Pragmatics

Meaning in context
• Background
Why do we need language?
Language functions (Jakobson):
• referential (= informative)
• emotive (expressive)
• conative (directive)
• phatic
• metalingual
• poetic
- Six factors in the communication process
(Jakobson):

Sender –context/message/channel/code-receiver

Language: grammar + meaning (vocabulary)

Grammar: (phonology), morphology, syntax
Meaning: semantics and pragmatics
Semantics - literal meaning
Pragmatics - the meaning of an expression in a
particular context / how we actually use language
in communication
• Everything is the same, but nothing is the same.
• A sandwich is a sandwich.
• I think I'll go to the mall after this class. I need a
new jacket.
• Do you have the time?
• A: Would you like to go out with me? B: I have
to study.
The meaning of the same words may have
different interpretations:

• A: What do you think about my essay? B: You

have great handwriting.

• A: Why do you want me to write this? B: You

have great handwriting.
Herbert Paul Grice (1913-1988), language philosopher,
one of the key figures in pragmatics
• the distinction between meaning and use
• the key to successful communication lies in
recognizing the intention of the speaker
What a sentence means in general apart from any use
of it, and what a specific speaker means by using the
sentence on a particular occasion.
• Compare: This word is not pronounced that way. You
should pronounce it as ... (your teacher / your friend /
your colleague with whom you had an argument in
the past).
1. What is said?
2. What is actually meant by that?
• Speaker meaning – not what the words themselves mean, but what
the speaker means by saying those words.
• implicature - whatever is meant by the speaker, but not literally said.
 
• cooperative principle - conversations are a form of cooperation
between interlocutors
- maxim of quality - what you say is truthful
- maxim of quantity - what you say is as informative as necessary, not
more nor less than that
- maxim of relevance - what you say is relevant
- maxim of manner - avoid obscurity, amiguity and prolixity
We assume that people normally stick to these maxims.
• Ex.1:
Man: Does your dog bite?

Woman: No. (The man reaches down to

pet the dog, and the dog bites his hand.)

Man: Ouch! Hey! You said your dog doesn't bite!

Woman: He doesn't. But that's not my dog.

Consider the meaning of the following:

Do you have a cigarette?

Can you pass the salt?

Are you going to the supermarket?

• Ex. 2: GUS: How many times have you read that
paper?
BEN: What do you mean?
GUS: I was just wondering how many times you'd – BEN:
What are you doing, criticizing me?
• GUS: No, I was just –
• BEN: You'll get a swipe round your earhole if you
don't watch your step.
• GUS: Now look here, Ben –
• BEN: I'm not looking anywhere. How many times have I
- ! A bloody liberty!
• GUS: I didn't mean that.
Ex.3: FRICK: Oh, you have children. LEROY:
Yes. Seven.
• (...)
FRICK: Well, I don't have any, so . . .
• (...)
FRICK: (...) It's an awful sensation, though –
coming home and there's nobody there.
LEROY: How'd you like to come home and there's
seven of them there?
FRICK: I guess I'm lucky at that.
LEROY: Well, I'm too. They're wonderful kids.
• Meaning in context – what words mean in a particular
situation
• I'll put it here. (Who's going to put what where?)
• Shared knowledge of interlocutors – the economy of
language – the more speakers have in common, the less
language they need to use:
• I got a flat tire. (I have a car, and, as you know, cars have
tires which are filled with air, so if a tire gets punctured it
becomes flat, and you can't drive a car with a flat tire, so
that is exactly what happened to me, I have a flat tire.)
• Imagine an astronaut talking to another astronaut, a
physicist talking to another physicist...
What is said vs what is communicated
• Umro je. Preselio je na bolji svijet. Oteg'o je
papke. Izgubio je bitku za život. Dao je svoj
život. Napustio nas je. Krep'o je. Završio je
dunjalučki život. Blago u Gospodinu preminuo.
• It's so cold in here.
• I don't want to ruin our friendship. You're too
good for me. I want to focus on my studies
now, and don't want to start a relationship at
this point.
Exercise – think of different contexts for the
following:
'Would his highness like some coffee?'

Exercise – a policeman stops you during the curfew,

and wants to fine you. Indirectly check if he would
let you go in exchange for money (you don‘t want
to be charged with trying to bribe the officer).
• Context
''...kontekst je skup svih uslova u kojima se komunikacija odvija i
koji su relevantni za konkretno značenje upotrebljenih izraza.''
(Perić u Zborniku 'Kontekst u lingvističkoj teoriji' 1985: 18)
• Linguistic context
- Linguistic expressions that precede or follow a particular word,
expression or sentence
Seven students from the English Department of Dzemal Bijedić
University went to Romania on an exchange program. They are
going to stay there for 4 months.

He is one of the greatest minds that our country has ever had. Of
course, I'm talking about...
- Prosodic features – intonation, stress, rhythm
• Non-linguistic context
- Situational context (interlocutors, topic, time and place of the
conversation, paralinguistic features)
/ paralinguistic features: facial
expressions, gesticulations...
 
- Cultural context (knowledge about the cultural references and
culture of a particular community) ('ovo dvoje k'o Omer i
Merima' / 'on k'o beg' / rasteg'o k'o hodža teraviju; ivy
league students; golden arches, come to the potluck
 - World knowledge (knowledge of the interlocutors about the
world)
Exercise: think of your own examples that fit in each of the
different types of context.
• Context helps us determine:

- What the speaker said

- What the speaker meant

• 'The ice over there is thin.'

Speech acts

• John Austin, language philosopher (1911-1960) / John

Searle (1932- )
How to Do Things with Words (1962)
• Speech act - an action performed by saying something
(ordering, requesting, insulting, threatening...)
• Sentences that do not describe or state anything
(performatives)
I pronounce you husband and wife. I declare the exhibition
open.
• Speech acts - a single word, expression, sentence, or a
group of sentences
• Felicity conditions – rules that govern the successful use of speech
acts (speech acts can't be true or false, only successful or
unsuccessful)
Ex. 1 – ORDERS/COMMANDS
• Propositional content condition (the order must relate to a future
event)
• Preparatory conditions (1. The speaker must have an authority over
the addressee 2. The addressee must be able to do this /the
speaker believes so 3. The addressee wouldn't do it without an
order)
• Sincerity condition (the speaker really wants the addressee to do it)
(imagine a corrupted leader who orders his inferiors to conduct an
investigation on corruption)
• Essential condition (the saying of the utterance represents the
speaker's attempt to get the addressee do something)
Ex.2 - INSULTS:
• Propositional content condition (the speaker uses
words and expressions with negative connotations)
• Preparatory conditions (the speaker has a negative
view of the addressee, and is willing to express it in
a hurtful manner)
• Sincerity condition (the speaker intends to insult the
addressee)
• Essential condition (the utterance represents the
speaker's attempt to insult the addressee)
Exercise: define felicity conditions for PROMISE.
Parts (aspects) of the speech act:
• Locutionary act – saying a meaningful sentence
/ word / expression in reference to something
• Illocutionary act – the utterance is used with a
particular intention and force (as an order,
advice, warning, offer...)
• Perlocutionary act – the utterance produces
certain effects on the addressee (you can
persuade, frighten, encourage, disappoint, etc.)
Speech acts can be performed through non-
verbal means.

• Speech acts as conventional acts – waving to

someone represents a speech act (GREETING);
using emoticons represent a speech act
• Trying to communicate something to a
foreigner – not a speech act
 Taxonomy of speech acts (Searle's classification):

- assertives – speech acts which express the speaker's attitude towards

something (STATING, DESCRIBING, INFORMING, CLAIMING...)
• directives – speech acts whose purpose is to get the addressee do something
(REQUESTING, ORDERING, ADVISING, RECOMMENDING, OFFERING...)
• commissives – speech acts by which the speaker commits (obligates)
himself/herself to doing something (PROMISING, THREATENING, VOWING,
GUARANTEEING...)
• expressives – speech acts whose purpose is to express certain psychological
states of the speaker (CONGRATULATING, CRITICIZING, COMPLAINING,
APOLOGIZING, WELCOMING...)
• declarations – speech acts by which the speaker clearly declares what speech
act he/she is performing: I promise...I order you to... I apologize...I offer you to...

Institutional preconditions for some speech acts: I pronounce you husband and
wife / I declare a state of emergency / I hereby open the conference...
Indirect speech acts – one speech act is
performed by ostensibly performing another:
• Can you close the door?
• Move these chairs from here, please. (a boss
addressing his/her employee)
• We will meet again, I promise!
• I wouldn't do it if I were you.
• Congratulations!
• It's a bit cold in here, isn't it?
Deictic / indexical expressions
• Person deixis: 'you are my friend' ... I, he, she,
we, they...my/your, etc. family...
• Spatial deixis: 'Come here!' 'Go there!' ... this,
that, these, those
• Temporal deixis: 'see you tomorrow'
...yesterday, today, last week/month/ year /
now / then... 'Back in an hour' ( a note on
an office door)
Reference and inference
Reference - what thing / person the speaker refers to when using a word ;
inference - how the addressee interprets it.
Titanic may have been a historical story, but it was also a teen romance.
Six Chinese men survived the Titanic disaster.

• Mr Perfect doesn't exist. Mr Perfect is here.

• I hope that you will soon meet Mr Perfect. 

• Remember him? Remember that guy? Remember that guy with a funny
hat and a strange accent who came here last week and asked you to help
him?
• I hate Shakespeare. / We're going to see Shakespeare in London. /
Shakespeare takes up the whole bottom shelf. / Can I borrow your
Shakespeare? / Do you have Shakespeare this semester?
• The cheese sandwich is made with white bread. The cheese sandwich left
without paying.
Deictic / indexical expressions
• Person deixis: 'you are my friend' ... I, he, she,
we, they...my/your, etc. family...
• Spatial deixis: 'Come here!' 'Go there!' ... this,
that, these, those
• Temporal deixis: 'see you tomorrow'
...yesterday, today, last week/month/ year /
now / then... 'Back in an hour' ( a note on
an office door)
Implicature –something the speaker implies or hints at without saying
it explicitly
A: Let‘s go for a walk. B: I have a headache.
A. Did you buy bread and cheese? B: I bought bread.

- Conventional implicature: You're a good guy, and I know that you did
your best to meet the deadline, but...
• I'd like to hire all of you guys, I think you're very good. However, ...
• He's not here yet.
• Even John came to the party.
• For only 100 BAM
- Conversational implicature: 1. generalized (Your classes are
sometimes interesting. / Some people are dishonest)
2. Particularized (A: Would you some cake? B: Is the sky blue?
A: Is your boss out of his mind? B: Let‘s go get some coffee.)
Politeness - a set of social skills whose aim is to make sure that everyone
feels appreciated in a social interaction.
• politeness theory - Brown and Levinson (1987)
• saving the „face“ (either of the speaker or listener)
• face - a public self-image that every person has and wants to protect
• face-threatening acts (verbal, paraverbal, non-verbal)
Communication strategies that involve politeness
• on-record (express your idea clearly) vs off-record (hint at something)
On-record strategies:
- bald-on record (be direct – Give me that book.
- positive politeness (try to be friends with someone – Hey, pal, will you
give me that book?)
- negative politeness (keeping your distance while being polite: Excuse
me sir, can I have that book?)
• off-record (hinting at something – That book looks really interesting.)