Define ‘pragmatics’ and discourse or discourse analysis; Explore aspects of meaning not predictable from the linguistic structure; Discuss how humans cooperate with one another when they talk. Describe turn-talking and politeness in conversation

1. CHAPTER 8:
Using
Language
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Course:
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Teachers
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2. 1-2
Learning Outcomes
After studying this
chapter, you will
be able to:
Define ‘pragmatics’
and discourse or
discourse analysis
Explore aspects of
meaning not
predictable from the
linguistic structure
Explore how humans
cooperate with one
another when they
talk.
Discuss turn-talking
and politeness in
conversation
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3. Linguistics
Sounds Structures Meaning
Phonology
Phonetics Syntax
Morphology Semantics Pragmatics

4. 1-4
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Introduction: How Context Shapes Meaning
• It is not enough to simply utter well-formed utterances;
 You should have to have knowledge about the situational
context and knowledge about culture. In other words, you
have to understand the situation and setting and know what
is appropriate for that circumstance.
when how with whom
Context
of
.. the language is used is important

5. 1-5
What is
Pragmatics?
In a narrow sense, it deals with how listeners
arrive at the intended meaning of speakers
In its broadest sense, it deals with the general
principles followed by human beings when they
communicate with one another
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• Communication clearly depends on not only recognizing
the meaning of words, but also recognizing what speakers
mean by their utterances in a particular context.

6. 1-6
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The word okay
might be defined in
a dictionary as a
statement of consent,
agreement, or a
description.
But how you say it,
when you say it, and
who you say it to can
drastically change
that meaning.
1. You are uncertain about what just
happened
2. You want to seem dispassionate but
you are actually very excited about an
offer
3. Someone makes a rude comment
4. A child tells you something inane and
you have to pretend to be impressed
Try saying the word
okay to convey the
following meanings
with different contexts:
Context can change the
meaning of a single word.

7. 1-7
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• Every sentence in the following conversations are well-
formed and are perfectly fine in isolation.
• However, given the context, they are inappropriate or
awkward
Meaning can also be created and
inferred through different
situational contexts.

8. 1-8
The cooperative principle
An American philosopher, Paul Grice, is regarded
as the ‘father of pragmatics
Grice emphasized that human beings
communicate efficiently because they
are by nature helpful to one another
He specified the principles which underlie
this cooperative behavior with four
‘maxims’ or rules of conversation.
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9. 4 ‘Maxims’= Rules of
conversation
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Maxim of
quantity
• Give the right
amount of
information
when you talk
Maxim of
quality
• Be truthful. Do
not say what
you believe to
be false.
Maxim of
relevance
• Be relevant.
Say only
things that are
related to the
topic
Maxim of
manner
 Be clear and
orderly.
Ex. describe
things in the
order in which
they occurred:
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10. 1-10
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• Infringements of Grice ’ s cooperative
principle show how strongly it works, because
the listener assumes that a superficially
uncooperative answer is in fact a cooperative
one.
The cooperative principle seems like common sense. It becomes
more interesting when we consider how often people apparently
break it.
What ’ s
for
supper? ’
• Reply was the superficially
irrelevant one:‘ Billy fell
downstairs, ’
• the hearer is likely to assume that
the information about Billy was
somehow important and will fill in
the gaps with assumptions such
as ‘ Since Billy was supposed to
cook the supper, and he ’ s fallen
downstairs, I assume that there
isn’t any supper ready. ’

11. 1-11
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• The main problem with these Gricean maxims
is that they are fairly vague, and the
conversational implicatures or conclusions
which can be drawn are wide and numerous.
• Some recent work therefore has attempted
to specify how humans manage to
disentangle what is relevant from the mass
of possible inferences they could make.
Implication
• Infringements of Grice ’ s cooperative
principle show how strongly it works,
because the listener assumes that a
superficially uncooperative answer is in fact a
cooperative one.

12. 1-12
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“Speech acts” Saying WhatYou Mean and Meaning WhatYou Say
• Statements,
• Requests,
• Queries,
• Commands,
• Promises,
• Threats,
• Complaints,
• Placing of bets, and
so on.
• Utterances intended to convey
communicative force or achieve some
effects.
• An action that involves language (Yule,
2023)
We use certain kinds of syntactic
structures, called sentence types,
when speaking:

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Direct Speech
Acts
• the act/utterance is
expressed overtly by
the most obvious
linguistic means or the
literal meaning:
• Have you cleaned
your room yet?
• When you seriously
want to know the
answer, it is Direct
Speech Act.
Indirect Speech
Acts
• The utterance with
meaning depending on
context
• Have you cleaned
your room yet?
• What if you have asked your
daughter repeatedly to clean
her room and told her that if
she doesn’t, she won’t be
allowed to go the movies as
planned?
• Uttering this interrogative
sentence type actually
conveys a (mild) threat: (If
you don’t clean your room,
then no movies for you!)
Two types of Speech acts

14. Speech acts
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How do people know which
speech act is intended, if each
act can use the syntactic
structure typically associated
with one of the others?
A possible answer is to specify
happiness conditions or felicity
conditions – circumstances under
which it would be appropriate to
interpret something as a particular
type of speech act.

15. 1-15
What is Discourse and
Discourse Analysis?
… The word “discourse” is usually defined
as “language beyond the sentence (Yule,
2020).
Discourse analysis (analysis of discourse) is
typically concerned with the study of
language in texts and conversation.
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16. 1-16
What is difference between
Pragmatics vs. Discourse
analysis?
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• Pragmatics overlaps with discourse
analysis, which deals with the various
devices used by speakers and writers
when they knit single sentences together
into a coherent and cohesive whole.

17. Consider two versions of the same dialogue:
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18. Discourse analysis
1-18
The first version
• sounds stilted and
odd, even though
by itself, each
sentence is well
formed.
The second version
• sounds far more like an
ordinary conversation.
• It contains devices
similar to those used in
the piece of prose.
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• After the first occurrence of Fred , the
alternative phrase that man and the
pronoun he have been used.The third
sentence has been changed into the
passive, in order to keep Fred at the
centre of attention. And so on.

19. 1-19
Taking Turn
• Utterances often occur
in pairs, known as
exchanges or
adjacency pairs :
Triple utterances are
also frequent:
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Paired
utterances
Triple
utterances
Refers to when humans typically take it in turns to talk.We
can, in addition, describe how a typical conversation
might proceed. The speakers are taking part in a social
ritual partially prescribed by convention

20. Repairs
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• Conversations
do not
necessarily
run smoothly.
People cannot always explain
things properly.
The person they are talking
is to make a mistake.
They make a mistake.

21. Repairs
1-21
Such minor breakdowns in conversation can be ‘repaired’.
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Self-repair
• when speakers
notice problems
and correct
themselves;
• Could you hand me a
spoon? A teaspoon,that is.
• Marion arrived on Saturday
– sorry,I mean Sunday.
Other-repair
• when sb is not quite
sure about what has
been said or suspects
that the other person
has made a mistake.
• I assume you mean a
teaspoon.
• Did Marion really arrive on
Saturday?Wasn’t it Sunday?

22. Repairs
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Self-repair
• However, humans do not usually confront one
another directly, so other-initiated self-repair
is very common.
Other-repair • In such cases, a listener mildly queries the
speaker, who then repairs the original utterance.
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23. Politeness
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• If you wanted someone
to shut the door, you
could in theory use any
of these sentences.
• Shut the door!
• I wonder if you ’ d mind
shutting the door.
• There ’ s quite a draught in
here.
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• The context of when, how,and with whom language is
used is an important layer of language.Think about a
phrase that would be perfectly appropriate in one
setting, and awkward or rude in another.

24. Politeness
1-24
Are Politeness
& Directness
universal or
culture-
specific?
• People tend to be polite to
one another.
Principles of
Politeness
• They seem to follow two
social requirements:
• ‘Don’t criticize!’
• ‘Don’t interfere! ’
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25. Politeness
1-25
‘No criticism’ and ‘No interference’ have an effect on
language.
social risk
The social distance between ourselves
and those whom you are talking to, the
power relationship, the cultural norms,
and make a decision
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26. Classroom Implication
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27. Mr. Vath Vary
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