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Summary readings pragmatics
Week 1 (Peter Grundy – Doing Pragmatics)
Chapter 1 – Using and understanding language
A definition: Pragmatics is the study of the use of language.
1.1 Studying language in use
Often, one knows what the speakers’ words mean formally, their semantics. However, knowing what
the speakers mean by using those words is not so obvious, their pragmatics. The ability of
pragmatically skilled conversationalists to recognize meanings that are implicit rather than explicit is
crucial to their understanding of an utterance.
An example from the book, a scenario and its description:
(10) BARISTA: Your name
PHIL: Bill
BARISTA: Bill
PHIL: Bill
BARISTA: Your name is Bill
PHIL: Yes, Bill
BARISTA: OK
The exchange will probably appear rather strange to you, just as it did to Phil, until he took his coffee and went
to sit down, at which point he realized why the exchange had taken such an unusual course.
BARISTA: Your name
As we see, this is an economical or elliptical way of asking someone for their name. Moreover, we know that in
Starbucks, unlike in a police station, it’s our given name and not our family name that we’re expected to
provide.
PHIL: Bill
I don’t know if it’s the same where you live, but in Britain quite a lot of people don’t like being asked to give
their name in Starbucks and so give a false name. Phil always says he’s ‘Bill’, so he isn’t one of those naughty
boys who give their name as ‘Willy’ for the pleasure of hearing the barista sing it out when their food’s ready.
BARISTA: Bill
When the barista repeats ‘Bill’, it’s with a rising, interrogative intonation which conveys perhaps that he isn’t
sure that he’s heard correctly or perhaps that he finds Phil’s answer surprising. The prosody is also quite
different from the prosody in Phil’s previous use of the same single-word utterance, as we might expect, since
the function of this utterance is different from the function of Phil’s semantically identical utterance. As skilled
users of language, we know that this kind of prosodic marking is an important way of conveying pragmatic
meaning.
PHIL: Bill
The same single-word utterance now occurs for a third time and with a third intonation contour which marks it
as a confirmation that the speaker’s name is indeed Bill.
BARISTA: Your name is Bill
Once again, this is said with a strongly rising interrogative intonation and accompanied by a frown so that
what’s said, how it’s said and the facial expression that accompanies saying it all tell us that the barista doesn’t
believe what he’s heard: although he says ‘your name is Bill’, the way he says it tells us that he’s asserting its
opposite, that’s to say I don’t think your name is Bill.
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PHIL: Yes, Bill
Although Phil must surely realize that the barista doesn’t think his name is Bill, in saying ‘Yes, Bill’, he responds
to the literal meaning of ‘Your name is Bill’ and not to the pragmatic meaning conveyed by the barista’s
intonation, presumably because both speakers would lose a lot of face and some awkward explanation would
have been called for if he’d said something like ‘OK, it’s not Bill, actually it’s Phil’.
BARISTA: OK
As with every other turn in this exchange, the issue isn’t what the words mean but what is meant by using them.
‘OK’ can be used to mean many different 8 8 Using and understanding language things. Here it seems to mean
something like ‘Be silly if you want – we’ll do it your way’ and indicates that the barista won’t pursue this
unproductive exchange any further.
So Phil takes the coffee which he’s earned after a long morning working with children in the primary school he’s
been visiting up the road. He’s a writer and from time to time goes into schools to work with students. He’s been
to a good school this morning where the teacher distributes star-shaped pieces of card for everyone to write
their name on and pin to their chest so that Phil can address each child by name. Unfortunately, he’s forgotten
to remove his before leaving the school and walking down the road to Starbucks, and it’s only now as he sits
down with his coffee reflecting on the very odd barista in this branch of Starbucks that he remembers that his
real name is pinned to his chest on a star-shaped piece of yellow card. This reminds us that when we use
language, we take the context in which we use it into account and explains why the barista had conveyed in the
way he said ‘Your name is Bill’ that he meant I don’t think your name is Bill.
To explain the uses of language, a distinction can be made between sentence meaning, what the
words mean literally (i.e., “Your name is Bill”), and speaker meaning, what is meant with the words
(i.e., I don’t think your name is Bill).
- What a speaker’s words mean literally vs. what the speaker might mean.
- What is said vs. what is meant by saying.
Pragmatics is then the study of speaker meaning, the meanings that emerge from our use of
language.
1.2 From description to explanation
So, in some scenarios, it is important to notice that it isn’t the sentence meaning that matters, but
what the speaker does when using the sentence (i.e., the speaker meaning) – one calls the use of
language for an intentional purpose, a speech act.
- E.g., insulting someone or passing a compliment. The utterance “you need to get yourself a
better car with a satnav that works.” seems rude, however, with context, it can be meant as
a compliment. Let’s say the driver just bought a new car and does not yet know how the
satnav works, then it can be seen as a compliment for the new car.
With the example above, it is also shown that pragmatic meanings are probabilistic. The addressee
must infer from the utterance that the speaker is passing a compliment, but the addressee’s
inference is only the best guess (s)he can make as to what the speaker meant.
Context not always determine one’s behavior, rather one’s behavior determines context. Take as an
example two people leaving a bus, where, following bus regulations, person A can leave the bus first.
However, person B explicitly makes clear that person A can go before him/her (which is, according to
bus regulations, not necessary to mention). Imagine the two person having different skin colors: they
do not act as they do because of their skin colors, but what they do creates the difference in their
skin colors. In other words, their behavior have determined the context.
One can use a politeness formula, which then has a politeness function, to soften, e.g., a rejection or
disturbance. E.g., “Excuse me, where is the park?” or “I’m sorry, but the bar is not open yet.”
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The response to an utterance shows the (mis)understanding of that utterance – the next turn proof
procedure.
- E.g., the conversation: “Is the bar open” “No, it opens later” “Only I left my bag there”. Here,
the landlady, who expresses the second utterance, interprets the first utterance a request for
wanting a drink. The third utterance, however, shows that this is not the case.
The judgments one makes about pragmatics are governed by optimality: a speaker tries to achieve an
optimal form for the meaning (s)he seeks to convey, and a hearer tries to determine an optimal
meaning of the utterance (s)he hears. One meaning can be optimal for person A, while another
meaning can be optimal for person B.
- Metapragmatic features, such as prosody and discourse markers (e.g., “oh”), helps the
hearer to reach the intended pragmatic understanding of the speaker. These features can be
seen as constraints on interpretation, by reducing the wide range of possible interpretations
and helping one to recover the speaker’s intended meaning and thereby they lessen the task
of reaching an optimal understanding.
“You”, among others, can be used deictic, where it addresses a certain person or multiple persons, or
non-deictic, where it refers more generally.
1.3 Speaker meaning
Just as all other academic disciplines, pragmatics makes use of a metalanguage to describe and
explain the phenomena they seek to understand.
Sentence meaning and speaker meaning
Sentence meaning is used to describe the literal meaning of sentences and speaker meaning to
describe the meanings one infers that go beyond literal meaning. Sentence is then understood as a
description of a syntactic structure with a certain semantic content, and utterance as a sentence put
to use and so inviting a pragmatic interpretation.
Optimality
In Optimality Theory, the matching of input (a meaning) to output (an utterance) is not subject to
rules which generate utterances, but to constraints which limit the possibilities available for
conveying the meaning the speaker has in mind.
Metapragmatic marking
By means of metapragmatic marking, the speaker guides the addressee towards the intended
interpretation to prevent unintended interpretations. Or (s)he limits the processing effort required
when the utterance is too challenging to interpret in the time available.
- E.g., use of exclamations “oh”, adjunctives “also”, or discourse markers.
Utterances and intentions
Speech act theory distinguishes between what one says and what one does by saying (the act);
between the propositions carried by our utterances and the force they have; between the form (e.g.,
imperative) and the function associated with the use of the form (e.g., making a request or asking a
question).
Inference
When one understands any particular use of language, one reaches his/her understanding by
drawing a set of inferences that bridge the gap between sentence and speaker meaning. Sentence
meaning, in an inference-based account of pragmatics, is one piece of evidence that one uses
