. Such verbs are called performatives. The utterances with them are acts by themselves.
Direct and indirect speech acts. A speech act is direct if it is associated with a specific syntactic structure. E.g. a declarative sentence used to make an assertion (The Earth rotates around the Sun), an interrogative sentence used to make a question (Does the Earth rotate around the Sun?) or an imperative sentence used as a command (Stand up!). A speech act is indirect if it is manifested with a syntactic structure typical of some other speech act. E.g. an interrogative or declarative sentence used as a directive (Why dont you have lunch? or The lunch is ready). Since one and the same syntactic structure may be used to manifest various types of speech acts, it is important to have the additional clues for identifying the communicative intention of the speaker. Such clues are provided by felicity conditions. (See Aitchison, p. 95-96).
Felicity conditions, or happiness conditions, are the appropriate circumstances under which a speech act can be recognized as intended. E.g., the sentence Our exam is in January is an assertion when said by a teacher at the beginning of the semester; the same sentence may be interpreted as a directive (warning) when pronounced by the teacher at the end of the semester. For some clear cases, the performance will be infelicitous (inappropriate) if the speaker is not a specific person in a specific context, e.g. I sentence you to six months in prison a judge in the courtroom.
PRAGMALINGUISTICS
3.1. MESSAGE: interpretation
Frames, scripts, and presuppositions
A speech act evokes the image that contains knowledge stored in the form of frames, or some stereotypical situations which are compatible with the felicity conditions. A frame is retained in the memory as a pre-existing knowledge structure with a fixed static pattern. Frames are adapted to fit the present reality, and they can be altered as required. E.g. I bought a dress yesterday (STORE, or MARKET PLACE + SELLER + BUYER + CASH, or CREDIT CARD, or CHECK); Close the window, please (ROOM + OPEN WINDOW + COLD/NOISE + A PERSON WHO CAN CLOSE THE WINDOW).
(See Aitchison, p. 97).
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While frames are static structures, scripts are dynamic structures. They model the pre-existing knowledge for interpreting event sequences. E.g. I must go to the dentist (GIVE YOUR NAME TO THE RECEPTIONIST à MAKE AN APPOINTMENT à COME TO THE DENTIST à HAVE YOUR TEETH EXAMINED à ONE TOOTH HAS A CAVITY à HAVE THE CAVITY STOPPED à LEAVE THE DENTIST).
Frames and scripts applied in interpreting a message by the participants of interaction are based on background knowledge. It is the information shared by the participants and taken for granted. Taking things for granted is a presupposition. Presupposition can be conventional, conversational, and cultural. Conventional presupposition is knowledge obvious from the grammar or lexicon. E.g. (grammar) an imperative sentence is typically understood as a command, e.g. Pass the salt. Open the window. Keep silence; (lexicon) He has recovered (He was ill). Conversational presupposition is the knowledge obvious from the situation of speech, e.g. Jane has left for Kiev (the speakers know who Jane is). Cultural presupposition is the knowledge shared by people who belong to one and the same culture, e.g. Well have to elect a new Verhovna Rada. The Congress voted against this bill. Presupposition provides an additional unstated meaning associated with the utterance.
Pragmasemantics, which borders on semantics, centers on the senses that a linguistic unit acquires in a particular message or text. Such meanings are also called functional meanings, or referential meanings, as they relate to definite referents in a concrete situation of speech. A linguistic unit, such as a word, may have several meanings, or senses (LSV), from which only one fits into the utterance. E.g. Ive bought this chair at the auction. The lecture is given by the chair of the Department of English. Further, a particular sense may have a number of referents, from which only one is actualized as the referential meaning and is to be entailed by the listener. E.g. chair as a piece of furniture: large, antique, with a red seat, etc.; chair as the head of a department: John Smyth, aged 45, tall, black haired, etc. Entailment of referential meanings is grounded on frames, scripts, and various presuppositions: conventional, situational, and cultural. Situational presuppositions are particularly important for deictic words, such as pronouns, the semantics of which is made obvious only within some context. The cases when pronouns refer to the previous information are called anaphora, e.g. The student left the room. He was sad. The cases when pronouns refer to the following information are called cataphora, e.g. They drive me mad, these eyes.
3.2. MESSAGE: composition
Text linguistics is concerned with formal and semantic means which provide textual cohesion and coherence. Conventionally, textual cohesion () means that a message, text in particular, is a structural unit. It exists as a whole due to a number of cohesive linguistic means, such as repetition, synonyms, anaphora and cataphora, comlex and compound sentences, linking words then, hence, therefore, after that, firstly, secondly, etc. Textual coherence () is primarily associated with the content of a message. Coherence is provided by the familiar and expected relationships in experience which we use to connect the meanings of words and utterances, even when those connections are not explicitly made (e.g. Plant sale is understood as Somebody sells plants, but Garage sale is understood as Something is sold in a garage). Coherence is grounded on frames and scripts as stereotypical knowledge structures. Implicit connections may be quite sophisticated in literary, especially poetic, texts, the meaning of which is created via a somewhat unconventional integration of concepts. The link between them may require an effort on behalf of the reader.
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Discourse analysis is concerned with the message, text in particular, placed within a particular communicative situation and considered with regard to the intention of the speaker, and the effect on the listener. Illocution and perlocution of a text cause its specific form and content, which is reflected in various genres and styles. Genre and style have their patterns, or standards, which must be observed in the composition of a message, or text. Hence, discourse analysis overlaps with stylistics. (See Aitchison, p. 97-99).
