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Introduction to Linguistics II Ling 2-121C, group b

Lecture 9

Eleni Miltsakaki

AUTH

Spring 2006

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Pragmatics

• What we say is not always what we mean

• Situational context affects linguistic meaning

• Pragmatics studies the interaction of context with meaning

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Conversational implicature

• Meaning implied (implicated) by virtue of the fact that the speaker and hearer are cooperatively contributing to the conversation.

• Such conversations, according to Grice, are governed by the Cooperative Principle

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Indirect communucation

• Can you think of examples of indirect communication? (I.e., say one thing but mean another?)

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• The door is over there (request, leave)• I want 10 gallons of regular (request, give me)• I’m sure the cat likes having its tail pulled

(imperative, stop doing that)• You’re the boss (agree)• I should never have done that (apologize)• Did you bring any tennis balls? (inform that the

speaker hasn’t brought any)

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Grice’s cooperative principle

• Make your 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

• Conversational maxims– Maxim of quality– Maxim of quantity– Maxim of relevance– Maxim of manner

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Maxim of quantity

• Make your contribution as informative as is required

• Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

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Maxim of quality

• Try to make your contribution one that is true:– Do not say what you believe to be false– Do not say that for which you lack adequate

evidence

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Maxim of relevance

• Make your contributions relevant

(in a room with an open window)

• It’s cold here!

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Maxim of manner

• Be perspicuous– Avoid obscurity– Avoid ambiguity– Be brief– Be orderly

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• Conversational conventions combine with sentence meaning and context to derive discourse meaning

• Same as sentence grammar (words combine to derive sentence meaning)

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Humor

• Humor often is based on violations of maxims

• Can you think of any?

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• He: Your nagging goes right in one ear and out the other.

• She: That’s because there is nothing in between to stop it.

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• a. Quality• "Why did the Vice-President fly to Panama?" "Because the

fighting is over." • b. Quantity • "Excuse me, do you know what time it is?" • "Yes." • c. Relation • "How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light

bulb?" "Fish!" • d. Manner • "Do you believe in clubs for young people?" • "Only when kindness fails."

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Speech acts

• Performative verbs– We can use language to do things– You warn when you say: I warn you that there

is a thief in the closet– You give a promise when you say: I promise

I’ll love you for ever

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Some performative sentences

• I bet you five dollars the Yankees win• I challenge you to a match• I dare you to stop over this line• I fine you $100 for possession of oregano• I move that we adjourn• I nominate Batman for mayor of Gotham city• I promise to improve• I resign!• I pronounce you husband and wife

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Test

• To check if you have a performative verb trying add I hereby … before it.

• I hereby apologize to you –act of apologizing

• # I hereby know you

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• Every utterance is a speech act, even when there is no performative verb

• It is raining – I state that it’s raining

• Is it raining? – I ask if it’s raining

• Leave! -- I order you to leave

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The role of context

• Band practice, my house, 6-8– Could be a reminder– Could be a warning

• The underlying purpose of an utterance is called illocutionary force

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Illocutionary acts

• Performed by performative sentences

• Central to linguistic communication

• One performs them successfully simply by getting one’s illocutionary intentions recognized

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Perlocutionary acts

• Inspiring, impressing, embarrassing, intimidating, persuading, misleading, irritating

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Perlocutionary acts

• Not performed by uttering an explicit performative sentence

• Involve effects of the utterance and illocutionary acts on feelings, thoughts, actions of the hearer

• S tells + H believes … =S persuades H that…

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Speech acts recap

• Utterance acts (shouting, whispering, murmuring)

• Illocutionary acts (promising, reporting,asking)

• Perlocutionary acts (intimidating, persuading, deceiving)

• Propositional acts (referring, predicating)

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Presupposition

• Speakers make implicit assumptions about the world

• Presuppositions of an utterance are facts whose truth is required for the utterance to be appropriate

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Find the presuppositions

• Have you stopped hugging your sheepdog?

• Who bought the badminton set?

• John doesn’t write poems anymore.

• The present King of France is bald.

• Would you like another beer?

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• When presuppositions are inconsistent with the actual state in the world, the utterance is felt to be strange

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Failing presuppositions!• From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

1. “Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

2. “I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.”

3. “You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “It’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

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Accommodation

• Presuppositions can be used to communicate information indirectly

• My brother is rich– The hearer accommodates the presupposition that I

have brother

• Much of the information communicated in discourse is of this type

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• Presuppositions are indispensable

• Compare:– John doesn’t write any more– A person we both know and agree that his

name is John, and who knows how to write, and who is able to write poetry, wrote poetry in some past time, and know he does not write poetry

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Legal language

• The use of language in a courtroom is restricted so that presuppositions cannot influence the court or jury.

• “Have you stopped beating your wife?” – Is not a permissible question in court

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Pragmatic inference

• Sometimes some sentences invite an inference on the part of the hearer which doesn’t follow from semantics

– 1a If you mow the lawn, I will give you five dollars

– 1b If you don’t mow the lawn, I will not give you five dollars

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Deixis

• Some words can only be interpreted in context• These words are called deictic (or indexical

expressions):– My mine you your yours we ours us (personal deixis)– This that these those (demonstratives)– Now, this/that X, X time ago, tomorrow, last X, next X

(time deixis)– Here, there, this/that X, (place deixis)– Before/behind, left/right front/back (directional deixis)

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Types of deixis

• You, you, but not you, are dismissed (gestural deixis)

• What did you say? (symbolic)

• You can never tell what sex they are nowadays (non-deictic)

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Discourse deixis

• …

• That was the funniest story I’ve ever heard

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• Deixis is common in language and marks one boundary between semantics and pragmatics

• I, behind me, an hour from now: have meaning to the extent that they have reference, to determine their reference you need context

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• The facts of deixis should act as a constant reminder to theoretical linguists of the simple but immensely important fact that natural languages are primarily designed, so to speak, for use in face-to-face interaction, and thus there are limits to the extent to which they can be analysed without taking this into account (Lyons, 1977)

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Summary points in pragmatics

• The cooperative principle– Four maxims of conversation

• Speech acts

• Presuppositions

• Deixis

• Pronouns and other pro-forms