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1 Pragmatics

The document discusses pragmatics and how context affects meaning. It defines pragmatics and provides examples of how meaning can change based on context. It also discusses how speakers negotiate meaning through understanding different contexts and relationships between words, meanings, and referents.

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41 views

1 Pragmatics

The document discusses pragmatics and how context affects meaning. It defines pragmatics and provides examples of how meaning can change based on context. It also discusses how speakers negotiate meaning through understanding different contexts and relationships between words, meanings, and referents.

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P.D. de la Comunicación Escrita IV - Booklet – Lic.

María Laura de Brito 1

Pragmatics
Linguistics and pragmatics:

The sixth and last of the subdivisions of linguistics is pragmatics:

Phonetics and phonology both deal with the study of speech sounds. Phonetics looks
at the speech sounds themselves. Phonology looks at the rules that govern how the
sounds combine together. Morphology is the study of how words are formed. Where
phonetics and phonology can best be seen as issues of teaching pronunciation in an
ESL classroom, morphology is best seen as the issue of teaching vocabulary in an
ESL classroom. Syntax looks at how sentences are formed and includes the
description of the rules that combine words together into phrases, clauses, and
sentences. Syntax is typically what is meant when most people say the word
grammar, and it forms the bulk of what is traditionally called grammar study.
Semantics focuses on the study of meaning in language and looks at words and their
relationships to each other, to their referents, and to the users of the language.

This booklet focuses on the relationship of language to the context within which it is
used: pragmatics. In looking at the relationship of language to the context, we again
will look at the users of the language because they are part of the context. We will
also look at some of the features of language that convey contextual information, and
we will look at how context helps humans communicate more efficiently.
P.D. de la Comunicación Escrita IV - Booklet – Lic. María Laura de Brito 2

Communication

Linguistic Paralinguistic Extralinguistic


Phonetics Laughing Haptics

Phonology Crying Proxemics

Morphology Sighing Kinesics

Syntax Pausing Facial


Semantics Expressions

Pragmatics

Definitions of Pragmatics
• The study of language use and its relation to language structure and context of utterance.
• The study of how meaning is related to context and situation.
• The study of the effect of context on meaning.
• Speakers’ and addressees’ background attitudes and beliefs, their understanding of the
context of an utterance, and their knowledge of how language can be used for a variety of
purposes.
• The beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge of the world that speakers and listeners assume in
communication.
• The study of how language is used to communicate within its situational context.
• The branch of linguistics that studies language use, in particular the relationship among
syntax, semantics, and interpretation in light of the context of the situation.
What these various definitions of pragmatics tell us is that pragmatics deals with meaning and
context. They all underscore that users of the language and their attitudes and knowledge matter in
determining meaning.

Activity: Mini-Dialogues
Compare and contrast the following mini-dialogues. What's the same, what's different, and what
does it matter?

1 2 3

A: Don’t do that ! A: Don’t do that ! A: Don’t do that !


B: What? B: What? B: What?
A: I said not to do that. A: Tap your fingers on the desk. A: You’ll shoot your eye out !
B: Oh, I couldn’t hear you. I can’t stand it any more. B: No, I won’t. I know what
B: Sorry. I’m doing.
P.D. de la Comunicación Escrita IV - Booklet – Lic. María Laura de Brito 3

What we learn from this activity is that the context really does help users of a language understand
what is being communicated through language. There are also certain words in language, such
as that, whose job it is to connect the language to the context.

When speakers understand the different contexts within which a certain language form is used, they
know that its meaning changes. Often polysemy comes from words having diffferent but related
meanings in different contexts.

Activity: Different Meanings, Different Contexts


Consider each of these statements. Identify the meaning of the word go in each, and identify the
context within which the statement would be made.
Go ahead and take another cookie.
Go to a movie tonight.
Go left on Wall Street.
Go as slowly as you can.
Go in peace.
Go! Go! Go!

If the same forms can have different meanings in different contexts, and if the relationships between
words and their meanings is arbitrary, and if the referents of words are images in people's heads, not
things in the real world,

How is it that people ever know what another person means?

The Negotiation of Meaning

Essentially, what happens is that we negotiate meaning with each other as we construct our
conversations. Part of a native speaker's proficiency in the language comes as they develop their
pragmatic abilities. Proficiecy in pragamatics often comes late, in one's young adult years. That is,
the ability to relate the language forms to the context, to understand that each person's mental
images are unique, and to use language to negotiate the difference between others, their mental
images, and one's own images are the particular abilities of a langauge user who is proficient in the
pragmatics of the language.

The pragmatically proficient language user knows what others assume he knows, what he actually
knows, and how to work out any errors in assumptions.

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