This document discusses semantics and pragmatics. Semantics is concerned with the literal meaning of words and phrases, while pragmatics focuses on how context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics examines how language is used in situations, providing tools to understand meaning based on social context. It is concerned with what language can do rather than just what it says. Key aspects of pragmatics include speech acts, implicature, deixis, and presupposition.
Introduction to Discourse Analysis is a tool used to analyze and synthesize different types of discourses whether oral or written that can be used in social, governmental and public setting. This will help you to be the best in everything that you do that you do not need any more books to identify a language discourse .
It also gives you an overall and birds eye view of what you should do in order for you to do your best.
Introduction to Discourse Analysis is a tool used to analyze and synthesize different types of discourses whether oral or written that can be used in social, governmental and public setting. This will help you to be the best in everything that you do that you do not need any more books to identify a language discourse .
It also gives you an overall and birds eye view of what you should do in order for you to do your best.
Pragmatics and Discourse , context & speech actsNaeemIqbal88
Pragmatics and Discourse
What is pragmatics?
An approach within DA which concentrates on the way language
acquires meaning in use. It has developed from the tradition of the
philosophy of language known as pragmatics.
Focus: The study of contextualised meaning and is concerned with
describing the principles that underlie how we interpret the meaning
behind words: how we get from what we say to what we mean.
Pragmatic approaches tend to be interested in the 'big picture': trying
to formulate generalisable principles about how people produce and
interpret discourse (eg’ the use of humour in business meetings’).
Context
Context is an important concept in DA. Language does not take place in a vacuum and we
need to consider the context in which it occurs in order to understand it.
However, this seemingly unproblematic statement masks the issues and debates that are
ongoing in discourse analysis around the concept of context and its significance.
Two types of context
The 'intrinsic' or 'linguistic' context which refers to information that can be found
within the text that surrounds the language that is being analysed at a particular
moment. It is generally agreed that this type of context is not only useful but essential.
The more problematic type of context lies outside the actual text: what is sometimes
called 'extrinsic' (Schegloff 1997) or 'experiential' context.
This refers to all sorts of information about setting, situation, social circumstances of the
participants such as age, gender, ethnicity and possibly also about the shared
background knowledge and assumptions of the participants.
So, in the example:
'Later, an item about vasectomy and the results of the do-it-yourself competition'
(from Cameron 2001:12)
 The issue with extrinsic context is moving from description to interpretation in
research. Along with describing 'what' is happening in the discourse , it is also
important to interpret 'why' it is happening.
 Extrinsic contextual evidence can be potentially very useful in discussing why
participants say a particular thing in a particular way at a particular time,
however, there is also a danger of 'reading too much into the text' and of
judging which out of many possible interpretations is the 'right' one.
For instance, if the analyst is aware of gender, age or ethic difference among
discourse participants, these variables may well appear to influence the
discourse but how do we know which of these particular variables are
important to the participants in an particular communicative event.
 This is not to say that we should ignore extrinsic context but to suggest that we
need to be cautious about what we select as significant and rigorous about how
we incorporate it into our analyses. Schegloff (1997) advises that the best
option is to use only what can be shown to be relevant to participants.
 Can you imagine a meaningful context for this text?
a. Which of you was the prawns?
2. The Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary ActsThe loc.docxeugeniadean34240
2. The Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary Acts
The locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts are, in fact, three basic components with the help of which a speech act is formed. Leech (Leech, 1983: 199) briefly defines them like this:
locutionary act: performing an act of saying something
illocutionary act: performing an act in saying something
perlocutionary act: performing an act by saying something
The locutionary act can be viewed as a mere uttering of some words in certain language, while the illocutionary and perlocutionary acts convey a more complicated message for the hearer. An illocutionary act communicates the speaker’s intentions behind the locution and a perlocutionary act reveals the effect the speaker wants to exercise over the hearer.
This can be demonstrated on a simple example:
4. Would you close the door, please?
The surface form, and also the locutionary act, of this utterance is a question with a clear content (Close the door.) The illocutionary act conveys a request from the part of the speaker and the perlocutionary act expresses the speaker’s desire that the hearer should go and close the door.
But the individual elements cannot be always separated that easily. Bach and Harnish say that they are intimately related in a large measure (Bach and Harnish, 1979: 3). However, for better understanding of their function within a speech act, I am going to treat them individually first.
2.1. Locutionary Acts
This component of the speech act is probably the least ambiguous. Bach and Harnish (Bach and Harnish 1979: 19), commenting on Austin’s work, point out that Austin distinguishes three aspects of the locutionary act.
Austin claims that to say anything is:
A. always to perform the act of uttering certain noises (a phonetic act)
B. always to perform the act of uttering certain vocables or words ( a phatic act)
C. generally to perform the act of using that [sentence] or its constituents with a certain more or less definite ‘sense’ and a more or less definite ‘reference’, which together are equivalent to ‘meaning’ (rhetic act)
From this division it follows that the locutionary act comprises other three “sub-acts”: phonetic, phatic and rhetic. This distinction as well as the notion of locutionary act in general was often criticized by Austin’s followers. Searle even completely rejects Austin’s division and proposes his own instead (Searle, 1968: 405). Searle (Searle, 1968: 412) warns that Austin’s rhetic act is nothing else but a reformulated description of the illocutionary act and he therefore suggests another term, the so-called propositional act which expresses the proposition (a neutral phrase without illocutionary force). In other words, a proposition is the content of the utterance.
Wardhaugh offers this explanation. Propositional acts are those matters having to do with referring and predicating: we use language to refer to matters in the world and to make predictions about such matters .
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
Pragmatics and Discourse , context & speech actsNaeemIqbal88
Pragmatics and Discourse
What is pragmatics?
An approach within DA which concentrates on the way language
acquires meaning in use. It has developed from the tradition of the
philosophy of language known as pragmatics.
Focus: The study of contextualised meaning and is concerned with
describing the principles that underlie how we interpret the meaning
behind words: how we get from what we say to what we mean.
Pragmatic approaches tend to be interested in the 'big picture': trying
to formulate generalisable principles about how people produce and
interpret discourse (eg’ the use of humour in business meetings’).
Context
Context is an important concept in DA. Language does not take place in a vacuum and we
need to consider the context in which it occurs in order to understand it.
However, this seemingly unproblematic statement masks the issues and debates that are
ongoing in discourse analysis around the concept of context and its significance.
Two types of context
The 'intrinsic' or 'linguistic' context which refers to information that can be found
within the text that surrounds the language that is being analysed at a particular
moment. It is generally agreed that this type of context is not only useful but essential.
The more problematic type of context lies outside the actual text: what is sometimes
called 'extrinsic' (Schegloff 1997) or 'experiential' context.
This refers to all sorts of information about setting, situation, social circumstances of the
participants such as age, gender, ethnicity and possibly also about the shared
background knowledge and assumptions of the participants.
So, in the example:
'Later, an item about vasectomy and the results of the do-it-yourself competition'
(from Cameron 2001:12)
 The issue with extrinsic context is moving from description to interpretation in
research. Along with describing 'what' is happening in the discourse , it is also
important to interpret 'why' it is happening.
 Extrinsic contextual evidence can be potentially very useful in discussing why
participants say a particular thing in a particular way at a particular time,
however, there is also a danger of 'reading too much into the text' and of
judging which out of many possible interpretations is the 'right' one.
For instance, if the analyst is aware of gender, age or ethic difference among
discourse participants, these variables may well appear to influence the
discourse but how do we know which of these particular variables are
important to the participants in an particular communicative event.
 This is not to say that we should ignore extrinsic context but to suggest that we
need to be cautious about what we select as significant and rigorous about how
we incorporate it into our analyses. Schegloff (1997) advises that the best
option is to use only what can be shown to be relevant to participants.
 Can you imagine a meaningful context for this text?
a. Which of you was the prawns?
2. The Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary ActsThe loc.docxeugeniadean34240
2. The Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary Acts
The locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts are, in fact, three basic components with the help of which a speech act is formed. Leech (Leech, 1983: 199) briefly defines them like this:
locutionary act: performing an act of saying something
illocutionary act: performing an act in saying something
perlocutionary act: performing an act by saying something
The locutionary act can be viewed as a mere uttering of some words in certain language, while the illocutionary and perlocutionary acts convey a more complicated message for the hearer. An illocutionary act communicates the speaker’s intentions behind the locution and a perlocutionary act reveals the effect the speaker wants to exercise over the hearer.
This can be demonstrated on a simple example:
4. Would you close the door, please?
The surface form, and also the locutionary act, of this utterance is a question with a clear content (Close the door.) The illocutionary act conveys a request from the part of the speaker and the perlocutionary act expresses the speaker’s desire that the hearer should go and close the door.
But the individual elements cannot be always separated that easily. Bach and Harnish say that they are intimately related in a large measure (Bach and Harnish, 1979: 3). However, for better understanding of their function within a speech act, I am going to treat them individually first.
2.1. Locutionary Acts
This component of the speech act is probably the least ambiguous. Bach and Harnish (Bach and Harnish 1979: 19), commenting on Austin’s work, point out that Austin distinguishes three aspects of the locutionary act.
Austin claims that to say anything is:
A. always to perform the act of uttering certain noises (a phonetic act)
B. always to perform the act of uttering certain vocables or words ( a phatic act)
C. generally to perform the act of using that [sentence] or its constituents with a certain more or less definite ‘sense’ and a more or less definite ‘reference’, which together are equivalent to ‘meaning’ (rhetic act)
From this division it follows that the locutionary act comprises other three “sub-acts”: phonetic, phatic and rhetic. This distinction as well as the notion of locutionary act in general was often criticized by Austin’s followers. Searle even completely rejects Austin’s division and proposes his own instead (Searle, 1968: 405). Searle (Searle, 1968: 412) warns that Austin’s rhetic act is nothing else but a reformulated description of the illocutionary act and he therefore suggests another term, the so-called propositional act which expresses the proposition (a neutral phrase without illocutionary force). In other words, a proposition is the content of the utterance.
Wardhaugh offers this explanation. Propositional acts are those matters having to do with referring and predicating: we use language to refer to matters in the world and to make predictions about such matters .
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
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The French Revolution, which began in 1789, was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France. It marked the decline of absolute monarchies, the rise of secular and democratic republics, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. This revolutionary period is crucial in understanding the transition from feudalism to modernity in Europe.
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The empire's roots lie in the city of Rome, founded, according to legend, by Romulus in 753 BCE. Over centuries, Rome evolved from a small settlement to a formidable republic, characterized by a complex political system with elected officials and checks on power. However, internal strife, class conflicts, and military ambitions paved the way for the end of the Republic. Julius Caesar’s dictatorship and subsequent assassination in 44 BCE created a power vacuum, leading to a civil war. Octavian, later Augustus, emerged victorious, heralding the Roman Empire’s birth.
Under Augustus, the empire experienced the Pax Romana, a 200-year period of relative peace and stability. Augustus reformed the military, established efficient administrative systems, and initiated grand construction projects. The empire's borders expanded, encompassing territories from Britain to Egypt and from Spain to the Euphrates. Roman legions, renowned for their discipline and engineering prowess, secured and maintained these vast territories, building roads, fortifications, and cities that facilitated control and integration.
The Roman Empire’s society was hierarchical, with a rigid class system. At the top were the patricians, wealthy elites who held significant political power. Below them were the plebeians, free citizens with limited political influence, and the vast numbers of slaves who formed the backbone of the economy. The family unit was central, governed by the paterfamilias, the male head who held absolute authority.
Culturally, the Romans were eclectic, absorbing and adapting elements from the civilizations they encountered, particularly the Greeks. Roman art, literature, and philosophy reflected this synthesis, creating a rich cultural tapestry. Latin, the Roman language, became the lingua franca of the Western world, influencing numerous modern languages.
Roman architecture and engineering achievements were monumental. They perfected the arch, vault, and dome, constructing enduring structures like the Colosseum, Pantheon, and aqueducts. These engineering marvels not only showcased Roman ingenuity but also served practical purposes, from public entertainment to water supply.
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It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
2. Focuses on the literal meanings of words,
phrases and sentences;
concerned with how grammatical processes
build complex meanings out of simpler ones
3.
4. Focuses on the use of language in particular
situations;
aims to explain how factors outside of
language contribute to both literal meaning
and nonliteral meanings which speakers
communicate using language
5. The study of meaning in use
Provides tools to help us understand the
meaning in a given social context, including
the effect that language has on those
involved in the speech situation
Semantics – the study of meaning outside of
its contextualized use with a focus on the
literal meaning of words and phrases
6. Semantics – concerned with what language
says
Pragmatics – concerned with what language
can do
Semantics – sense
Pragmatics – force
Semantics: words or lexemes are central to
the study
Pragmatics: events or potential events are of
main interest
8. We often think that the role of language is to
explain, inform, describe, and say sth about
the world
Language – also used to do things, such as
promise, bet, request, threaten, warn,
apologize, swear (in court), etc.
9. J.L. Austin, How to do Things with Words
(1955)
"It was for too long the assumption of
philosophers that the business of a
'statement' can only be to 'describe' some
state of affairs, or to 'state some fact', which
it must do either truly or falsely.„
Wittgenstein: „Don't ask for the meaning, ask
for the use." - language as a vehicle for social
activity
10. Austin suggested that most utterances are
created not to ‘describe’, but to perform
action
His approach was not of „What do sentences
mean?” but „What kind of act do we perform
when we utter a sentence?”
11. Austin emphasized the contexts in which
utterances take place and suggested that
they should be defined as felicitous or not,
rather than false or true
Felicity conditions: describe all the
circumstantial properties of an utterance
which are relevant to its successful
accomplishment
12. Austin questioned the truth value of
statements, a view which centered on the
conditions of an utterance that can be
declared true or false
Austin examined performatives: sentences
that are used to do things, rather than
declare or state sth
13. Performatives: „I now pronounce you husband
and wife”
Only certain people in certain conditions can
do this kind of pronouncing; if the conditions
are right, then a change has taken place
through the uttering the words
14. Make a list of performative utterances.
What new state of affairs do the utterances
create?
What conditions must be present for the new
state of affairs to come about?
15. A) I promise to visit tomorrow
B) She promised to visit tomorrow
Sentences which perform actions –
performatives (A); other sentences (B) –
constatives
A good test of whether a sentence is a
performative is whether you can insert the
word hereby before the verb (I hereby
promise; *I hereby walk)
16. Syntactic markers of a performative
utterance:
1) the subject is in the 1st person
2) the verb is in the simple present tense
3) the indirect object is ‘you’
4) it is possible to insert the adverb ‘hereby’
5) the sentence is not negative
17. Speech acts which in themselves constitute
an action
This aspect of language – illocutionary force
The illocutionary force of an utterance is its
ability to carry out an act
18. Locutionary act: the act of saying sth
Illocutionary act: the act of doing sth by
saying sth
Perlocutionary act: the act of achieving sth by
saying sth
19. John Searle took work on speech acts further
by introducing direct ad indirect speech acts
"In indirect speech acts the speaker
communicates to the hearer more than he
actually says by way of relying on their
mutually shared background information,
both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together
with the general powers of rationality and
inference on the part of the hearer”
20. There are speech acts which are so
fundamental to communication that they are
captured through the mood of our utterance:
Indicative mood: giving information
Interrogative mood: request for information
Imperative mood: command to do sth
21. The mood of each utterance signals its
illocutionary force
Context – key in explaining what people are
trying to do with the language they use
22. Scenario 1:(in an elevator, 3 people, A and B
know each other, C is smoking:
A (to B): Ahem, did I ever tell you that I am
allergic to cigarette smoke?
Scenario 2: (A is filling in a form for a dating
service): A (writing on form): I am allergic to
cigarette smoke.
23. 1. Would you mind handing me the salt?
2. Go ahead, try it. See where that’ll get you!
3. Honey, the phone’s ringing!
4. I have always wanted to have a pair of
earrings just like those.
5. I’m sure I must look awful.
24. 1. DSA = requesting information ISA =
commanding or requesting service
2. DSA = commanding ISA = warning
3. DSA = informing ISA = requesting a
service
4. DSA = informing ISA requesting (a gift?)
5. DSA = informing ISA fishing for
complement/apologizing for state
25. The function of the legal language – usually
seen as directive: used to impose obligations
or to confer rights, to command or empower:
mandatory and discretionary law
Law uses language as a tool, an instrument
for achieving things in the world; linguistics –
language as an object of study
26. In the communication process, whenever acts
become formalised, they involve rules and
conventions, or ‘shared group commitments’,
which seem to correspond to J. Austin’s
felicity conditions and allow to recognise
whether the act is valid or not
27. H.L.A. Hart commented on linguistic speech
acts and pointed to their correspondence with
formal legal acts such as the transfer of
property or making of a will
Suggested that performative utterances
should be called operative utterances,
evoking the analogy with what lawyers called
‘operative words’ in legal language
28. Acts in law presuppose that the performer, in
order to perform the act, needs to be able to
exercise their legal power
These powers, e.g. to enter a contract, to
make a will, or even to enact a law,
presuppose ‘power conferring rules’ which
stipulate which persons and under which
conditions can perform the act
29. The interpretation of any legal document
requires analysis of a relevant intention which
has been incorporated into the text
The notion of intentionality relates to the
problem of implicitness and explicitness in
language
Grice’s conversational implicatures (1975)
30. Imagine you overhear the following
conversation:
A: Are John and Mary back together again?
B: I saw a red Porche parked outside 1128
Green Street last night…and it was still there
this morning!
31. In the exchange above, we might assume that
B’s response is providing A with the
information requested.
We can make the connection between the
question and the answer by relying on
presupposition: B presupposes that A also
knows the following:
John has a red Porche
Mary lives at 1128 Green Street
32. In order to help us understand how context
works in deciphering meaning in a given
situation, we can look to Grice’s Cooperative
Principle, which explains how people act in
conversation: ‘Make your conversational
contribution such as is required, at the stage
at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose
or direction of the talk exchange in which you
are engaged’
33. Grice is not telling us what to do, but rather
providing an explanation for how we behave
in communicative situations ad how we
assume other people behave
34. Grice further divided his Cooperative Principle
into sub-principles of:
Quantity
Relevance
Quality
Manner
35. Quantity:
Maxim 1. Make your contribution as
informative as is required
Maxim 2. Do not make your contribution
more informative than is required.
37. Quality:
Maxim 1: Do not say what you believe to be
false.
Maxim 2. Do not say that for which you lack
adequate evidence.
38. Manner:
Maxim 1: Avoid obscurity of expression.
Maxim 2. Avoid ambiguity.
Maxim 3. Be brief.
Maxim 4. Be orderly.
39. When we break any of the sub-principles, we
create an instance of conversational
implicature:
A: I heard you did well on the exam
B: Yes, and pigs fly.
Flouting the maxim of quality, as I am telling
an obvious untruth
40. Observing the maxims
Violating one or more maxims (e.g. lying)
Opting out (e.g. refusing to answer a direct
question)
Not fulfilling one maxim because of a clash
with another
Flouting a maxim in order to make a
conversational implicature
41. 1. The speaker deliberately flouts a
conversational maxim to convey additional
meaning not expressed literally, e.g. a speaker
responds to the question: „How did you like the
guest speaker?” with the following utterance:
„Well, I’m sure he was speaking English”.
If the speaker is assumed to be following the
cooperative principle in spite of flouting the
Maxim of Quantity, the utterance must have an
additional nonliteral meaning, such as: „The
content of the speech was confusing.”
42. 2. The speaker’s desire to fulfil two conflicting
maxims results in his flouting one maxim to
invoke the other, e.g. when he responds to the
question „Where is John?” by saying: He’s either
in the cafeteria or in his office
The Maxim of Quantity and the Maxim of Quality
are in conflict: a cooperative speaker doesn’t
want to be ambiguous but also doesn’t want to
give false information by giving a specific answer
in spite of his uncertaity. By flouting the Maxim
of Quantity, he invokes the Maxim of Quality
43. A. How’s your work coming along?
B. It sure is sunny outside.
44. B is flouting the maxim of relevance. Given
that B responds with an utterance which is
clearly irrelevant, A can assume that work is
NOT coming along
45. 1. In a recommendation letter for a sales job:
Dear Sir, I have been asked to write a few
lines in suport for Jon Smith’s application for
work in sales within your company. What
perhaps is most ipressive about John is that
his appearance is impeccable, and his class
attendance has been faultless. Sincerely, A.
46. The maxim of quantity, the letter is not very
informative. This seems t ocommunicate that
A does not have very much to say that is
positive about John, and to avoid violatind the
maxim of Quality and lying, and to avoid
attacking John, A is not as informative as the
situation requires
47. 2. A. Do you like Anne’s new shoes? B: I can’t
imagine where she’s got them from.
B flouts the Maxime of Relevance, as the
utterance does not answer A’s question,
perhaps to avoid either disagreeing with A or
violating the Maxim of Quality and lying
about liking the shoes
48. Do you think the kids would like some of that
freezing cold creamy concoction that could
be served in an edible dylinder-like
container?
A flouts the Maxim of Manner, as it would be
much clearer and briefer to say ‘ice-cream’.
The hearer can thus understand that A does
not want the kids to know about the
possibility
49. A: How did Mary and John do on their exam?
B: Mary did fine.
B flouts the Maxim of Quantity, as no
information is provided about John. Thus A
will assume that John did not do well, and
that B does not want to provide displeasing
information.
50. A. Were you invited to John’s party? B: Were
you?
B flouts the Maxim of Relevance in not
providing an answer to A’s question. A might
thus understand that B does not want to hurt
his/her feelings
51. A. Are you free this evening? B: I have had so
much work lately! I had to finish a 20-pages
paper, my dog has been sick and I had to
take him to the vet, and now my mother says
she’s coming to visit this weekend!
B flouts the Maxim of Quantity/Manner – the
answer is more informative than required,
and it is not brief. A will probably get the
picture that B is not free that evening, and
will probably not follow through with a
suggestion or invitation
52. words and phrases that cannot be fully
understood without additional contextual
information
Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is
fixed but their denotational meaning varies
depending on time and/or place.
Words or phrases that require contextual
information to convey any meaning – e.g.,
English pronouns – deictic
56. The most salient English examples are the
adverbs“here” and “there” and the
demonstratives “this” and “that”, e.g.:
I enjoy living in this city
Here is where we will place the statue
She was sitting over there
57. Time, or temporal, deixis concerns itself with
the various times involved in and referred to
in an utterance.
This includes time adverbs, e.g. "now",
"then", "soon", etc. and also different tenses
Example: tomorrow denotes the consecutive
next day after every day. The "tomorrow" of a
day last year was a different day from the
"tomorrow" of a day next week.
59. concerns the social information that is encoded
within various expressions, such as relative social
status and familiarity.
Two major forms of it are the so-called T–V
distinctions and honorifics.
T–V distinctions, named for the Latin “tu” and “vos” -
the name given to the phenomenon when a language
has two different second-person pronouns.
The varying usage of these pronouns indicates
something about formality, familiarity, and/or
solidarity between the interactants, e.g. the T form
might be used when speaking to a friend or social
equal, whereas the V form would be used speaking to
a stranger or social superior - common in European
languages
60. Discourse deixis, also referred to as text
deixis, refers to the use of expressions within
an utterance to refer to parts of the discourse
that contains the utterance — including the
utterance itself: e.g. This is a great story
61. .
An anaphoric reference refers to something
within a text that has been previously identified,
e.g. "Susan dropped the plate. It shattered loudly"
the word "it" refers to the phrase "the plate".
A cataphoric reference refers to something within
a text that has not yet been identified, e.g. in "He
was very cold. David promptly put on his coat"
the identity of the "he" is unknown until the
individual is also referred to as "David".
62. A. Do you see that baby girl over there? She is
cute.
When a word or phrase picks up its meaning
from some other piece of language nearby,
the relationship between the two – anaphora
A word which gets its meaning in this way –
an anaphor, and the piece of language which
gives the anaphor its meaning – its
antecedent
63. Presupposition - when a speaker’s choice of
words shows that he is taking sth for granted
E.g.: John stopped crying at noon – makes
sense if it is assumed that John was crying
just before noon.
64. an implicit assumption about the world or
background belief relating to an utterance
whose truth is taken for granted, e.g.:
Jane no longer writes fiction.
◦ Presupposition: Jane once wrote fiction.
Have you stopped eating meat?
◦ Presupposition: you had once eaten meat.
Have you talked to Hans?
◦ Presupposition: Hans exists.
65. A presupposition must be mutually known or
assumed by the speaker and addressee for
the utterance to be considered appropriate in
context.
66. Presuppositions – often understood in terms
of the notion of common ground
The common ground – a set of propositions
which the participants in a conversation
mutually assume
The common ground - a major part of the
context of use, and helps us make explicit
the role of presupposition
67. Indexicality and presupposition – aspects of
pragmatics which have to do with the
relationship between context of use and
semantic meaning
68. Cultural assumptions can be crucial in
determining speaker’s meaning
Example: if two Chinese people are looking at the
dessert display in a French restaurant, and one
says to the other, “That tart is not too sweet”, she
intends this comment as praise of the tart. She
might intend to implicate that her dinner partner
should order the tart. This meaning arises, in
part, from the fact that it is common knowledge
among Chinese people that most of them find
western desserts too sweet. Among some other
groups, the same comment could be interpreted
as a criticism, rather than a compliment
69. The cultural specificity of the speaker’s
meaning is not a fact about the Chinese
language
The implicature could arise regardless of the
language they are speaking
70. Pragmatics – about how the context of use
contributes to meaning
Core topics: indexicality, presupposition,
implicature, speech acts