Discourse And Pragmatics

DISCOURSE AND PRAGMATICS

What is Pragmatics? The study of meaning in relation to the context in which a person is speaking or writing. - Background knowledge context - Cooperative principle - Cross-cultural pragmatics

Language, context and Discourse The context of what someone says is crucial to understanding and interpreting the meaning of what being said. - Physical context - Social context - Mental worlds and roles of the people involved in the interaction

Language, context and Discourse The key aspects of context that are crucial to the production and interpretation of discourse. - Situational context - Background knowledge context - Co-textual context (Cutting, 2002: 3)

Language, context and Discourse Meaning is not something that is inherent in the words alone. Making meaning is a dynamic process, involving the negoitation of meaning between speaker and hearer, the context of utterance (physical, social, linguistic), and the meaning potential of an uttereances (Thomas, 1995: 22)

Speech Act and Discourse By using language, we also perform acts, they are giving orders, making requests, giving warnings, or giving advice. It means that we do the things that go beyond the literal meaning of what we say.

Speech Act and Discourse Three kinds of acts (Austin, 1962): 1. Locutionary act 2. Illocutionary act 3. Perlocutionary act

Speech Act and Discourse Bus driver : “This bus won’t move until you boys move in out of the doorway.”

Speech Act and Discourse Direct and indirect speech act Sometimes when we speak we do mean what we say. Often we do, however, say things indirectly.

Speech Act and Discourse Direct and indirect speech act A : Can I take your order now please? B : Can I have nine nuggets and chips with sweet and sour sauce and a can of Pepsi thanks?

Speech Act and Discourse Felicity conditions and Discourse There are a number of conditions that must be met for a speect act to ‘work’ 1. There must be a generaly accepted procedure for succesfully carrying out the speech act.

Speech Act and Discourse The communication must be carried out by the right person, in the right place, at the right time with a certain intention or it will not ‘work’.

Speech Act and Discourse Rules versus principles

Speech Act and Discourse Presupposition and discourse Presupposition is the common ground that is assumed to exist between language users such as assumed knowledge of a situation and/or of the world.

Speech Act and Discourse Presupposition and discourse 1. Conventional presupposition 2. Conventional presupposition

The Co-operative Principle and Discourse People assume that there is a set of principles which direct us to a particular interpretation of what someone says, unless we receive some indication to the contrary. Four sub-principles or maxims, they are: Maxims of quality, quantity, relation, and manner.

Flouting the co-operative principle On some occasions speakers flout the co-operative principle and intend their hearer to understand this; that is, they purposely do not observe the maxim, and intend their hearer to be aware of this.

Flouting the co-operative principle Librarian : [raises his eyes, looks at the student with no facial expression] Student : Hi. Could you check for me whether I have any books to collect? Librarian : [swipes the student’s card, clears his throat, wipes his nose with a tissue, glances at the computer screen, turns to the shelf to get a book, then another book] Student : Any more? Librarian : [turns and gets a third book, stamps them all with the return date] Student : Is that all? Librarian : Are you going to borrow all the books in the library? Student : OK . . I see . . Thank you very much.

Flouting the co-operative principle Differences between flouting and violating maxims Flouting a maxim is if the speaker do not observe a maxim but has no intention of deceiving or misleading the other person. Violating a maxim is if there is a likehood that they are liable to mislead the other person. Infringe a maxim is if the speaker when they fail to observe a maxim with no intention to deceive. Opt out a maxim is if the speaker may, for ethical or legal reasons, refuse to say something that breaches a confidentiality agreement they have with someone, or is likely to incriminate them in some way.

Flouting the co-operative principle Overlap between maxims An utterance may be both unclear and longwinded, flouting the maxims of quality and quantity at the same time (Cutting, 2002). Equally it may be socailly acceptable, and indeed preferred, to flout a maxim (such as quality) for reasons of tact and politeness.

Cross-cultural pragmatics and discourse Communication across cultures Different langages and cultures often have different ways of dealing with pragmatic issues (Wierzbicka, 2003).

Cross-cultural pragmatics Different pragmatics norms reflect different cultural values which are reflected in what people say and wha they intend by what they say in different cultural settings (Wierzbicka, 2003).

Cross-cultural pragmatics and discourse Pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics Pragmalinguistics is the study of the more linguistic end of pragmatics where we consider the particular resources which a given language provides for conveying particular illocutions. The study of speech acts in relation to typical linguistic structures. Sociopragmatics is specific local conditions of language use, that is the pragmatic performance of speech acts in specific social and cultural contexts.

Cross-cultural pragmatics and discourse Cross-cultural pragmatic failure The failure to convey or understand a pragmatic intention in another language and culture (Thomas, 1983). - The sociopragmatic failure - The pragmalinguistic failure

Conversati0nal implicature and discourse Conversational implicature refers to the inference a hearer makes about a speaker’s intended meaning that arises from their use of literal meaning of what the speaker said. Hearer’s draw on the conventional meanings of words, the cooperative principle and its maxims, the linguistic and non-linguistic context of the utterance, items of background knowledge and the fact that all of these are available to both participants and they both assume this to be the case.

Conversati0nal implicature and discourse Conventional and particularized conversational implicatures Conventional implicatures derive the implicature with no particular context. Particularized conversational implicatures derive from particular context, rather than from the use of the words alone. Scalar implicatures They are derived when a person uses a word from a set words that express some kind of scale of values.

Politeness, face and discoourse Politeness and face are important for understanding why people choose to say things in a particular way in spoken and written discourse. Lakoff (1973) proposes three maxims of politeness, they are ‘don’t impose’, ‘give options’, and ‘make your hearer feel good’.

Politeness, face and discoourse Involvement and independence in spoken and written discourse Involvement refers to the need people have to be involved with others and to show this involvement; that is a person’s right and need to be considered a normal, contributing, supporting member of society; n other words, to be treated as a member of a group. Choosing a politeness strategy Deciding on a choice of politeness strategy needs a number of coniderations, they are how socially close or distant we are from our hearer; how much or how little power the hearer has over us; how significant what I want is to me, and to the person I am talking to.

Face and Politeness across Cultures The face and politeness varies from society to society and from culture to culture.

Politeness and Gender Holmes (1995), “Overrally, women are more polite than men, it also depends on what we mean by ‘polite’ as well as which women and men are being compared and what setting or community of practice the interaction occurs in; that is, the particular local conditions in which the man or woman is speaking (Cameron, 1998).

Face-threatening Acts Some arcts ‘threaten’ a person’s face. - Mitigation devices (Fraser, 1980) The use of a ‘pre-sequence’ A : Are you doing anything after work? (a pre-sequence) B : Why are you asking? A : I thought we might go for a drink. (an indirect speech act) B : Well, no, nothing in particular. Where would you like to go?

Politeness and Cross-cultural pragmatic failure - The use of insertion sequence A : I am dying for a drink (an off-record invitation) B : Yes, it’s really hot, isn’t it? (an off-record rejecting of the invitation)

Politeness and Cross-cultural pragmatic failure What may be a face-threatening act in one culture may not be seen the same way in another.

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