PRAGMATICS: Brief History

-The term “pragmatics” - first coined in the 1930s by the philosopher C.W. Morris; developed as a
subfield of linguistics in the 1970s.

-a fuller, deeper, and generally more reasonable account of human language behavior

 Definitions: Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context
contributes to meaning.

Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social
interaction and the effects of our choice on others. (David Crystal)

- Semantic information is information encoded in what is uttered — these are stable linguistic features
of the sentence. Pragmatic information is (extralinguistic) information that arises from an actual act of
utterance, and is relevant to the hearer's determination of what the speaker is communicating. (Bach
2004)

- semantic information is encoded in what is uttered,

- pragmatic information is generated by, or at least made relevant by, the act of uttering it

Pragmatics involve three major communication skills:

Using language for different purposes

Changing language according to the needs of a listener or situation

Following rules for conversations and storytelling (taking turns in conversation)

-Semantics relates meanings to logic and truth, and deals with meaning as a matter primarily of sense-
relations within the language. It is concerned with the word and sentence meaning, pragmatics entails
utterance meaning. An utterance can be defined as a word or sentence which is uttered by a speaker.

-Pragmatics relates meanings to context of utterance; language is an action which is performed by

speakers. It attempts to analyze how it happens that often more is communicated than said.

Types of Contexts:

Physical context: The physical context is the location of a given word, the situation in which it is used, as
well as timing, all of which aid proper understating of the words.

Epistemic context: the epistemic context refers to what speakers know about the world. For example,
what background knowledge is shared by the speakers is part of your epistemic knowledge.
Linguistic context: the linguistic context refers to what has been said already in the utterance.

Social context: the social context refers to the social relationship among speakers and hearers.

Speech Acts

A sentence is uttered by a speaker, and when the speaker utters it he/she performs an act. This is called
a speech act.

Perceiving meaning as a part of the utterance or speech act was initiated by the philosopher John
Langshaw Austin and developed by John Searle and Paul Grice.

J.L Austin: Keeping in view the distinction between what is said and what is intended Austin makes a
distinction between Sense and Force.

 Sense is the propositional content or logical meaning of a sentence. Austin calls it the
“Locutionary” meaning.

 Force is the act performed in uttering a sentence. It is the performative meaning, defined by
Austin as “Illocutionary” Force.

Taxonomy of Speech Acts:

- Declarations: speech acts that change the world via their utterance.

- Representatives:,statements of fact, assertions, etc.

- Expressives: speech acts that state what the speaker feels.

- Directives: speech acts that speakers use to get someone else do something.

- Commissives: speech acts that the speakers use to commit themselves to some action.

Grice’s Cooperative Principle

 Maxim of Quantity: Give the right amount of information, neither less nor more than
what is required.
 Maxim of Quality: Be true, do not say what you know is false or for which you do not
have adequate evidence.
 Maxim of Relation: Be relevant.
 Maxim of Manner: Avoid obscurity and ambiguity; be brief and orderly.
  -proposed by John Langshaw Austin and has been developed by John Searle: Language is
not only used to inform or to describe things, it is often used to “do things”, to perform
acts.

THE FORCE OF UTTERANCES

 1. locutionary act: what was said and meant; the basic act of utterance, producing a
meaningful linguistic expression.
 2. illocutionary act/force: what was done; performed via the communicative force of an
utterance, the function that we have in mind when we produce an utterance.
-> to make a statement, an offer, an explanation, etc.
 3. perlocutionary act/effect: what happened as a result; the effect you intend your
utterance to have on the hearer
-> to get the hearer drink the coffee.

TAXONOMY OF SPEECH ACTS

 Searle (1975) set up the following classification of illocutionary speech acts:

 assertives = speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition

 directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular action, e.g. requests,
commands and advice

 commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action, e.g. promises and
oaths

 expressives = speech acts that express on the speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the
proposition, e.g. congratulations, excuses and thanks

 declarations = speech acts that change the reality in accord with the proposition of the
declaration, e.g. baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and
wife

 Further Reading: https://sites.duke.edu/conversions/files/2014/09/Searle_Illocutionary-

Acts.pdf

 Video: https://youtu.be/Td4JUa-Q14k (classification of illocutionary speech acts by Searle| Oral

Communication in Context 8:09)
 FACE

 the self-image of a person in public

 two opposite needs of people:

 a desire to be approved of and appreciated by the interlocutor (“positive face”)&

 a desire to have their independent point of view and relative freedom of opinion (“negative
face”)

 politeness = the ability of people to use interactive strategies depending on communicative

situation

 communicator - making a good impression on the interlocutor and creating a positive self-image
or, on the contrary, expanding his/her personal space

 Brown and Levinson gradually develop their concept: every action of the communicants is a
potential threat to an individual face

 someone tends to protect their own face in the communication process -> still: deviating from
clear and direct communication

 two strategies:

 positive politeness (demonstration of interest, sympathy) and

 negative politeness (expressing pessimism, apologizing)

REFERENCE, ANAPHORA, DEIXIS

the relationship between semantics & use of language: pragmatics

central semantic notions: reference, referent, referring expression, anaphora, cataphora, and
deixis

 defined and explained for the pragmatic analysis

in pragmatics: focus on the pairing of sentences and their supposedly appropriate contexts

Reference - an act in which a speaker, or writer, uses linguistic forms to enable a listener, or
reader, to identify something => reference is concerned with designating entities in the world by
linguistic means

Matthews (1997:312): "reference is the relation between a part of an utterance and an

individual or set of individuals that it identified."
Lyons (1977), Hofmann (1993), Kreidler (1998), and Cruse (2000) agree on the following
classification of reference types:
Generic Reference and Non-Generic Reference
Definite Reference and Indefinite Reference
Specific Reference and Non-Specific Reference
The meaning of the notion generic (not really synonymous with general) can be understood by
observing the following:
(1) The cat is a nice pet. /(2) A cat is a nice pet. /(3) Cats are nice pets.
Each of these sentences may be used to assert a generic proposition, that is a proposition which
says something, not about this or that group of cat or about any particular individual cat, but
about the class of cats as such. In other words, the entity cat in the above sentence is reference
to a class of referents (Cruse, 2000:311).
Sentences (1), (2), and (3) are in contrast with sentences (4) and (5) below.
(4) A cat is lying on the mattress./(5) Cats are lying on the mattress.
In that the latter do not have generic reference. They do not necessarily refer to the whole class
of cats. Although they are not the answers of the question "which cat (s)?" either, such a
question is germane in this context. The former has collective reference and the latter
distributive reference. Sentence (1) has collective reference, and sentence (2) exemplifies
distributive reference.

Kreidler (1998:143): referring expression is definite if the referent from the physical-social
context is identifiable for both speaker and hearer.
The directive “Put the book on the table!” contains definite referring expression the book and
the table.
if the speaker assumes that the addressee can make the necessary implicature to relate a new
reference to a previous one, this is also the case of referring expression:
“I bought a new house in a quite neighborhood. The kitchen is very big.”
a definite expression: the kitchen
a referent is definite if the referring expression is fixed and therefore presumably part of the
addressee's general knowledge

it is important to understand the discourse rather than the expression of the referent per sei ->
the discourse determines the specificity or non-specificity of a reference
“Every evening at six o'clock a heron* flies over the chalet.”
*heron /ˈhɛr(ə)n/ – a large fish-eating bird with long legs, a long S-shaped neck, and a long
pointed bill; Rom. bâtlan, stârc
the indefinite NP “a heron” in this sentence can, under one interpretation, be understood to
refer to a specific referent (a particular heron that the speaker has in mind).
the specificity of the reference - the following context:
“It nests in the ground of the chateau.”
The pronoun It in is co-referential with a heron in the first utterance.

a referent has a unique entity or unique sets of entities if its referring expression has fixed
reference:
 the Rocky Mountains, the Black Sea, the Louvre, the Atlantic Ocean, France, the Carpathians -
unique entities that can be found only in certain places, and knowledge of it is part of one's
general knowledge
a referent may have a non-unique entity if its referring expression has variable reference: that
woman, my brother, a mountain are not unique (they are different every time they are used,
and knowledge of it is a matter of specific knowledge)
the significance of the physical and linguistic contexts that help the speakers to identify those
entities!!
Concrete referents - denoted by concrete or tangible objects (book, lamp, tree, brick)
Abstract referents - designated by abstract or intangible entities (beauty, democracy,
knowledge, philosophy).
“This is the key to the front door.” vs. “You need to find the key to success.”

ANAPHORA
ANAPHORIC REFERENCE
Rule: Backward reference
(clause 1) “Three tech giants filed for bankruptcy.” (clause 2) “It was shocking.”
(clause 1) subject (specified) + verb + obj. complement.
(clause 2) subject (unspecified; it) + verb + obj. complement.
The subject in the second clause is unspecified. However, it’s implicitly understood to be
referencing the subject in the first clause. In other words, tell the reader what the subject is first,
then reference back to it and add information in the second clause.

CATAPHORA
Rule: Forward reference (converse of anaphora)
(clause 1) “Yesterday’s news was shocking.” (clause 2) “Three tech giants filed for bankruptcy.”
(clause 1) subject (unspecified; it) + verb + obj. complement.
(clause 2) subject (specified) + verb + obj. complement.
The subject in the first clause is unspecified, which begs the question: “what is it?” or “what is
the subject?” The subject in the second clause provides clarifying information to the subject of
the first clause. In other words, tell the reader some information about the subject, then
reference forwards to the second clause and tell us what the subject is.

PERSON DEIXIS
Person deixis basically operates on a three-part division, exemplified by the pronouns for first
person or the speaker (I), second person or the addressee (you) and third persons or other
participants (he, she, it). What is important to note here is that the third person singular forms
encode gender, which is not deictic by nature because it is not sensitive to aspects of the speech
situation (Cruse, 2000). Another point worth making with regard to the person deixis is the use of
plural pronouns, which can be in the representative or true use (Cruse, 2000:320).

SOCIAL DEIXIS
In many languages the deictic categories of speaker, addressee, and other(s) are elaborated with
markers or relative social status (addressee with higher status versus addressee with lower status).
Expressions that indicate higher status are described as honorifics. A widely quoted example to
describe the social deixis is the so-called TV distinction, from the French tu (referring to familiar
addressee), and vous (referring to non-familiar addressee).

Other types of deixis: SPATIAL DEIXIS, TEMPORAL DEIXIS, DISCOURSE DEIXIS

Related videos: https://youtu.be/fNV7CsKI5m8

https://youtu.be/cYMShSK9FOQ