Week 8 Pragmatics

Question 1

What is pragmatics?

Answer 1

The study of language use

• The form, meaning and function in the context of a real situation
• How we use language to understand and interact with each other

Question 2

What is pragmatics?

Answer 2

The study of language use

• The form, meaning and function in the context of a real situation
• How we use language to understand and interact with each other

Question 3

What is pragmatics in a Non-linguistic (situational) context:

Answer 3

• Speaker, hearer, any others, (i.e. participants)
• Other situational aspects:

Physical environment , time of day (i.e. setting)

Subject/topic of discourse, activity type (i.e. purpose)

Question 4

What is pragmatics in a linguistic context?

Answer 4

Linguistic context: the discourse that precedes or follows the phrase or sentence to be interpreted

Question 5

What is inference?

Answer 5

Inference: (the listener) using additional information to create a connection between what is said and what is meant in context i.e., making contextual meaning out of language.

Understanding an utterance involves the making of inferences that will connect what is said.

Question 6

What is deixis?

Answer 6

A deictic expression or deixis is a word or phrase (such as this, that, these, those, now, then, here) that points to the time, place, or situation in which a speaker is speaking.

• Personal pronouns: me, you, him, her, us
• Demonstrative pronouns or determiners: this, those; that woman, those students
• Spatial expressions: here, there, beside you, near that, above your head • Temporal expressions: now, then, last week, later, tomorrow, yesterday

Question 7

What is an Anaphora/Anaphoric Expression?

Answer 7

Anaphora/Anaphoric Expression: subsequent reference to an already introduced entity (i.e., referring back)

Antecedent: First mention of a referent.

E.g. The puppy** is here. **It is cute.

Question 8

What is a Cataphora/Cataphoric Expression?

Answer 8

Cataphora/Cataphoric Expressions**: reverses the antecent-anaphora relationship. **It** suddenly appeared on the path a little ahead of me, staring in my direction and sniffing the air. **An enormous grizzly bear was checking me out.

Question 9

What are presuppositions?

Answer 9

Presuppositions: what is mutually assumed

‘ to suppose before hand’

Can encompass everything from general conversational norms to the particulars of how specific linguistic expressions are construed

Implicit assumptions (or epistemic knowledge about the world) required to make an utterance meaningful or appropriate

Question 10

What is an implacature?

Answer 10

Implicatures: ‘what is implied’ as a result of context, a component of meaning that goes beyond what proposition is overtly expressed by the speaker.

• convention,
• or from conversational principles

What we infer or conclude based on not only on what is said but the meaning that goes beyond what is explicitly said.

Question 11

What are Grice’s Maxims?

Answer 11

Contributing meaningful or productive utterances that further communication

1. Relevance
2. Quantity
3. Manner
4. Quality

Question 12

What does relevance refer to? (Grice’s Maxim)

Answer 12

stay on topic; be relevant

Question 13

What does quantity refer to? (Grice’s Maxim)

Answer 13

don’t say too much or too little; make contribution informative

Question 14

What does manner refer to? (Grice’s Maxim)

Answer 14

avoid ambiguity and obscurity; be brief and orderly

Question 15

What does quality refer to? (Grice’s Maxim)

Answer 15

do not say what you believe to be false or without adequate evidence

Question 16

What does quality refer to? (Grice’s Maxim)

Answer 16

do not say what you believe to be false or without adequate evidence

Question 17

In speech act theory, what does Locution refer to?

Answer 17

Locution: syntactic structure and linguistic meaning of the utterance, i.e. the act of producing the utterance, the words being said

Question 18

In speech act theory, what does Illocution refer to?

Answer 18

Illocution: the speaker’s intention in producing the utterance, i.e., the social act resulting from the utterance

Question 19

In speech act theory, what does perlocution refer to?

Answer 19

Perlocution: the addressee’s uptake, i.e., how the addressee (listener) responds

Question 20

What are the three basic types of speech acts/functions? (Illocutions)

Answer 20

• Statement: Providing information E.g., I bought some chocolate.
• Question: asking for information E.g., Did you buy some chocolate?
• Command (request): for action E.g., Eat the chocolate!

Question 21

What is a direct speech act?

Answer 21

Where the speaker’s meaning, intention or desired outcome are directly encoded in the utterance.

Question 22

What is an indirect speech act?

Answer 22

Ndirectly encoded in the syntactic structure: E.g., Question with a declarative structure

You ate the chocolate? (said with a rising intonation)