Week 1: Introduction
What is pragmatics?
The distinction between what a speaker’s words (literally) mean and what the
speaker might mean by his words.
- The goal of pragmatics is to understand the cognitive abilities that
speakers and hearers can employ when conveying and understanding
meaning in context.
Grundy ch.1 – Pragmatics and philosophy
~ 1.2 FROM DESCRIPTION TO EXPLANATION
We study pragmatics in order to describe and ultimately to explain how we
produce and understand such everyday (and sometimes apparently rather
peculiar) uses of language.
HIM: After you
ME: After you
HIM: No, after you
ME: <proceeding> You’re too much of a gentleman
HIM: <pats me on the right shoulder as I pass him>
The use of the formula you’re too much of an x might be regarded as an impolite
criticism, but this default interpretation is far outweighed by the inference that I
consider him to be gentlemanly to an exceptional degree. He acknowledges my
compliment by patting me on the shoulder, an action which I find surprising in a
culture where deliberately touching strangers is taboo.
~ 1.3 SPEAKER MEANING
Sentence meaning and speaker meaning
Sentence meaning is the term we use to describe the literal meaning of
sentences.
Speaker meaning is the term we use to describe the meanings we infer that go
beyond literal meaning.
that’s the bus <sentence meaning>
that’s the bus that Joan will be on <putative speaker meaning>
Optimality
Many pragmatists think it’s useful to regard pragmatic meanings as satisfying
optimality considerations, which from a speaker’s perspective:
- match input (a meaning) to output (an utterance) in an optimally effective
way.
Optimality Theory: such matching 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.
<pause> would they Michelle
, o identifying these constraints is problematized by my daring to ask
whether we might find a context that would license our inferring
any meaning from any form.
Nevertheless, optimality does seem to be a fruitful way of thinking about form/
meaning and meaning/ form correspondence in pragmatics.
Metapragmatic marking
Metapragmatic marking: When a speaker wants to facilitate the interpretation of
an utterance, they're likely to guide the addressee towards the intended
interpretation or to limit the processing effort required.
- The utterance might otherwise be open to an unintended interpretation or
might simply be too challenging to interpret in the time available in the
ongoing interaction,
- Oh, 25p off milk products
o Indicating that oral reading of ‘25p off milk products’ differs from
silent reading, guiding the till operator towards the interpretation
that is intended for her to arrive at
Utterances and intentions
Speech act theory distinguishes between what we say and what we do by saying,
or between the propositions carried by our utterances and the force they have.
Excuse me, is this Buston Terrace
- imperative form (verb with no overt subject) ‘excuse me’ to request that I
forgive him for interrupting my car- washing task,
- interrogative form (verb followed by subject) ‘is this Buston Terrace’ to ask
a yes/ no question.
- We distinguish therefore between the form – imperative – and the function
or force associated with the use of the form – making a request, or, in the
case of the interrogative, asking a question.
Inference
Sentence meaning, in an inference- based account of pragmatics, is one piece of
evidence that we use alongside any procedural cues, our knowledge of the world,
and accessible contexts in the process of determining speaker meaning.
Indexicality
Index: it’s a shorthand for a more elaborate concept associated with it.
1) A deictic term like you is a prototypical example of indexicality because it
points to or identifies a person or set of people who, in the context in which
they are identified, constitute an index or shorthand for a uniquely
definable person or set of people.
Context and language
Context is not presumptive, that’s to say not a determinant of our behaviour, but
rather that we create context by our behaviour.
, Week 2: Truth and Action
Senft ch.1 - Using and Understanding Language
~ 1.2 John Austin's speech act theory
Austin’s differentiation between assertions or statements to which Austin refers
with the term ‘constatives’ and utterances with which something is done; Austin
refers to these utterances with the term ‘performatives’.
2) It isn’t the sentence meaning that matters, but what I do as a speaker
when I use the sentence. We call the use of language for an intentional
purpose a speech act
3) Act reflects the fact that we do something by using language, just as the
driver does something by smiling and raiding his hand to acknowledge the
compliment.
~~ 1.2.1 Statements versus utterances that do something: Constatives
versus performatives
(1) I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth.
(2) I bet you six pence Fury, the black stallion, will win the race.
Both are declarative sentences in which something is done in or by
saying something
as performative sentences; they are characterized by having verbs
produced ‘in the first person singular present indicative active’
which make the action performed by the speaker explicit; these
sentences perform an act; they are neither true or false.
(3) My daughter’s name is Frank and my son is called Sebastian.
(4) We live in a small provincial town in the northwest of Germany.
Both are ‘constative’ sentences (assertions or statements) in Austin’s
terminology; in these sentences something is said which can be true
or false
Performatives have to meet at least the following 'felicity conditions':
1. (i) There must be a conventional procedure having a conventional effect
a. Not fulfilled: Assume there is a married couple and both are
Christians. If the husband says to his wife ‘I hereby divorce you’
repeating this utterance three times he will not achieve a divorce;
however, with a Muslim couple such an action would constitute a
divorce.
(ii) The circumstances and persons must be appropriate, as specified in the
procedure.
b. Not fulfilled: Assume a clergyman baptizing a baby ‘Albert’ instead
of ‘Alfred’
2. The procedure must be executed
(i) correctly
a. Not fulfilled: Assume a man says ‘my house’ when he actually has
two and the context does not make clear which of the two is meant
(ii) completely
b. Not fulfilled: A bridegroom’s attempt to marry by saying ‘I do’ is
abortive if the bride says ‘I do not’. Austin calls 1 and 2
, infelicities ‘which are such that the act for the performing of which,
and in the performing of which, the verbal formula in question is
designed, is not achieved, by the name MISFIRES…’
3. Often
(i) the persons must have the requisite thoughts, feelings and intentions, as
specified in the procedure
a. Not fulfilled: Assume somebody is asked for advice and he
intentionally gives bad advice.
(ii) if consequent conduct is specified, then the relevant parties must so do.
b. Not fulfilled: Assume somebody promises something without any
intention whatsoever to keep the promise 3 conditions are
insincerities and infractions or breaches; Austin’s name for those
infelicities where the act is achieved but insincerely is ‘ABUSES’
~~ 1.2.2 Two turns in Austin’s argument
Constatives: utterances that simply say something
4) truth
Performatives: utterances that do things
5) action
Explicit performatives: can be reinforced by adding the adverb ‘hereby’
6) although it is rather too formal for ordinary purposes.
7) The explicit performative develops from the primary; this means that every
performative could be in principle put into the form of an explicit
performative’
~~ 1.2.3 Utterances which say something, do something and produce
effects: Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts
Three components in every utterance:
act of “saying something” ... a locutionary act, and the study of utterances ... the
study of locutions, or of full units of speech
1. To perform a ‘phonetic’ act
the act of uttering certain noises
2. To perform a ‘phatic’ act
the act of uttering certain words in a certain grammatical construction
3. To perform a ‘rhetic’ act
the act of using words with a certain meaning
When we report a speaker’s locutionary act we either focus on the phatic act
using direct speech
- in the utterance: ‘He said “The cat is on the mat”’ or we focus on the rhetic
act sing indirect speech which reports the meaning of the utterance but
does not quote the words in the form they were uttered.
- in the utterance: ‘He said that the cat was on the mat’
Locutionary acts are also and at the same time illocutionary acts
8) acts of doing something in saying something like accusing, asking and
answering questions, apologizing, blaming, informing, ordering, assuring,
warning, announcing an intention, making an appointment, giving a
description, promising and stating.
