Pragmatics Flashcards
Utterances
an event of using a sentence in speech: context, mimics, prosody, implicatures, etc
Sentences
abstract units
Types of Contexts
Situational, Linguistic, Social
Situation Context
“You look very rested, indeed!”
Meaning before spring break vs after spring break
Linguistic Context
Can you do THIS for me?
I don’t want to go THERE!
Social Context
“Dear Mr. James! Can you tell what that means?”
spoken to a child vs spoken to an adult
Felicity
Appropriateness relative to the context
Property of utterances
Cooperative Principle
Utterances are meant to convey useful information to contribute to the purposes of the conversation
Grice’s Maxims
Quantity, Quality, Manner, Relevance
Quantity
- make your contribution as informative as is required
- do NOT make you contribution more informative than is required
Quality
- do NOT say that which you believe to be false
- do NOT say that for which you lack evidence
Manner
- dont be obscure
- dont be ambiguous
- be brief
- be orderly
Relevance
be relevant
Flouting Maxims
superficial violations of the maxims give rise to implicatures
Implicature
information that is not explicitly contained in an utterance but that is conveyed by exploiting the cooperative principle
Implication
when a message is sent without being said explicitly (the speaker)
what the speaker implies
Inference
a conclusion that the listener draws from an utterance based on a set of circumstances
what the listener infers
Presupposition
an underlying assumption that must be satisfied for the utterance to make sense
- must be either common knowledge or previously asserted in the discourse
Presupposition Triggers
word or phrases that indicate the presence of a presupposition
Presupposition accomodation
relies on the perceived likelihood/plausibility or on previous info
Speech Acts
any use of language
- differ by their purpose/function
Types of Speech Acts
Assertion, question, request, order, promise, threat
Assertion
conveys information
Question
elicits information
Request
eliciting action or information (politely)
Order
demands action
Promise
commits the speaker to an action
Threat
commits the speaker to an action that the hearer does not want
Performative Speech Acts
- special types of speech acts
- do not talk about physical action but rather linguistic actions
- uses performative verbs that denote purely linguistic actions
- have consequences in the world
“I hereby pronounce you husband and wife”
How to check is a speech act is performative
try to insert the word hereby before the potentially performative verb
Direct Speech Act
“I am not sure what to do here, Professor”
request (politely elicits action of information)
Indirect Speech Act
“I would like to know what will be on the exam”
Question (elicits information)
Indirect because it looks more an assertion
Where do indirect speech acts come from?
to be polite
Basic Ideas of Politeness Theory
Politeness, Positive Face, Negative Face, Positive Politeness, Negative Politeness
Politeness
acting so as to take into account the feelings of others
Positive face
desire to have public self/image appreciated
Negative Face
desire to be free from imposing on others
Positive Politeness
any effort to meet positive face needs; sympathy
Negative Politeness
Any effort to meet negative face needs; showing deference as not to offend
Examples of Positive Politeness
Expressions of Benevolence
Expressions of Solidarity
- terms of endearment
- slang
- tag questions (you know? isn’t it?)
- hedges (like, sort of)
-posing statements as questions (uptalk)
Examples of Negative Politeness
Questioning rather than commanding
expressing pessimism
Hedging request (maybe you could…)
Minimizing imposition (i just need to talk for one second)
Hesitating
Refer to the possibility of an action
