Introduction to Pragmatics and Discourse

Question 1

Features of lanuage use which are important in pragmatics. (9)

Answer 1

1. Appropriateness: use language appropiately
2. Indirect meaning
3. Indeterminacy: utterances can be unclear
4. Context: essential. Includes deixis (pointing via lanuage)
5. Reference (act by which the speaker uses language to say something) and Inference (the hearer must conect what it is said to what is meant).
6. Presuppositions: what a speaker assumes is true or known by the hearer. Test: constancy under negation
7. Relevance
8. Accomodation
9. Politeness: related with the notion of FACE

Question 2

How do we get cohesion in a text?

Answer 2

Use of pronouns,
lexical variation,
connectors,
verb tenses,
anaphoric, cataphoric and exophoric references

Question 3

What is background knowledge?

Answer 3

Our expectations of what normally happens, our general knowledge of the world and of the person we are intercating with. This enables us to build an interpretation.