Introduction to Linguistics

File 8

Pragmatics

 

File 8 Pragmatics

 

To fully understand the meaning of a sentence, we must understand the context in which it is used. Pragmatics is concerned with how people use language within a context and why they use language in particular ways. This chapter examines how factors such as time, place, and the social relationship between speaker and hearer affect the ways in which language is used to perform different functions.

 

File 8.1 What is Pragmatics?

 

Context (p. 239)

 

1.   How would you differentiate linguistic context from situational context?

 

 

Language Use (p. 240)

 

2.   When asked “How are you?” are you expected to give a report on your health? Why would it be inappropriate to do so?

 

 

File 8.2 Speech Acts

 

  1. What sorts of speech activities do we use speech for? Is there a good substitute?

 

 

  1. What are some common speech acts and their function?

 

 

  1. What syntactic structures are used to convey these acts?

 

 

  1. What type of structure links with the major speech acts?

 

 

  1. What are performative verbs?

 

 

Identifying Direct Speech Acts (p. 244)

 

  1. What identifies a direct speech act?

 

 

  1. Why do you need to look at more than just the verb in order to determine if a sentence is a direct speech act with a performative verb? When we use a verb as a performative verb, what must be the subject?

 

 

Felicity Conditions (p. 245)

 

  1. Just as we can make grammatical errors in sentences, we can make errors in speech acts. Appropriate speech acts must meet certain felicity conditions. Note the felicity conditions for ‘questions’ and ‘requests’.

 

 

  1. When might it be acceptable to not meet these conditions?

 

 

  1. Are felicity conditions for requests as flexible as the conditions for questions?

 

 

Indirect Speech Acts (page 246)

 

  1. How would you differentiate between a direct vs. indirect speech act?

 

 

  1. Do we often use indirect speech acts?

 

 

Identifying Indirect Speech Acts (p. 247)

 

  1. How do we check for indirect speech act?

 

 

File 8.3 Drawing Conclusions: Entailment and Implicature

 

  1. When we say that X entails Y, what does that mean?

 

 

  1. What does entailment allow from the hearers viewpoint?

 

 

  1. What does entailment imply from the speakers viewpoint?

 

 

  1. In entailment we note that X implies Y, so does Y imply X? Give an example.

 

 

  1. Note that entailment is relationship based on literal meaning. However, sometimes it is not always true but the implication is there that it could be true.

 

 

  1. If X does not entail Y, then why might you still consider the statement to be true?

 

 

File 8.4 Rules of Conversation

 

  1. Grice formulated a set of rules for conversation (Cooperative Principle) that he believed underlies language use. Do these apply to all conversations?

 

 

  1. What is the Maxim of Quality?

 

 

  1. What is the Maxim of Relation/Relevance?

 

 

  1. What is the Maxim of Quantity?

 

 

  1. What is the Maxim of Manner?

 

 

  1. Why do we use these maxims to communicate indirectly?

 

 

  1. What is an example of flouting a maxim?

 

 

File 8.5 Language in Advertising

 

  1. How do advertisers use implicature in advertising. How do you distinguish implicature from entailment?

 

 

  1. Should advertisers be responsible for what their claims entail or only for what they implicate?

 

 

  1. What is a technique for entailing little but implicating a lot? Note the examples.

 

 

  1. What is the “fine print” ploy of advertisers?

 

 

  1. What is the use of ‘idiomatic’ language ploy?

 

 

  1. Another technique for implicating a lot and entailing little is to qualify strong claims with modal auxiliaries (e.g. can, could, might, etc.).  How is this done?

 

 

  1. The advertiser may set up a false choice.

 

 

File 8.6 Discourse Analysis

 

  1. Why are linguists interested in personal experience stories?

 

 

The Structure of Personal Experience Stories (p. 261)

 

  1. What needs to be included in a complete, well-developed personal experience story?

 

 

  1. What is an abstract?

 

 

Orientation (p. 263)

 

  1. What is the orientation?

 

 

Complicating Action: Result or Resolution (p. 264)

 

  1. What is the complicating action?

 

 

Coda (p. 264)

 

  1. What is the coda?

 

 

Evaluation (p. 264)

 

  1. What is the evaluation?

 

 

  1. What are external and internal evaluative devices?

 

 

Broader Perspectives (p. 265)

 

  1. Note that most groups of spoken utterances are full of structure related to discourse.