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Linguistics

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325Week4_1

Linguistics

Uploaded by

reemjaber625
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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ENGL 325

Introduction to Linguistics II
ENGL 325

• Chapter 10

Pragmatics
Pragmatics
What is Pragmatics?

How does the intended meaning relate to the “literal” meaning of an utterance?

How do speakers encode direct versus indirect meanings?

What is behind utterances that helps us communicate well?

Looking at hidden meanings that are not explicitly shown in their forms

Often called “ the science of the unsaid”


Pragmatics
What is Pragmatics?

Hello…….
Hello!
Hellooooooooo?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aeCxWyNAQQ
Pragmatics
• “Communication clearly depends on not only recognizing the
meaning of words in an utterance, but also recognizing what speakers
mean by their utterances in a particular context.” Yule 2020:149.

• Pragmatics:
The study of what speakers mean (speaker meaning)

• A look at how language users successfully interpret what other


language users intend to convey
Pragmatics – Invisible meaning
• Invisible meaning
• Pragmatics is also about how we recognize what is meant even when
it is not actually said or written.

• This can happen only when speakers (or writers) are able to depend
on a lot of shared assumptions and expectations when they try to
communicate.

• *(Pragmatic principle) : More is communicated than is said


Pragmatics: Invisible meaning
• Can you interpret the street sign?

• Is it a parking for heated attendants?


i.e. where they keep (park) their heated
attendants.

• Is it a parking by heated attendants?


i.e., where attendants who are heated do
the parking for people
Pragmatics: Invisible meaning
• But how do we know this when the sign does not even mention ‘a
car’?

• This has to do with context. We interpret the words (the text) in a


specific situation (the context) with pre-existing assumption about a
likely message.

• Context: Information that helps readers accurately interpret the


meaning of a text. It plays an important role in how we make sense of
any text.
Pragmatics - Context
• Fig. 10.2
• How about the following advert?

• Is it advertising the sale of young


children?

• Certainly not

• How do you arrive at the correct


interpretation

• What context helps you ?


Pragmatics - Context
• Physical context:
• The location ‘out there’ where we encounter words and phrases:

• Consider the word ‘bank’ on the wall of a building:


(financial institution)

• Consider the word ‘bank’ in the following sentence:


‘an overgrown steep bank by the river’
Pragmatics - Context
• Linguistic context:
• The surrounding words, also known as co-text, that helps us
understand what is meant.

• Consider the word “read”


• It is unclear whether it is the present tense or past tense

• The surrounding words (linguistic context) will help you determine


the tense of the word.

• Ever heard of the expression ‘to cite / quote out of context’?


Pragmatics – Context → Deixis
• Deixis (deictic expressions):
• Using words such as ‘this’ or ‘here’, as a way of “pointing “ with language.

• They are common words in our language that can’t be interpreted at all if
we don’t know the context.

• For some English sentences, we need to have/know information about the


following in order to understand the sentence.
• Who is speaking
• About whom
• Where
• When
Pragmatics – Context → Deixis
• Consider the following sentence:

• You’ll have to bring it back tomorrow because she isn’t here today.
Pragmatics – Context → Deixis
• We use deixis to point to

• people:
us, them, you, me, she, him, this girl, those men etc.

• places:
here, there, yonder,

• times:
now, today, last week, tomorrow, then,
Pragmatics – Context → Deixis
Pragmatics – Context → Deixis
• Deixis may also be used to:

• Express emotions:
• Saying ‘I can’t eat that’ to refer to something you hate but it is placed near you.

• Indicate movement away from the speaker:


• Go to bed

• Indicate movement towards the speaker:


• Come to bed

• Play on people’s intelligence:


• Free beer tomorrow (to get you to return to the bar); but tomorrow never ends.
Pragmatics – Reference
• Reference:
• An act by which a speaker (or writer) uses language to enable a listener (or reader) to
identify something.

• To do this we use:
Proper nouns: Ali, John, Sally…
Other nouns in phrases ( A writer, The doctor, My friend etc.)
Pronouns: ( I, We, She, They..)

• For each word or phrase, there is a “range of reference”. For example Ali, He, The doctor,
can be used to refer to many entities in the world.

• We can also refer to things when we are not sure of what to call them, e.g. the blue thing,
that lucky stuff, that delicious meal…..

• We can also invent names, e.g., Neighbours ‘calling someone Mr. sports car’ because
he/she always drives a sportscar in the neighbourhood.
Pragmatics – Reference → Inference
• Inference:

• Additional information used by a listener / reader to create a connection


between what is said and what must be meant.

• We can use nouns associated with things to refer to people (pepperoni pizza to
refer to the customer who ordered for it).

• Example:
• In a restaurant setting, a waiter asked the other waiter: “Where is the pepperoni
pizza sitting?”

• Other settings: e.g. hospitals, schools, companies….


Pragmatics – Reference →Inference
• We can use names of people (Yule, the author) to refer to things (a book).

“Can I borrow your Yule? (said by a colleague to another in the Linguistics class)
“Sure, here you go. (the lending colleague’s reply)

• Here, the listener has to operate with the inference :


“If X is the name of the writer of a book, then X can be used to identify a copy of a
book by that writer”

• Other examples: (Explain the inference as shown above)

• Picasso is in the museum


• We saw Shakespeare in London
• Mozart was playing in the background
• The bride wore Giorgio Armani.
Next class………

• Pragmatics: contd.

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