2022年专八语言学笔记要点 (7)

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　　Chapter 7 Pragmatics

　　l What is pragmatics?

　　n Pragmatics can be defined as the analysis of meaning in context.

　　n Pragmatic analysis of meaning is first and foremost concerned with the study of what is communicated by a speaker/writer and interpreted by a listener/reader.

　　n Analysis of intentional meaning necessarily involves the interpretation of what people do through language in a particular context.

　　n Intended meaning may or may not be explicitly expressed. Pragmatic analysis also explores how listeners/readers make inferences about what is communicated.

　　l What are the differences between the two linguistic studies of meaning – semantics and pragmatics?

　　n Semantics studies literal, structural or lexical meaning, while pragmatics studies non-literal, implicit, intended meaning, or speaker meaning.

　　n Semantics is context independent, decontextualized, while pragmatics is context dependent, contextualized.

　　n Semantics deals with what is said, while pragmatics deals with what is implicated or inferred.

　　l Deixis and reference

　　n Deixis is a word originally from Greek. It means pointing via language. An expression used by a speaker/writer to identify something is called deictic expression.

　　n Out of context, we cannot understand sentences containing deictic expressions, because we do not know what these expressions refer to respectively.

　　n According to referential content, deixis can be put into person deixis, place deixis, time deixis and discourse deixis.

　　u Person deixis: I, we, you, me, he, etc.

　　u Place deixis: here, there, above, over, this, that…

　　l Proximal and distal terms

　　n Proximal terms are used when something is close to the speaker, while distal terms when something is away from the speaker.

　　u Time deixis: next…, by…, before…, etc.

　　l Tenses: coding time

　　u Discourse deixis

　　l Anaphoric: backward reference

　　l Cataphoric: forward reference

　　n The deictic centre – ego-centric centre

　　l Speech acts

　　n In linguistic communication, people do not merely exchange information. They actually do something through talking or writing in various circumstances. Actions performed via speaking are called speech acts.

　　n Performative sentences

　　u Implicit performatives – It’s cold here.

　　u Explicit performatives – Please close the door.

　　n Types of speech acts

　　u Locutionary speech act – the action of making the sentence

　　u Illocutionary speech act – the intentions

　　u Perlocutionary speech act – the effects

　　u Of these dimensions, the most important is the illocutionary act.

　　n In linguistic communication people respond to an illocutionary act of an utterance, because it is the meaning intended by the speaker.

　　n If a teacher says, “I have run out of chalk” in the process of lecturing, the act of saying is locutionary, the act of demanding for chalk is illocutionary, and the effect the utterance brings about – one of the students will go and get some chalk – is perlocutionary.

　　n In English, illocutionary acts are also given specific labels, such as request, warning, promise, invitation, compliment, complaint, apology, offer, refusal, etc. these specific labels name various speech functions.

　　n As functions may not correspond to forms, speech acts can be direct and indirect.

　　u Searle: two ways of communication (performing acts)

　　l Direct speech act: Close the door.

　　l Indirect speech act: It’s cold in here.

　　u Why do people often speak indirectly in social communication?

　　l Different social variables: age, sex, social condition

　　l Politeness: communicative strategy

　　u Indirect speech acts are related to appropriateness.

　　l Indirect speech acts are made for politeness, not vice versa. To make appropriate choices does not necessarily mean indirect speech acts.

　　l Cooperation and implicature

　　n Conversational Implicature

　　u In our daily life, speakers and listeners involved in conversation are generally cooperating with each other. In other words, when people are talking with each other, they must try to converse smoothly and successfully. In accepting speakers’ presuppositions, listeners have to assume that a speaker is not trying to mislead them. This sense of cooperation is simply one in which people having a conversation are not normally assumed to be trying to confuse, trick, or withhold relevant information from one another.

　　u However, in real communication, the intention of the speaker is often not the literal meaning of what he or she says. The real intention implied in the words is called conversational implicature. For example:

　　[1] A: Can you tell me the time?

　　B: Well, the milkman has come.

　　u In this little conversation, A is asking B about the time, but B is not answering directly. That indicates that B may also not no the accurate time, but through saying “the milkman has come”, he is in fact giving a rough time. The answer B gives is related to the literal meaning of the words, but is not merely that. That is often the case in communication. The theory of conversational implicature is for the purpose of explaining how listeners infer the speakers’ intention through the words.

　　u The study of conversational implicature starts from Grice (1967), the American philosopher. He thinks, in daily communication, people are observing a set of basic rules of cooperating with each other so as to communicate effectively through conversation. He calls this set of rules the cooperative principle (CP) elaborated in four sub-principles (maxims), that is the cooperative principle.

　　n The Cooperative Principle

　　u Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. The maxims are:

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