Pragmatics & Discourse Flashcards
What is grammatical competence?
being able to pronounce words, combine morphemes and words, to understand semantic meaning of sentences
Who said “We use language to perform different actions, so people act through language”?
Philosopher John L. Austin, 1962
What are Speech Acts?
linguistic actions performed by speakers in a certain context with a certain communicative intention
by John Searle
What is Back-channeling?
signal to the speaker that the hearer is still there and listening
e.g. “A: he wore this…. B: Yeah.”
What is an exclamatory sentence?
verbless sentence which begins with what or how followed by a noun phrase, typically used to signal speakers’ emotions
e.g. “What a delicious ice cream!”
The intrinsic part of Speech Act Theory has three aspects of speech acts, name them
- Locution
- Illocution/illocutionary force
- Perlocution
What does “Locution/locutionary act” refer to?
act of saying something - utterance
What is “Illocution/Illocutionary force”?
utterance exerts a certain force
e.g. ordering, warning, imploring
most crucial part of speech act
What is the “Perlocution/Perlocutionary effect”?
due to the exerted force, a resulting effect is achieved
What is Pragmatics?
study of meaning as communicated by the speaker; study of “invisible” meaning; study of expression of relative distance
how we recognize what is meant even when it is not actually said or written; there is always more communicated than said
Why don’t we use the term “sentences” in a pragmatic analysis?
because they are better suitable for syntactic/semantic analyses, that’s why we use “utterances”
What does a sentence refer to?
formal, structural unit
What does an utterance refer to?
realization of a speaker’s communicative intention
so: what the speaker says at a given point in time at a given location with a given intention
You can classify speech acts into five categories, name them
- Declarations
- Representatives/Assertives
- Expressives
- Directives
- Commissives
What are Declarations?
Through the utterance, the speaker changes the status of something
e.g. “I hereby pronounce/now declare you husband and wife.”
performatives
What are Representatives/Assertives?
the speaker utters a statement they consider to be true
e.g. (I claim/state that) Chelsea has won the CL.
suggesting, putting forward, concluding, stating, asserting
What are Expressives?
The speaker expresses their emotions/feelings
e.g. “I apologize for this awful mess.”
adoring, despising, ..
What are Directives?
The listener is ordered to do something
e.g. “Get the bread.”
asking, requesting, urging, begging, advising, ..
What are Commissives?
The speaker commits themselves to a future action
e.g. “Have I ever let you down?” “Ok.” “I plan to be there at 2.!
promising, planning, betting, vowing, ..
What is context?
a form of knowledge, that is relevant for situations
What types of context do you know?
- Linguistic context (which expressions, choice of words)
- Situational context (environment, time/place of interaction, relationship of participants
- Cultural context (language in use situated within a social/cultural frame of reference)
cultural: e.g. humor, rules of conversation
What are performative verbs?
verbs that explicitly and directly indicates the force
e.g. promise, claim, warn, apologize
What are direct speech acts?
speech acts in which the relation between the linguistic form (locution) and the linguistic function (illocution) is straightforward
e.g. Please share your book with me, request, direct speech
What are indirect speech acts?
speech acts where there is a mismatch between linguistic form and linguistic function
e.g. “Oh goodness, I have left my book at home”, fact, indirect request
What is an imperative sentence?
a sentence that has no overt subject and is usually used to convey an order
e.g. “Please share your textbook with me.”
What is a declarative sentence?
a sentence that has a subject-verb order of constituents and is usually used to state something
What is the definition of felicity conditions?
term for the conditions that make an utterance a felicitious, successful speech act
There are five conditions for successful speech acts, name them
- General condition
- Propositional content condition
- Preparatory condition
- Sincerity condition
- Essential condition
What are constatives?
they convey information; Utterances, etc. that aren’t meant literally
e.g. “I will pick you up by 8.” obv by car not carrying
they have truth values, so they are true/false
What are performatives?
they bring about a change in status
e.g. “You are herby sentenced to 23 years in prison.”
a performative is either felicitous (successful) or infelicitous (unsuccessful)
What does “inferencing” mean?
use of world knowledge to discover the communicative purpose of a linguistic expression
inferences are the result of these inferencing procedures
Pretext (Background knowledge) consists of what two types of knowledge?
- Interpersonal knowledge (knowledge that two friends share ideas, etc.)
- World knowledge
What is the co-text?
the knowledge of what the interlocutors have said before (the knowledge of the context of the surrounding text)
refers to the linguistic context (other words and phrases etc.) in which what is being investigated is embedded
What is the Cooperative Principle by Grice (1975)?
general idea that communication is a rational and cooperative activity
e.g. You ask someone how they’re doing and they say “Monday” ,like what?
What are the maxims of the Cooperative Principle?
- Quantity: as informative as required, not more or less
- Quality: don’t say anything which is false/lack evidence
- Relation/Relevance: Be relevant.
- Manner: Be clear, brief and orderly.
principles, not rules bc they are breakable and not prescriptive
by Paul Grice!
What is flouting?
implying something when you speak, so indirect meaning
to persuade the listener to infer a ‘hidden’ meaning (implicature)
reasons for flouting the maxims of quantity & relevance: not to upset/insult the addresse
Who first articulated that everyone has a certain social self-image?
Goffman in 1967 who called it “self-image face”
What is the “positive face” by Brown and Levinson, 1987?
individual’s need to feel appreciated, valued, liked, and approved of by others
What is FTA?
Face-threatening act -> communicative act that threatens someone’s face (negative or positive)
What is positive politeness?
focuses on building camaraderie and emphasizing friendliness
(Seeks to minimize threats to the hearer’s positive face.)
What is the negative face by Brown and Levinson?
individual’s need to have freedom of action, freedom from imposition, and personal autonomy respected
e.g. “Bring me my car.” is a request and disturbs the freedom of action
What are threats to the negative face?
Actions that impose on someone’s freedom or autonomy
Orders, requests, reminders, or interruptions
What are threats to the positive face?
Actions that undermine someone’s self-esteem or social identity
Criticisms, disagreements, insults, or ignoring someone.
What is a mitigating device?
use of “possibly” adds an element of doubt and therefore minimizes the face-threat
What is negative politeness?
to address and minimize threats to a person’s negative face
What is Politeness in Linguistics?
When speakers feel that they threaten somebody’s face, positive or negative, they try to use language in a way that somehow signals to the hearer their awareness of this threat and their desire to minimise it.
What are deictic expressions?
‘pointing devices’
- person deixis (us, them, these idiots)
- spatial deixis (here, over there)
- temporal deixis (now, last week)
Broad distinction between what is close to the speaker (this, here, now) and what is distant/not close to the speaker (that, there, then)
What can Distinctions be used for?
- to express emotions (I hate tomatoes. I am not eating that.)
- to indicate movement (Come to bed. Go to bed.)
- what is close to a speaker (this, here, now)
- what is distant to a speaker (that, there, then)
What is a reference?
an act by which a speaker/writer uses language to enable listeners/readers to identify something
we use proper nouns (Chelsea), other nouns (my cat) or pronouns (it)
- Reference depends on who is using it. -> “This building was destroyed in the war. (I mean the one in 1795, others think WW2)
- We can refer to things when we arent even sure what to call them
-> the blue thing, that icky stuff
What is an inference?
additional information used by the listener to create a connection between what is said and what must be meant.
e.g. “Where is the Cesar Salad sitting?” “Where’s your Jane Austen?”
obv we mean people, books, etc.
What is an antecedent & an anaphora?
- Antecedent are the initial referents e.g. John, keys
- Anaphora means referring back to these referents e.g. he, them
We use anaphora in texts to maintain reference.
How is the connection between an antecedent and an anaphoric expression created?
- A pronoun (e.g. it)
- A phrase with the plus the antecedent noun (e.g. the puppy)
- Another noun related to the antecedent (e.g. The little dog ran..)
What is a Cataphora?
It reverses the antecedent-anaphora relationship by beginning with a pronoun (it), then later revealing more specific information
What is a Presupposition?
What a speaker/writer assumes true/known by a listener/reader
What are Pragmatic Markers?
They are used to mark a speaker’s attitude to the listener or to what is being said
“yk, well, I mean, Idk” -> self-correct or hesitation/uncertainty
What is Tautology?
the use of two words or phrases that express the same meaning
What are Hedges?
Words/phrases used to indicate that we are not really sure that what we are saying is sufficiently correct or complete
approximation/hesitation to an opinion
e.g. or something like that, a bit, sort of, would, or so, ..
What are Implicatures?
an additional conveyed meaning
e.g. “Are you coming to the party today?” “I’ve got an exam tomorrow.”
more polite than saying no
What is Discourse?
process by which we use language to create and negotiate meaning, language beyond the sentence
What is Discourse Analysis?
study of language in texts and conversation
What does “No shoes, no service” mean and what does it represent?
If you aren’t wearing shoes, you will receive no service -> we create complex discourse interpretations of fragmentary linguistic messages
What are the key elements investigated in the study of discourse?
The effort to interpret (or to be interpreted) and how we accomplish it
texts can have ungrammatical forms but we still try to make sense of it
What is Cohesion?
grammatical and lexical linking within a text or sentence that holds a text together and gives it meaning
kinda like always referring back to what was introduced
Alice went to the park because she wanted to relax. The weather was perfect, and the trees provided just the right amount of shade.
What is Coherence?
Concept of it is “everything fitting together well”
exists within people, reader/hearer makes sense of what they read/heard
works on the underlying/meaning level, ‘connectedness’ within the text regarding its pragmatic meaning
What is Conversation Analysis?
A speaker has finished speaking usually by signaling a completion point, so people take turns speaking.
What signals a completion point?
- Asking a question
- Making short sounds
- Body shifts
- Facial expressions
What are Adjacency Pairs?
type of almost automatic sequence which consists of a first part and a second part
greetings, Q&As, thanking and leave-taking
“Okay, omw home now.” “Bye” or “Where’s Bro?” “He’s at work.” “Servus” “Grüß Gott”
What are Insertion Sequences?
An adjacency pair that comes between the first and second parts of another pair.
mostly found in service encounters
What is Conversational Repair?
When one of the speakers senses a problem in something that is said and repeats/rephrases it as a form of correction.
What are the four types of conversational repair structures?
- Self-initiated, self-repair
- Other-initiated, self-repair
- Self-initiated, other-repair
- Other-initiated, other-repair
What does “self-initiated, self-repair” mean?
speakers correcting themselves
most common type
What does “other-initiated, self-repair” mean?
When another speaker indicates the need for correction
“Huh?” “Pardon?”.
What does “self-initiated, other-repair” mean?
Speaker emphasizes a word/adds “is that right?” to signal a part of an utterance needs repairment
I didn’t know you had to be 21 to sell beer.” B: “To sell beer?” A: “To buy beer”
What does “other-initiated, other-repair” mean?
very directly repairing an utterance, almost impolite
”Bagpipes are from England.” B: “No. Scotland”
What is a schema?
- general term for a conventional knowledge structure that exists in memory
- A mental construct of reality as culturally ordered and socially sanctioned
- People’s expectations about people, objects, events, settings, and ways to interact in the world.
What is a script?
dynamic schema, expected sequence of actions in an event
What is the Theory of Mind?
when we infer a speaker‘s communicative intentions, assuming that everyone has reasonable goals, they hold plausible beliefs about the world
What is implicature?
additional meaning conveyed by a speaker under the assumption of the cooperative principle
What are phorics?
Point to something within the text
Anaphora – pointing backwards
Cataphora – pointing forwards
