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Pragmatics Exercise

The document contains exercises on deixis, context, presupposition, speech acts and politeness. It includes examples of different types of deixis such as personal, spatial and temporal deixis. There are also exercises on identifying presuppositions, direct and indirect speech acts, positive and negative politeness.

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239 views4 pages

Pragmatics Exercise

The document contains exercises on deixis, context, presupposition, speech acts and politeness. It includes examples of different types of deixis such as personal, spatial and temporal deixis. There are also exercises on identifying presuppositions, direct and indirect speech acts, positive and negative politeness.

Uploaded by

Đồng Trang
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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EXERCISE

Lecture 1

Context , Deixis

Exercise 1: Identify context

• “Dispatcher: 911 What's the nature of your emergency?


• Caller: My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two
minutes apart”
• Dispatcher: Is this her first child?
• Caller: No, you idiot! This is her husband!
Exercise 2

Correct mistakes in the following sentences

personal
1. In spatial deixis, the proximal forms are ‘I’ and ‘you’. The distal
forms are ‘he, she, it’. Each person in a conversation shifts from
being ‘I’ to being ‘you’ occasionally.
promixal distal
2. “here” is distal form. “there” is promixal form.
mental
3. Location from speaker’s perspective sometimes refers to physical
location. This is called deictic projection.
4. “to begin with, first, next, in the following paragraph, last but not
least” are temporal deixis.
discoursal
Exercise 3
Decide whether the following statements are True (T) or False (F)

1. Deixis is clearly a form of interpreting that is tied to the speaker’s


context. T

2. People only use “then” as a distal form in the past tense.


F

3. “Sunday, November 9th” is a form of deictic temporal reference.


EXPRESSION
F
SOCIAL
4. People use temporal deixis with the aim of politeness in
communication. F

5. The speaker and listener have to share the same context in order to
be interpreted correctly. T

Exercise 4. Identify deictic expressions in the following sentences


1. He will go there with me.

2. They tried to hurt me, but he came to the rescue.

3. She was sitting over there.

4. It is raining out now, but I hope when you read this it will be sunny.

5. I enjoy living in this city.


Exercise 5 . Decide types of deixis PERSONAL

SPACIAL
1. Sunday? Ok. I will see you then.
TEMPORAL
2. Yesterday, she went to school at 7am.

3. I had a holiday there last summer.

4. Here is a good spot; it is too sunny over there.

Exercise 6. Matching

1. Personal Deixis A. demonstrated by some proximal forms some verbs


of motion and some location from speaker’s
C
perspective
2. Spatial Deixis B. Demonstrated by proximal form, temporal deictic
A expressions verb tense and distal form
3. Temporal C. Demonstrated by the pronouns for first person ‘I’,
Deixis second person ‘you’, and third person ‘he, she, it,
B they’

LECTURE 2 Exercises

Presupposition , Speech acts , Politeness

Exercise 1. Find presupposition for each sentence

1. Bob does not regret that he beat his dog. Bob beat his dog
2. Bob has not stopped beating his dog. Bob has been beating his dog
the dog bit bob today
3. The dog bit Bob again today. bob was bitten by the dog, the dog bit someone
4. It was Bob that the dog bit. other people beat the dog
5. Even Bob beat the dog.
Exercise 2 . Fill in the blank to show
How to make a direct speech act

The typical association between sentence forms and


speech acts.

1.declarative
….. Interrogative Imperative
He washed the
assertion
dishes
2.….
question Who washed the
dishes?
Do the dishes
3. ….
request
(please)!

You see, whenever there is a direct relationship between the function of


a speech act and its structural form, we have a direct speech act.
How to make an indirect speech act
When there is no direct relationship between a structure and a form but
rather an indirect one, the speech act is considered indirect.

Declarative Interrogative
Is the pope Catholic?
assertion
Is ice old?
I want to know who washed the dishes.
question
I do not know who washed the dishes.
- Can you wash the
4. This
….......................
dishes haven't been washed yet dishes?
Request
5 . …………………. - Would you mind
i would like you to wash the dishes washing the dishes?
Exercise 3. You want the door to be opened and make Direct Command
and

Indirect Command

Exercise 4 .Fill in the blanks with the suitable words or phrases


PUBLIC SELF-IMAGE EMOTIONAL
1. Face is the …………….. of a person, which refers to the………and SOCIAL ………..
sense of self that everyone has and expectseveryone else to recognize.
NEGATIVE FACE
2. A person’sPOSITIVE
……….FACE is the need to be connected, and one’s………… is the
need to be independent.
3. ………………is the use of language per se to ……theattention to the face
needs of coparticipants.
3. Positive politeness is used to emphasize ourSOLIDARITY
……with the hearer .
DEFERENCE
4. Negative politeness is used to emphasize our …… for the hearer.
5. A face saving act that emphasizes a person’s …… face will show concern
NEGATIVE
about imposition .
6. A face saving act that emphasizes a person’s …… face will show solidarity
and a common goal. POSITIVE
Exercise 5 : Identify positive politeness and negative politeness expressed
in the following utterances .
1. We look forward to your coming to have dinner with us tomorrow N
2. Did you have a good time at Sam Son beach with your husband ? P
3. It appears that we may have to take her to the hospital right now N
4. I don’t suppose you could help me to do this task N
5. I am sorry to bother you, but I want to say to you something right now P

6. I am surprised that you can’t pass the exam N


7. I am sure you won’t mind if I open the window, will you? N
8. I am really sorry to hear about your grandfather’s death P

9. Let’s go to the cinema tonight P


Exercise 6 : Choose suitable words to fill in the blanks

If you say something that represents a threat to another person's self-


image, that is called a [1]…. (face-threatening act/ face-saving act)... .
For example, if you use a [2]….(direct / indirect)…. speech act to order
someone to do something (Give me that paper!), you are acting as if you
have [3]….( more / less) …. social power than the other person. If you do
not actually have the social power, then you are performing a [4]…..
(face-saving act /face-threatening act) ….. An [5]…..(direct /indirect)…..
speech act, in the form of a question (Could you pass me that paper,
please?), [6]…..(removes / attaches)… the assumption of social power.
You appear to be asking about ability. This makes your request [7]…..
(more / less) ….. threatening to the other person's sense of self. Whenever
you say something that lessens the possible threat to another's face, it's
called a [8]…..(face-saving act / face-threatening act).

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