RENG 302: ENGLISH PRAGMATICS

What is pragmatics?

Pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a

speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a listener (or reader). It has,

consequently, more to do with the analysis of what people mean by their

utterances than what the words or phrases in those utterances might mean by

themselves. Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning.

This type of study necessarily involves the interpretation of what people mean in

a particular context and how the context influences what is said. It requires a

consideration of how speakers organize what they want to say in accordance

with who they’re talking to, where, when, and under what circumstances.

Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning.

This approach also necessarily explores how listeners can make inferences about

what is said in order to arrive at an interpretation of the speaker’s intended

meaning. This type of study explores how a great deal of what is unsaid is

recognized as part of what is communicated. We might say that it is the

investigation of invisible meaning. Pragmatics is the study of how more gets

communicated than is said.

This perspective then raises the question of what determines the choice

between the said and the unsaid. The basic answer is tied to the notion of

distance. Closeness, whether it is physical, social, or conceptual, implies shared

experience. On the assumption of how close or distant the listener is, speakers

determine how much needs to be said. Pragmatics is the study of the

expression of relative distance. These are the four areas that pragmatics is

concerned with.

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Generally, Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in

social interaction and the effects of our choice on others. Crystal, D

Pragmatics is concerned with how people use language within a context, in real-

life situations. In pragmatics we study 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.

It (Pragmatics) is a way of investigating how sense can be made of certain texts

even when, from a semantic viewpoint, the text seems to be either incomplete or

to have a different meaning to what is really intended. Consider a sign seen in a

children's wear shop window: "Baby Sale - lots of bargains ". We know without

asking that there are no babies are for sale - that what is for sale are items

used for babies. Pragmatics allows us to investigate how this "meaning beyond

the words, phrases and sentences” can be understood without ambiguity.

The relation between semantics and pragmatics

Contemporary debate in pragmatics often focuses on its relations with

semantics. Since semantics is the study of meaning in language, why add a new

field of study to look at meaning from a novel viewpoint? This is an elementary

confusion. Clearly linguists could develop a model of semantics that included

pragmatics. Or they could produce a model for each, which allows for some

exploration and explanation of the boundary between them – but distinguishes

them as in some way different kinds of activity. However, there is a consensus

view that pragmatics as a separate study is necessary because it explains

meanings that semantics overlooks.

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While semantics was concerned with words, phrases and sentences, the unit of

analysis in pragmatics is the utterance.

The difference viewpoints of semantics and pragmatics can best be illustrated

by looking at a single utterance. Imagine you are shopping downtown with a

friend. As you pass a well-known restaurant, your friend longingly stares to the

people outside eating chicken-chips and remarks " Boy/my friend, I am really

hungry!” What would be your reaction? Taken out of context, your friend has

simply provided a piece of information - that he/she is feeling hungry. In terms

of the meaning he wants to communicate, however, it is likely he intends to get

something else across. You might interpret his remark as a request to make a

food stop and respond by saying " Me too - let's get some chips" . Note that in

this case your interpretation of what your friend means goes beyond what he

has literally said.

Pragmatics is an important area of study for your course. A simplified way of

thinking about pragmatics is to recognise, for example, that language needs to

be kept interesting - a speaker or writer does not want to bore a listener or

reader, for example, by being over-long or tedious. So, humans strive to find

linguistic means to make a text, perhaps, shorter, more interesting, more

relevant, more purposeful or more personal. Pragmatics allows this.” (Steve

Campsall)

What does pragmatics include?

The lack of a clear consensus appears in the way that no two published accounts

list the same categories of pragmatics in quite the same order. But among the

things you should know about are: Speech act theory, Felicity condition,

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Conversational implicature, The cooperative principle, Conversational maxims,

Relevance, Politeness. Phatic tokens etc.

Criticisms of pragmatics

Some of the criticisms directed at pragmatics include these:

1. It does not have a clear-cut focus

2. Its principles are vague and fuzzy

3. It is redundant – semantics already covers the territory adequately

In defending pragmatics we can say that:

1. The study of speech acts has illuminated social language interactions

2. It covers things that semantics (hitherto) has overlooked

3. It can help inform strategies for teaching language

4. It has given new insights into understanding literature

5. The theory of the cooperative principle and politeness principle have

provided insights into person to-person interactions.

The Development of Pragmatics

The effort to integrate pragmatics in the theory of grammar starts from the

emergence of philosophical and rhetorical works. Leech (1983:2) identifies that

in fact, the more lasting influences on modern pragmatics have been those of

philosophers, notably, in recent years, Austin (1962), Searl (1969), and Grice

(1975). This identification of Leech indicates that up to now these philosophers

have still more influenced the linguists who try to develop pragmatic paradigm.

In addition, pragmatics then also develops in line with the development of

sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science in

general.

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Historically, the term pragmatics was firstly known when Charles Morris (1938

in Levinson 1983:1), a philosopher, introduced a science of signs known as

semiotics. Through semiotics Morris distinguished three different branches of

the science of language into syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Since the

introduction of the trichotomy syntax, semantics and pragmatics by Morris, the

latter term has come to be in use for many years and has expanded fast in

recent years. From Morris’s introduction to the early 1960s there was no paying

attention to pragmatics. In 1950s, as suggested by Chomsky, the science of

language was concentrated on syntax focusing on grammatical point of view only.

Because of no attention on the uses, users, and the function of language, “all this

changed after Chomsky …, discovered the centrality of syntax; but like

structuralists, he still regarded meaning as altogether too messy for serious

contemplation” (Leech, 1983:1).

In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, linguists such as Lakoff and Ross felt

sure that sentence was not avoidable from the inquiry of language use. For this,

Leech (1983:3) explains that “Lakoff, with other, was soon arguing (1971) that

syntax could not be separated from the study of language use. So pragmatics

was henceforth on the linguistic map”. Since then, pragmatics has been on the

map of linguistics to clarify that the sentence inquiry cannot be realised without

taking account of the sentence use in its context. As a result, the growth of

interest in pragmatics can be considered as ‘a reaction or antidote to Chomsky’s

treatment of language as an abstract device, or mental ability, dissociable from

the uses, users and functions of language’ (Levinson, 1983:35). In line with the

emergence of pragmatics in the linguistic map, pragmatics gradually comes into

the world of language teaching. Though the language teaching was dominated by

translation approach in 1930s, by directive approach in 1940s, by audio-lingual in

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1950s, by comparative linguistic approach in 1960s, however, in 1970s pragmatics

was still in its existence under communicative approach.

In the 20th century, however, other ways of looking at meaning in language

emerged. Several scholars pointed to the variable and relative reference that

linguistic signs may have and, consequently, to the important role that context

plays in determining the meaning of language (Svennevig, Sandvik & Vagle 1995).

Important influences came from the field of anthropology, where Malinowski

(1923) introduced the terms ‘context of situation’ and ‘context of culture’.

This means that, when trying to understand something that is said or written,

we also, simultaneously, interpret the context in which the text is embedded.

Given an instance of language, we are immediately able to construct and

interpret the situation in which the text functions (Fish 1980).

Widdowson (1995) illustrates this phenomenon by referring to our ability to

even interpret the single letter ‘P’ as a meaningful text, provided that we meet

it in a context where parking a car is relevant.

Given a situation, we are usually able to anticipate the kinds of meaning that will

be exchanged and, based on our previous knowledge of the situation we will, to a

certain extent, be able to predict what our interlocutor is going to say (Halliday

& Hasan 1985). Interlocutors who share the same background knowledge will,

naturally, have better chances of understanding one another than interlocutors

who do not (Scollon & Scollon 2001).

It seems obvious, then, that learners of a foreign language need to concern

themselves not only with the linguistic aspects of the language, but also with the

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contexts in which it can be used. Only then can they develop the ability to

interpret the references that are being made in a communication situation and

to explore the full meaning potential of the language. Insight into and awareness

of the interrelationship between language and its contexts is, of course, also a

necessary prerequisite for students to be able to use the language appropriately

in different situations (Kramsch 1993).

What is Pragmatic competence?

Pragmatic competence refers to the ability to understand another speaker’s

intended meaning. It (Pragmatic competence) allows them (speaker/hearer) to

use language in different and concrete situations, in varying contexts.

Therefore, pragmatic competence is mainly studied at the social level within the

limits of speech acts and social acts, interactions or at the interactional level.

Pragmatic awareness is regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of

language learning and comes through experience.

Pragmatic competence is an integrated personal system of knowledge of

principles according to which messages are:

1. organized, structured and arranged in coherent messages (thematically,

logically, stylistically) –discursive competence;

2. used in oral and written form to perform a certain communicative function

– functional competence;

3. Sequenced according to interactional and transactional communicative

design (question–answer; statement agreement/disagreement;

request/offer/apology acceptance/refusal; greeting – response) – design

competence.

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LANGUAGE AND CONTEXT

What is context?

The term ‘context’ is used in many different ways. The Concise Oxford English

Dictionary gives a definition in two parts:

 The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea

i.e. the situation, events, or information that are related to something and

that help you to understand it

 The parts that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and

clarify its meaning (Soanes & Stevenson 2004).

The second part of this definition refers to a linguistic context, i.e. the parts of

language that either precede or follow a word or a passage. The first part of the

definition relates to the wider context, the ‘setting’. It is worth noticing that,

while the second part of the definition points to the impact that the linguistic

context has on the meaning of a word or a sentence, the first part the influence

that the wider context may have on the way in which an event, statement or idea

is interpreted.

Social context, therefore, may suggest no more than the societal setting in

which events occur. Social context is a major factor that drives our language

choices. Everything we learn takes place in a social context. Various social

contexts influence social interaction

The idea of context is complex since various scholars have tried to describe it

differently. Language does not occur in a vacuum since it exists in a particular

society for particular purposes. It occurs within a social context in form of

ideology, values, culture, traditions, customs etc. Important influences came

from the field of anthropology, where Malinowski (1923) introduced the terms

‘context of situation’ and ‘context of culture’.

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 Language

Context of situation context of culture

Context of situation

Meaning is dependent on the context of situation. The situation in which

linguistic interaction takes place gives the participants a great deal of

information about the meanings that are being exchanged, and the meanings that

are likely to be exchanged. Context of situation concerns with the here and now

environment i.e. the immediate environment.

Firth’s description of context of situation

Firth’s headings were as follows:

1. The PARTICIPANTS in the situation: what Firth referred to as persons

and personalities, corresponding more or less to what sociologists would

regard as the statuses and roles of the participants;

2. The ACTION of the participants: what they are doing, including both

their VERBAL ACTION and their NON-VERBAL ACTION;

3. OTHER RELEVANT FEATURES OF THE SITUATION: the surrounding

objects and events, in so far as they have some bearing on what is going

on;

4. The EFFECTS of the verbal action: what changes were brought about by

what the participants in the situation had to say?

Since the time of Firth, there have been a number of other outlines or

schemata of this kind by which linguists have set out to characterise the

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 situation of a text. The best known is probably that of the American

anthropologist Dell Hymes.

Dell Hymes and the ethnography of communication

In his work in the ethnography of communication, Dell Hymes (1967) proposed a

set of concept for describing the context of situation, which were in many ways

similar to those of Firth. He identified:

1. The form and content of the message

2. The setting- time, place (environment)

3. The participants- social relations-age, status; cultural relations-beliefs,

values, experience and artefacts.

4. The intent and effect of the communication

5. The code-language

6. The medium –channel of communication- written/spoken

7. The norms of interaction- e.g. turn taking.

FEATURES OF THE CONTEXT OF SITUATION

Context of situation can be described in terms of a simple conceptual framework

of three headings, the field, the tenor, and the mode. These concepts serve to

interpret the social context of a text, the environment in which meanings are

being exchanged.

1 The FIELD OF DISCOURSE refers to what is happening, to the nature

of the social action that is taking place: what is it that the participants

are engaged in, in which the language figures as some essential

component?

2 The TENOR OF DISCOURSE refers to who is taking part, to the

nature of the participants, their statuses and roles: what kinds of role

relationship obtain among the participants, including permanent and

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 temporary relationships of one kind or another, both the types of

speech role that they are taking on in the dialogue and the whole

cluster of socially significant relationships in which they are involved?

3 The MODE OF DISCOURSE refers to what part the language is

playing, what it is that the participants are expecting the language to

do for them in that situation: the symbolic organisation of the text,

the status that it has, and its function in the context, including the

channel (is it spoken or written or some combination of the two?) and

also the rhetorical mode, what is being achieved by the text in terms

of such categories as persuasive, expository, didactic, and the like.

Context of culture

What is culture?

We define culture as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values,

actions, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial

relations, concepts of the universe, and artefacts acquired by a group of people

in the course of generations through individual and group striving (Samovar,

Porter & Stefani 1998: 36).

This definition shows that culture is seen as something which is acquired or

learned, and passed down from one generation to the next. Culture is seen as

having to do with the material productions through which a group of people

represents itself (‘artefacts’), but the definition focuses first and foremost on

people’s knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and ways of thinking, behaving and

remembering. In linking culture to ‘a group of people’, the definition indicates

that culture is shared by the members of a particular community and that

one community is, somehow, different from another in terms of culture.

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Hofstede (1991) refers to culture as ‘the software of the mind’, i.e. the shared

rules that tell us how to behave and act within a particular group. Culture

becomes a ‘perceptual lens’ through which we see and make sense of the outside

world.

It therefore seems increasingly important to be able to see beyond one’s own

culture and to appreciate the fact that different cultures have different ways

of looking at the world.

We think of the knowledge we have i.e. we walk with. It is acquired through

reading, interacting with others. It is in our brain. Some previous knowledge can

help some one to interpret a present or current prevailing concept. It builds our

schema. Schema helps us make sense of different things, concepts, events,

actions etc.

Context of text (co-text)

Whatever occurs before and after a particular piece of discourse is referred to

as a co-text. It depends also on what someone said before or after. Discourse is

part of the large discourse of the society. Co-text is the rest of the text i.e.

every new sentence someone produces are added to the context.

The contribution of context to interpretation

Nothing occurs out of context. It is both created and creating.

 Created, in the sense that some new texts or participants are being added

to it every now and then i.e. continuously.

 Creating i.e. every time new context emerges; it gives rise to new things

for the person to say something more on top of what he/she already has

to make a new text.

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Context is cumulative and fluctuating.

 Cumulative, since it adds on itself in the already created text.

 Fluctuating, i.e. it changes as it cumulates

Expressions have their own literal meaning i.e. unchanging meaning, but the

context adds another meaning on the literal meaning hence we get

utterance/speaker meaning. Therefore, context makes the sentence meaning

clearer. It adds value to sentence meaning.

Therefore, the following are contributions of context;

1. The context helps the speaker or hearer to make sense of what he/she

has said or heard. E.g. this room is very comfortable

2. It disambiguate the expressions used or the meaning of the expression

used. For example; ‘The long drill IS boring’; meaning one: the long tool for

drilling MAKES me bored/tired, meaning two: the long training exercise

IS uninterested / dull / tedious.

3. The context tells us about what kind of sentence is being produced. It

disambiguates the expressions used/ the meaning of the expressions

used/given.

E.g. have you seen the board? Here we get more than three

sentences; hence the context will help to give the exact

meaning of the utterance.

She gave me the eye

The bank is quite far from here.

2 The context can also help to give what proposition is being

expressed in a particular time. Proposition refers to all what we

have in the mind before we express them out. They are not

abstract but they can be true or not depending on the situation

context e.g. He lives here, The wedding is tomorrow

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 3 Context makes clear what a presupposition is being expressed. E.g.

did you see the baby fall from the roof?, Why were you over

speeding?

4 Context makes clear what inferences are being made. Inferences

are connections/ meanings which arise and place things in

juxtaposition. E.g. she leaped through the book with little interest,

Half the pages were torn, It was a huge hall, The chairs were of

velvet.

5 Context expresses what implicature is being performed.

Implicature refers to an additional meaning which is not expressed

explicitly by the speaker (s), for example;

A what’s the score?

B I’ve only just arrived. This means I don’t know what the score is.

A is John a good philosopher?

B he can type/ he types very well. It means John is not a

philosopher.

Language as a form of social behaviour/practice

Fairclough (1988) Language and Power

We have to consider language as a form of social practice in three aspects.

1 Language is part of society. There are no societies without language.

Language comes to existence when users agree on the symbols to be

used and the rules to be observed. The agreement between the

symbols and the rules is demonstrated through language use. Language

therefore exists by “virtue of a social rather than a logical or

empirical constraint”

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 Every time members use language by socially determined conventions

agreed in the society. Conventionality is one part of language

properties i.e. the linguistic signs used should be agreed upon.

E.g. in the family the language used depends on the social

relationship existing amongst them e.g. in Swahili society, the

child greets the elders first.

2 languages is a social process i.e. it’s an ongoing, dynamic, fluctuating and

the society does it or make it. The understanding on the side of

addressees achieves. The rules governing a language are made and used by

the language users. These rules are sometimes changed or dropped out by

the language users. New words are formed and included in the language

system but at times other words fall into disuse. Language users can

sometimes borrow words from other language(s)

3 languages is a socially determined process i.e. it’s conditioned by other

non-linguistic phenomena. People say particular things because of whom,

why and what they want to achieve or because of the particular position

they have in the society.

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SENTENCE MEANING AND SPEAKER MEANING

Sentence meaning is what a sentence means, regardless of the context and

situation in which it may be used. Is the meaning of grammatical categories of

each element in the sentence, e.g. ‘a dog bites a man’ and ‘a man bites a dog’

This part covers the following; (i) proposition, utterance and sentence, (ii)

sentence types, (iii) paraphrase, and (iv) entailment.

Proposition, utterance and sentence

Proposition refers to all what we have in the mind before we express them out.

They are not abstract but they can be true or not depending on the situation

context. For example, the following pair of sentences expresses the same

proposition; Alex took out the garbage; Alex took the garbage out. Another

example, the following pair of sentences expresses different proposition; Eliza

loves Tony; Tony loves Eliza.

A sentence is a group of words expressing a ‘single complete’ thought. In order

for the expression to be complete it requires two things: the subject and the

predicate. A sentence can generally be defined as a grammatical unit that is

composed of one or more clauses or it is a set of words that is complete in itself

and conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and/or consisting

of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses. There are

three principles of sentence construction namely, unity, coherence and emphasis.

The distinction between a proposition and a sentence is that propositions, unlike

sentence, cannot be said to belong to any particular language while sentences

belong to a particular language. Hence, sentences in different languages can

correspond to the same proposition. For example, aheri (Luo), Ti amo (Italian),

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Ndagukunda (Kirundi), Amo te (Old Spanish) and Nakupenda (Kiswahili)

correspond to the same proposition “I love you”.

Utterance does not have a precise linguistic definition. An utterance is a natural

unit of speech generally bounded by breaths or pauses. It is a complete unit of

talk, bounded by the speaker’s silence. An utterance is also referred to as

speaker meaning or contextual meaning. Generally, an utterance refers to the

meaning of a sentence with reference to the context and intonation.

In dialogue, each turn by a speaker may be considered an utterance. Linguists

sometimes use utterance to simply refer to a unit of speech under study. The

corresponding unit in written language is text.

An utterance can be represented and delineated in written language in many

ways. Note that utterances do not exist in written language, only their

representation do.

A sentence is not an utterance because a sentence is an abstract theoretical

entity defined within a theory of grammar while utterance is the assurance of a

sentence.

Sentence types

Sentences are categorized based on three factors.

1. Structural approach, with this approach there are four types of

sentences which are simple sentence (Maranatha is very kind), compound

sentence (Zilpa is cooking and Maulid is writing ), complex sentence

(Muganda has passed the exams because he read very effectively ) and

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 compound-complex sentence (if I could live my life over, I would like to

investigate on Bantu languages, or I would become an English teacher )

2. Functional approach i.e. categorizing sentences based on the function it

plays in the construction. There are four types of sentences in this

approach. 1. Declarative sentence ( Massawe is a very nice guy ) 2.

Interrogative sentence (Is time the thief of youth?) 3. Imperative

sentence (Get out) and 4. Exclamatory sentence ( The monster is

attacking!)

3. Semantic approach (Truth value). In this approach sentences are

categorized in to three types i.e. Analytic, Contradictory and synthetic

sentences. Analytic sentence is a type of sentence that is necessarily

TRUE, as a result of the senses of the words in it. For example ‘all

elephants are animals’, contradictory sentence is a type of sentence that

is necessarily FALSE because of the senses of the words in it, thus, a

contradictory sentence is the opposite of analytic sentence. For example

‘this animal is a vegetable’ or ‘Sam is older than himself’. Synthetic

sentence is the ONE which is NOT analytic (or contradictory), but it may

either be true of false, depending on the way the world is. For example

‘John is from Arusha’ or ‘Sam’s wife is from German’.

Paraphrase

This word originated from Greek, meaning literally “equivalent sentence”.

Paraphrase is the “restatement of the sense of a passage in other words”. A

sentence which expresses the same proposition as another sentence is a

paraphrase of that sentence. Consider the following two sentences; the girl

kissed the boy/the boy was kissed by the girl

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Possible ways to paraphrase a sentence; (i) change individual words by using

synonyms as in dogs drink milk/dogs consume milk, or using relational

antonyms (also called converses) an in I lent that book to Jim/Jim borrowed

that book from me. (ii) Change sentence structure as in Cats DRINK

cream/Cream IS DRUNK by cats and (iii) Change both individual words and

sentence structure as in Cats DRINK cream/The liquid fat of milk IS DRUNK

by domestic felines.

Entailment

Yule (1996) defines entailment as something that logically follows from what

is asserted in the utterance. He adds that sentences have entailment and not

speakers. Entailment is not a pragmatic concept that has to do with speaker’s

meaning but instead is considered a purely logical concept. Goddard (1998)

said, “entailment is a relationship that applied between two sentence, where

the truth of one sentence implies the truth of another because of the

meanings of the words involved”. Peccei (1999) also adds that entailments are

inferences that can be drawn solely from our knowledge about the semantic

relationships in a language. This knowledge allows us to communicate much

more than we actually say. There are two types of entailments, 1. One-way

entailment as in ‘Elizabeth saw a lion’ this sentence entails that ‘Elizabeth

saw an animal’ however, a sentence ‘Elizabeth saw an animal’ does not

necessary entails that ‘Elizabeth saw a lion’ since there are many animals. 2.

Two-way entailment as in ‘Frank bought a car from Bernard’ this sentence

entails that ‘Bernard purchased a car to frank’. Both two entailments

correspond to each other or the truth of one sentence guarantees the truth

of the other.

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INTERPRETING DISCOURSE

THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

Interlocutors obey certain principles so as to sustain the conversation. One such

principle is the Co-operative Principle .This principle assumes that interactants

cooperate in the conversation by contributing to the ongoing speech event.

Speakers shape their utterances to be understood by hearer. The Co-operative

Principle describes how people interact with one another. Hence, people who

obey the Co-operative Principle in their language use will make sure that what

they say in a conversation broadens the purpose of that conversation.

The Co-operative Principle

Pragmaticians are keen on exploring why interlocutors can successfully converse

with one another in a conversation. A basic idea is that interlocutors obey

certain principles in their participation so as to sustain the conversation. One

such principle is the Cooperative Principle which assumes that interactants

cooperate in the conversation by contributing to the ongoing speech event

(Grice,1975). That is speakers and hearers share a cooperative principle.

Speakers shape their utterances to be understood by hearers. The Cooperative

Principle describes how people interact with one another. People who obey the

Cooperative Principle in their language use will make sure that what they say in a

conversation furthers the purpose of that conversation. The cooperative

principle goes both ways: speakers (generally) observe the cooperative principle,

and listeners assume that speakers are obeying it.

A basic underlying assumption we make when we speak to one another is that we

are trying to cooperate with one another to construct meaningful conversations.

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This assumption is known as the cooperative principle. As stated in H. P. Grice’s

“Logic and Conversation” (1975):

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.

In other words, we as speakers try to contribute meaningful, productive

utterances to further the conversation. It then follows that, as listeners, we

assume that our conversational partners are doing the same. You can think of

reasons why someone might be uncooperative in conversation but in the vast

majority of conversation, it’s safe to assume that both participants are trying to

be cooperative. Rather than assuming that our conversational partner is lying,

crazy or speaking at random, we assume they are trying to get across some

meaning and we can figure out what that meaning is.

The Cooperative Principle can be divided into four maxims, called the Gricean

maxims, describing specific rational principles observed by people who obey the

cooperative principle; these principles enable effective communication. Grice

analyses cooperation as involving four maxims: quantity, quality, relation and

manner.

The Maxims of Conversation

Grice came up with the following maxims of conversation. A maxim is kind of like

a rule of thumb. According to Grice, the CP is implemented in the plans of

speakers and understanding of hearers by following ‘maxims:’

1 quantity:

 Make your contribution as informative as required i.e. don’t say too

much or too little.

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  Make the strongest statement you can.

2 quality:

 Do not say what you believe to be false

 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. i.e. speakers

are expected to be sincere, to be saying something that they

believe corresponds to reality. They are assumed not to say

anything that they believe to be false or anything for which they

lack evidence.

3 relation:

 Be relevant. i.e. stay on topic. Here speakers are assumed to be

saying something that is relevant to what has been said before.

4 manner:

 Avoid obscurity of expression

 Avoid ambiguity.

 Be brief

 Be orderly i.e. people should be brief and orderly, and avoid

obscurity and ambiguity.

For example:

The least interesting case is when a speaker observes all the maxims

as in the following example:

Husband: where are the car keys?

Wife: they’re on the table in the hall.

The wife has answered clearly (manner) truthfully (quality), has given just the

right amount of information (quantity) and has directly addressed her husband’s

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goal in asking the question (relation). There is no additional level of meaning

here.

Grice said that hearers assume that speakers observe the cooperative principle

and that it is the knowledge of the four maxims that allows hearers to draw

inferences about the speakers’ intentions and implied meaning.

The fact that Grice expressed the CP in the imperative mood has led some

casual readers of his work to believe that Grice was telling speakers how they

ought to behave. What he was actually doing was suggesting that in

conversational interaction people work on the assumption that a certain set of

rules is in operation, unless they receive indications to the contrary. However,

there will be times when we may suspend our assumption that our interlocutor is

operating according to the same conversational norms as we are: we may be

talking to a young child who has yet to acquire our community’s conversational

norms, to a drunk, to someone in pain or distress. Or we may be talking to a

person whom we have reason to think may have different conversational norms

from our own (a member of a different cultural or linguistic community).

Non-observance of maxims

Grice noted that there are very many occasions when people fail to observe the

maxims. There are five ways of failing to observe a maxim:

 Flouting a maxim

 Violating a maxim

 Infringing a maxim

 Opting out of a maxim

 Suspending a maxim

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People may fail to observe a maxim because they are incapable of speaking

clearly, or because they deliberately choose to lie. However, the most important

category for our study is the one which generates an implicature (flouting).

Flouting the maxims

Oxford advanced learners dictionary (1999) (5th edition) defines the term ‘flout’

as the act of showing disrespect to something by openly refusing to obey it. So,

flouting the maxims is to violate the rules of the maxims by talking without

obeying them. According to Thomas, J (1995) a flout occurs when a speaker

blatantly fails to observe a maxim at the level of what is said, with the

deliberate intention of generating an implicature. That is the speaker wishes to

prompt the hearer to look for a meaning which is different from, or in addition

to, the expressed meaning.

Cutting (2000) argues that when speakers appear not to follow the maxims but

expect hearers to appreciate the meaning implied, we say they are ‘flouting’ the

maxims. The flout occurs when the speaker obviously fails to observe the

maxims at that point of interaction with the intention of generating an

implicature i.e. any thing implied, suggested or meant distinct from what is

actually said. Thus, we might prefer not to say to a shop assistant, as we hand

back a dress, ‘this looks awful’ or ‘I don’t want it after all’, but rather say, ‘I’ll

go away and think about it and may be come back later’. Here, we know that

she knows that we have no intention of returning. When flouting a maxim, the

speaker assumes that the hearer knows that their words should not be taken at

face value and that they can infer the implicit meaning.

1 Flouting quantity maxim: The speakers who flout the maxim of

quantity seem to give too little or too much information.

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 E.g. when a person asks her boyfriend about her appearance, her

friend might flout the maxim in responding to the question in a

different way as follows:

 Jack: well, John, how do I look now?

 John: your shoes are nice…

John does not say that the other parts of Jack’s body do not look nice,

but he knows that Jack will understand that implication, because Jack

asks about her whole appearance and only gets told about part of it.

2 Flouting maxim of quality: the speaker flouting this maxim may do it

quite simply by saying something that obviously does not represent

what they think as in the following example:

 Elizabeth: a lot of people are depending on you

 Meredith: thanks, that really takes the pressure off.

Knowing that ‘a lot of people are depending on you’ does not, in fact,

take the pressure off. Meredith is saying something obviously untrue.

By saying something clearly untrue, Meredith is implying that the

opposite is true (sarcasm). The true meaning being expressed here is

probably more like ‘that really puts a lot of pressure on me’ and

perhaps, by extension, ‘stop pressuring me’.

3 Flouting the maxim of relation: if the speakers flout the maxim of

relation, they expect that the hearers will be able to imagine what the

utterance did not say and make the connection between their

utterance and the preceding one(s). For instance, Jane and her friend

Bill visit Jane’s boyfriend at his room. And then when they leave Bill

asks Jane about her boyfriend’s kindness.

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  Jane: so what do you think of Mark?

 Bill: his flat mates are so kind and generous .

Bill does not say that she was not very much impressed with Mark, but

by not mentioning him in the reply and apparently saying something

irrelevant, she implies it.

4 Flouting the maxim of manner: those who flout this maxim are

appearing to be obscure, often trying to exclude a third party, as in

this sort of exchange between husband and wife.

 Wife: where are you off to?

 Husband: I was thinking of going out to get some of that

funny white stuff for somebody.

 Wife: ok, but don’t be long-dinner is nearly ready.

Husband speaks in an ambiguous way, saying ‘that funny white stuff’ and

‘somebody’, because he is avoiding saying ‘ice-cream’ and mentioning her

daughter’s name, so that his little daughter does not become excited and

ask for the ice-cream before her meal.

Problems with the CP (Criticisms of the maxims)

There are some problems (objections) or limitations that people have come up

with as criticisms to Grice’s model as exemplified below:

 It is not clear whether the maxims work in other languages and cultures.

It seems that different cultures, countries, communities have their own

ways of observing and expressing maxims for particular situations. For

instance in the United States, the question ‘ how are you?’ expects the

answer ‘fine’; any interlocutor that launches into a full description of their

state of health would again be thought to be violating the maxim of

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 quantity. On the other hand, in other cultures like the Maasai and many

Bantu communities in East Africa, ‘how are you?’ is a genuine request after

the state of health and expects a full report.

 There is some overlap, so, it is not always clear-cut which maxim is being

violated. It would be more precise to say that there are two or more

operating at once. For instance: when someone asks about the food his

friend has eaten.

A: what did you eat today?

B: oh, something like chicken massala .

Here, B is flouting the maxim of quality by saying that his food was

pretending to be something, and thus implying that it was not ‘chicken

massala’. However, it could also be said that he is flouting the maxim of

manner because he does not say exactly what the ‘something’ was, or

looked like it was. Then again, he could also be flouting the maxim of

quantity because he does not give enough information to identify what he

ate.

 They are not a complete listing of the rules we follow in conversations: for

example, there are also rules about say, politeness, which are not

addressed. In some cultures, countries or communities, what is considered

as flouting of the maxims seems to be the most appropriate and polite

way of talking about certain issues with regard to the context. For

instance when someone says, ‘I’m going to wash my hands’ meaning ‘I’m

going to urinate’.

 Some key concepts are undefined. A lot of intuition must be used to

figure out. For example, when a speaker is being irrelevant.

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UTTERANCE MEANING

Is what a speaker means when he makes an utterance in a particular situation.

The following parts are included: Implicatures and Presuppositions.

IMPLICATURES

Implicatures arise as a result of flouting the maxims. When flouting a maxim,

the speaker assumes that the hearer knows that their words should not be

taken at face value and that they can infer the implicit meaning.

The term ‘implicature’ therefore is used by Grice (1975) to account for what a

speaker can imply, suggest or mean as distinct from what the speaker literally

says. That is, an implicature is something meant, implied or suggested distinct

from what is said. Implicatures can be part of sentence meaning or dependent on

conversational context and can be conventional or unconventional.

Types of implicatures

Grice distinguished two different sorts of implicature:

 Conventional implicature

 Conversational implicature

They have in common the property that they both convey an additional level of

meaning, beyond the semantic meaning of the words uttered. They differ in that

in the case of conventional implicature the same implicature is always conveyed,

regardless of context, whereas in the case of conversational implicature, what is

implied varies according to the context of utterance.

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Conventional implicature

Conventional implicatures are determined by the conventional meaning of the

words used. These are tied to the particular meaning and the same implicature is

applied always, thus, they are found to be uninteresting i.e. the same implicature

arise every time it is used. The conventional implicatures are not based on the

cooperative principle or the maxims. They do not have to occur in conversation,

and they do not depend on special contexts for their interpretation. There are

comparatively few examples of conventional implicatures; Levinson (1983:127)

lists four: but, even, therefore and yet, and some uses of for. The word but

for example carries the implicature that what follows will run counter to

expectations and this sense of the word but always carries this implicature,

regardless of the context in which it occurs.

In the following example, the speaker does not directly assert that one property

(being brave) follows from another property (being an Englishman), but the form

of expression used conventionally implicates that such a relation does hold:

E.g. he is an Englishman, he is, therefore, brave

His being an Englishman implies that he is brave.

James is learning history, he is therefore good with dates .

Conversational implicature

Conversational implicature is derived from a general principle of conversation

plus a number of maxims which speakers will normally obey. It involves also the

background knowledge of the interactants. Meanings are created by the

speakers and hearers which come from their cultural background of the concept

they discuss. The hearer is able to build up implicature as he/she assumes that

the speaker is helpful in the conversation.

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Even though the speaker might have flouted the maxim but she still knows that

she wants to get the meaning of the implicature. Flouting of maxim is done in

order to produce a particular effect such as emphasis, rudeness, sense of

importance of a particular event, sarcasm, lack of commitment.

E.g. A:what is the time?

I’ve forgotten my watch.

Types of conversational implicature

1 Generalized implicature- they don’t need any special background

knowledge of the context of utterance is required in order to make the

necessary inferences. One common example in English involves any phrase

with an indefinite article of the type ‘a/an X.

E.g. I was sitting in a garden one day. A child looked over the fence.

Here the garden and the child mentioned are not the speaker’s

Others are those which use expressions of quantity such as all, most,

many, some, few, always, often, sometimes.

e.g. Some athletes smoke

I’ve done some of the work

2 Particularized implicatures are the most common. It is speakers who

communicate/generate the meaning of the implicatures. He makes

assumption on the knowledge of the hearer on the communicated

information (what the hearers know). The hearer makes inference of

the implicatures. The sender correct state of knowledge about the

hearers should be correctly estimated.

e.g. Alan: are you going to Paul’s party?

Leila: I have to work

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 Leila meant that she is not going to Paul’s party. But the sentence she

uttered does not mean that she is not going to Paul’s party. Hence Leila

did not say that she is not going, she implied it. Thus, Leila ‘implicated’

that she is not going; that she is not going was her ‘implicature’.

Implicating is what Searle called an indirect speech act. Leila performed

one speech act by performing another.

Properties/characteristics of conversational implicatures

Grice attributes the following properties to conversational implicatures, which

differentiate it from conventional implicature as follows:

 Conversational implicature is calculable, that is capable of being worked

out on the basis of the linguistically coded content of the utterance, the

cooperative principle and its maxims, the linguistic and non-linguistic

context of the utterance, background knowledge, the assumption that all

these factors are available to both participants of the exchange and they

are both aware of this. So, as Thomas (1995) says that the implicature

conveyed in one particular context is not random, it is possible to spell out

the steps a hearer goes through in order to calculate the intended

implicature.

For instance:

Asha: you really love me?

Musa: I like wheels and college football and things

that go real fast.

Musa is changing the topic and therefore violating the maxim of relation.

The implication which arise here is either Musa does not want to respond

to Asha or the answer is ‘no’.

 Conversational implicature is non detachable from the utterance by a

replacement of the words used with synonyms. That is expressions with

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 the same linguistically coded content generate identical conversational

implicatures when produced in the same context: for instance: someone’s

cats are on the large size. If a visitor looks at one of them and said

‘underfed, isn’t he? Implying that the animal was fat, this would not

change even if he used a different adjective as skinny/delicate/light-on-

feet/slim line, isn’t he? All carry the implicature that the cat is fat. The

example adopted from Thomas, J (1995).

 Conversational implicature is cancellable. That is, it can be annulled at

certain contexts without this giving rise to a contradiction.

For instance: here in the examples below, B’s implicature is annulled

A: Smith does not seem to have a girlfriend these days

B: he has been paying a lot of visits to Mwanza lately, but I do

not think he has a girlfriend there, either.

 Conversational implicature is non conventional

 Conversational implicature is not carried by what is said, but by the saying

of it

 Conversational implicature may be indeterminate. i.e. not fixed or exact;

vague. What is implied varies according to the context of utterance while

in case of conventional implicature the same implicature is always

conveyed regardless of context.

Presupposition

Presupposition is defined in terms of assumptions the speaker makes about what

the hearer is likely to accept without challenge (Given, 1979a:50).

A presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to

making an utterance. Speakers, not sentences, have presuppositions. Speakers

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often make implicit assumptions about real world and the sense of an utterance

may depend on those assumptions, which some linguists term presuppositions.

Presuppositions are what are taken by the speaker to be the common ground of

the participants in the conversation.

Examples:

(a) my uncle is coming home from Canada

(b) my uncle isn’t coming home from Canada

(c) I have an uncle.

Here, we can say that (2a) logically presupposes (2c) because of constancy under

negation. I.e. they are not cancelled by the negation of the sentence.

(a) my telephone is new

(b) my telephone is not new

(c) The presuppose is still implied that I have a telephone.

Another example:

(a) Mary’s brother bought three horses.

In producing the utterance in (a), the speaker will normally be expected to have

the presuppositions that a person called Mary exists and that she has a brother.

The speaker may also hold the more specific presuppositions that Mary has only

one brother and that he has a lot of money. All of these presuppositions are the

speakers and all of them can be wrong in fact.

Presuppositions are not stated but are just assumed by the speaker. Hearers

assume that speaker’s presuppositions are to be accepted i.e. they should be

taken for granted without questioning.

Types of presupposition

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1. Existential presupposition: its meaning is partly expressed by possessive

construction. E.g. your car=you have a car. It is also assumed to be present

more generally in any definite noun phrase.

E.g. the king of Sweden, the cat, the girl next door, the counting crows

By using any of the expressions in examples above, the speaker is assumed to

be committed to the existence of the entities named.

2. factive presupposition: these are presuppositions which are associated with

certain verbs like know, regret, realize as well as phrases involving ‘be’ with

‘aware’, ‘odd’ and ‘glad’. All these have factive presuppositions.

Examples:

(a) she didn’t realize he was ill –(he was ill)

(b) we regret telling him-(we told him)

(c) I wasn’t aware that she was married- (she was married)

(d) It isn’t odd that he left early-(he left early)

(e) I’m glad that it’s over-(it’s over)

3 Lexical presupposition: here, the use of one form with its asserted

meaning is conventionally interpreted with the presupposition that

another (non-asserted) meaning is understood. Each time you say that

someone ‘managed’ to do something, the asserted meaning is that the

person succeeded in some way. When you say that someone ‘didn’t

manage’, the asserted meaning is that the person did not succeed. In

both cases, however, there is a presupposition (non-asserted) that the

person ‘tried’ to do that something. So, ‘managed’ is conventionally

interpreted as asserting ‘succeeded’ and presupposing ‘tried’. Other

examples, involving the lexical items, ‘stop’, ‘start’ and ‘again’ are

presented with their presuppositions:

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 e.g. (a) he stopped smoking (he used to smoke)

(b) They started complaining (they weren’t complaining before)

(c) You’re late again (you were late before)

In the case of lexical presupposition, the speaker’s use of a particular

expression is taken to presuppose another (unstated) concept, whereas in

the case of a factive presupposition, the use of a particular expression is

taken to presuppose the truth of the information that is stated after it.

4 a non-factive presupposition: is one that is assumed not to be true. Verbs

like ‘dream’, ‘imagine’ and ‘pretend’ are used with the presupposition that

what follows is not true.

E.g. I dreamed that I was rich. (I was not rich)

We imagined we were in Hawaii (we were not in Hawaii)

He pretends to be ill. (He is not ill)

Schema Theory

Linguists, cognitive psychologists, and psycholinguists have used the concept of

schema (plural: schemata) to understand the interaction of key factors

affecting the comprehension process.

These are similar to other processing strategies which have different labels-

scripts, frames etc. they are categorical rules, higher-level knowledge

structures or mental representations which are stored in long-term memory.

Schemata are based on past experience and background knowledge. Andersen

refers to schemata as ‘ideational scaffolding’ which can be used to organise and

interpret experience. Thus, there are schemata both for events, processes,

states and also for discourse e.g. restaurants, hospitals, bedrooms, tea, vs

greetings, cocktail, chat, interview, service encounter, police interrogation, etc.

35
Simply put, schema theory states that all knowledge is organized into units.

Within these units of knowledge, or schemata, is stored information.

All human beings possess categorical rules or scripts that they use to interpret

the world. New information is processed according to how it fits into these

rules, called schema. These schemas can be used not only to interpret but also

to predict situation occurring in our environment. Think, for example, of a

situation where you were able to finish another person’s thoughts, or when

someone asked you to pass that "thingamabob." Schema Theorists suggest that

you used your schema to predict what you conversation partner was going to say

and to correctly interpret "thingamabob" as the hammer needed to nail

something into the wall.

A schema, then, is a generalized description or a conceptual system for

understanding knowledge-how knowledge is represented and how it is used.

According to this theory, schemata represent knowledge about concepts:

objects and the relationships they have with other objects, situations, events,

sequences of events, actions, and sequences of actions. A simple example is to

think of your schema for dog.

Within that schema you most likely have knowledge about dogs in general (bark,

four legs, teeth, hair, tails) and probably information about specific dogs, such

as collies (long hair, large, Lassie) or springer spaniels (English, docked tails,

liver and white or black and white, Millie). You may also think of dogs within the

greater context of animals and other living things; that is, dogs breathe, need

food, and reproduce. Your knowledge of dogs might also include the fact that

they are mammals and thus are warm-blooded and bear their young as opposed

to laying eggs. Depending upon your personal experience, the knowledge of a dog

36
as a pet (domesticated and loyal) or as an animal to fear (likely to bite or attack)

may be a part of your schema. And so it goes with the development of a schema.

Each new experience incorporates more information into one's schema.

Individuals have schemata for everything. Long before students come to school,

they develop schemata (units of knowledge) about everything they experience.

Schemata become theories about reality. These theories not only affect the way

information is interpreted, thus affecting comprehension, but also continue to

change as new information is received. As stated by Rumelhart (1980), schemata

can represent knowledge at all levels-from ideologies and cultural truths to

knowledge about the meaning of a particular word, to knowledge about what

patterns of excitations are associated with what letters of the alphabet. We

have schemata to represent all levels of our experience, at all levels of

abstraction. Finally, our schemata are our knowledge. All of our generic

knowledge is embedded in schemata. (p. 41)

Information that does not fit into these schemas may not be comprehended, or

may not be comprehended correctly. This is the reason why readers have a

difficult time comprehending a text on a subject they are not familiar with even

if the person comprehends the meaning of the individual words in the passage.

If the waiter in a restaurant, for example, asked you if you would prefer to sing,

you may have a difficult time interpreting what he was asking and why, since

singing is not something that patrons in a restaurant normally do. However, if

you had been to the restaurant in the past and knew that it was frequented by

opera students who liked to entertain the clouds; you would have incorporated

that information into your schema and not be confused when the waiter asked if

you’d prefer to sing.

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So, the assumption is that things become comprehensible only when we can

relate them to existing knowledge structures. Every input is mapped against

existing schemata.

Two types of processing are assumed taking place at the same time:

(a) bottom-up: this is evoked by incoming data- hence ‘data-driven’

Features of the data enter the system through the best fitting bottom level.

These converge into higher level ones which are in turn activated.

Examples:

They converged on the stadium in small groups. Some walked; some came in cars,

some on their bikes. By the time the sun was up, there no space to put one’s

umbrella, let alone to stand.

The heat was intense. The hearse moved slowly along the crowded street. The

mourners walked behind, dressed in black in black, some carrying flowers in

their hands, others clutching small bibles…

(b) top-down: ‘conceptually-driven’. The system searches the input for

confirmation of predictions made on the basis of higher-order, general

schemata. Something in the text triggers something in memory, activating a

schema, whose confirmation is then sought in the text. The two types are

different, and experiments have been conducted in which they are separated

and tested differently.

The learner in schema theory actively builds schema and revises them in light on

new information. Each individual’s schema is unique and depended on that

individual’s experiences and cognitive processes.

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Knowledge in Schema Theory, In fact, it is meaning-driven and probably

represented propositionally, and these networks of propositions are actively

constructed by the learner. For example, when we are asked to recall a story

that we were told, we are able to reconstruct the meaning of the story, but

usually not the exact sentences– or even often the exact order– that we told.

We have remembered the story by actively constructing a meaningful

representation of the story in our memory.

Most schema theorists postulate that there is not just one body of knowledge

available to learners at any given stage of development, but rather a network on

context-specific bodies of knowledge that learners apply to specific situations.

For instance, in the example above where someone asks for a "thingamabob", the

listener would need to have a "hammering" schema to correctly infer that is

what is needed.

Situation-specific schema help to explain the difference between expert and

novice interpretation of knowledge; experts, with more complex developed

schema in a particular subject area can function better in any given domain than

a novice with no schema or an inadequate schema to help them interpret and

react to new information. Since these schemas are context specific, they are

dependent on an individual’s experience with and exposure to a subject area

rather than simply "raw intelligence.

Schemata and culture

Another implication of schema theory is the recognition of the role that culture

and experience play in creating an individual’s knowledge. Different cultural

backgrounds can result in different schemata. Educators must pay attention to

the cultural references in the material we present to our students and avoid

39
potential cultural-biases. For example, students who have not grown up in

American culture may be at a disadvantage when asked to read and answer

questions about George Washington on a standardized assessment test because,

unlike American students, they have no pre existing George Washington schema

that they can activate that will help them process the information they are

reading more effectively. In addition, personal histories, interests, even sex,

play a role. All these make people ‘see’ messages in certain ways and not others.

The way that learners acquire knowledge under schema theory takes place

through three different reactions that a learner can have to new information:

(accretation) accretion, tuning, and restructuring.

 In (accretation) accretion, learners take the new input and assimilate it

into their existing schema without making any changes to the overall

schema.

 Tuning is when learners realize that their existing schema is inadequate

for the new knowledge and modify their existing schema accordingly.

 Restructuring is the process of creating a new schema addressing the

inconsistencies between the old schema and the newly acquired

information.

The processes of accretation, tuning, and restructuring occur over multiple

domains in a continuous time frame.

Characteristics of a particular schema

 A schema is a basis storage devise

 A schema has a network structure

 The degree of connectivity among the schema’s components determines

its strength and accessibility.

 A schema is a flexible size; they may be large or small.

 Schemas may embed and overlap

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ETHNOGRAPHY OF COMMUNICATION

What is ethnography of communication?

Ethnography is a branch of anthropology (the scientific study of people, their

societies, and cultures). It is the study of the place of language in culture and

society. It studies language in relation to the social and cultural variables which

influence communication. Formal analyses in the EOC focus on supra-sentential

elements: speech situations, the forms of speech events, the interrelations of

speaker, addressee, audience, topic, channel and setting, and the ways in which

the speakers draw upon the resources of their language to perform certain

functions. This functional study is conceived as complementary with the study of

linguistic structure.

It is a methodological strategy used to provide descriptions of human societies,

which as a methodology does not prescribe any particular method (e.g.

observation, interview, questionnaires), but instead prescribes the nature of the

study (i.e. to describe people through writing). In the biological sciences, this

type of study might be called a “field study” or a “case report”, both of which

are used as common synonyms for “ethnography”. Common methods used in

ethnography include: observation, interviews and questionnaire.

The ethnography of communication (EOC) is a method of discourse analysis in

linguistics, which draws on the anthropological field of ethnography.

Ethnography of communication conceptualizes communication as a continuous

flow of information, rather than as a segmented exchange of messages.

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According to Deborah Cameron (2001), EOC can be thought of as the application

of ethnographic methods to the communication patterns of a group. Littlejohn &

Foss (2005) recall that Dell Hymes suggests that “cultures communicate in

different ways, but all forms of communication require a shared code,

communicators who know and use the code, a channel, a setting, a message form,

a topic, and an event created by transmission of the message”.

EOC can be used as a means by which to study the interactions among members

of a specific culture or, what Gerry Philipsen (1975) calls a “speech community”.

Speech communities create and establish their own speaking codes/norms.

Philipsen (1975) explains that “each community has its own cultural values about

speaking and these linked to judgments of situational appropriateness”. The

meaning and understanding of the presence or absence of speech within

different communities will vary. Local cultural patterns and norms must be

understood for analysis and interpretation of the appropriateness of speech

acts situated within specific communities. Thus, “the statement that talk is not

anywhere valued equally in all social contexts suggests a research strategy for

discovering and describing cultural or sub cultural differences in the value of

speaking. Speaking is one among other symbolic resources which are allocated

and distributed in social situations according to distinctive culture patterns.

Dell Hymes founded the Ethnography of Speaking (EOS) to fill a gap in research

between anthropology and linguistics (Saville-Troike, 1989). Addressing what he

sees as a commonly held assumption that speech is more homogeneous than

heterogeneous, Hymes (1968) argues: “The speech of a group constitutes a

system,” “speech and language vary cross-culturally in function,” and “the speech

activity of a community is the primary object of attention” (p. 132). In other

words, speech “does” things in diverse, pervasive ways. EOS—later named the

42
Ethnography of Communication (EOC), in part, to incorporate non-linguistic

cultural phenomena—is a “comparative study of the patterning and functions of

speech” (Hymes, 1968, p. 133) that allows scholars to explore and descriptively

analyze “situations and uses, the patterns and functions, of speaking in its own

right” (p.101).

Finally, EOC is an emic-based research (Pike, 1967) process that entails a middle

ground between “rigid linearity and deliberate nonlinearity in research design”

(Philipsen, 1977, p 45) and serves as a cyclical heuristic approach through which

to develop interpersonal communication theory (Carbaugh & Hastings, 1992).

In language teaching the concept of ethnography of communication has provided

impetus to communicative language teaching, especially through the notion of

communicative competence.

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Defining communicative competence

What is competence?

A competence is a knowing-how that includes skills and knowledge, it is complex

and refers to cognitive, emotional, social and psychomotor skills, and it is

specific to a range of situations

DeSeCo defines competence as a ‘system of internal mental structures and

abilities assuming mobilization of knowledge, cognitive skills, practical skills, and

also social and behavioural components such as attitudes, emotions, values and

ethics, motivations for successful realization of activity in a particular context’.

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According to U.S. Department of Education, a competence is defined as the

“combination of skills, abilities and knowledge needed to perform a specific task”

(Jones et al., 2001:7 cited in Newton, 2009).

Lobanova and Shunin (2008) define competence as a complex system of abilities,

encompassing cognitive skills, attitudes and other non-cognitive components.

This study adopts a broader definition which defines competence as a

combination of social, cognitive, attitudinal and communicative skills (Wong,

2007).

What is Communicative Competence?

Communicative competence is defined as the ability to interpret and enact

appropriate social behaviours and it requires the active involvement of the

learner in the production of the target language (Canale and Swain, 1980; Celce-

Murcia et al. 1995; Hymes 1972).

In this study H.G. Widdowson’s definition of communicative competence is used:

“communicative competence is a set of strategies or creative procedures for

realizing the value of linguistic elements in contexts of use, an ability of make

sense as a participant in discourse, whether spoken or written, by the skilful

deployment of shared knowledge of code resources and rules of language use”

(Widdowson, 1979, p. 240).

Lobanova and Shunin (2008) define communicative competence as the ability not

only to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to form grammatically

correct sentences but also to know when and where to use these sentences and

to whom. Communicative competence is the ability to use language to convey and

interpret meaning (Griffiths, 2004). Communicative competence is also defined

44
as the ability to put language for communicative purposes (Widdowson, 1989

cited in Erton, 2007).

H.G. Widdowson (1989:135), about the communicative competence wrote, “

communicative competence is not a matter of knowing rules for the composition

of sentences and being able to employ such rules to assemble expressions from

scratch as and when occasion requires. It is much more a matter of knowing a

stock of partially pre-assembled patterns, formulaic frameworks, and a kit of

rules, so to speak, and being able to apply the rules to make whatever

adjustments are necessary according to contextual demands. Communicative

competence in this view is essentially a matter of adaptation, and rules are not

generative but regulative and subservient.” Thus, as Widdowson said,

communicative competence is the ability to put language for communicative

purposes. The communicative competence considers language as a tool used for

communication. This competence not only aims to focus on the development of

four language skills, but also depends on the correlation between the skills. By

doing so, the language learner will learn how to convey the right message to the

audience.

Hymes (1972) points out that Chomsky’s competence/performance model does

not provide an explicit place for sociocultural features. He also points out that

Chomsky’s notion of performance seems confused between actual performance

and underlying rules of performance.

Thus communicative competence encompasses a wide range of abilities, which

includes:

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  grammatical competence (basic lexis, semantics, morphology, syntax,

phonology and orthography),or (linguistic competence) the knowledge of

grammar and vocabulary

 pragmatic competence (contextual lexis, language functionality, unity and

continuity of communication),

 Discourse competence (language exposure and the unity of text and

situation), i.e. the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and end a

conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent

manner.

 sociolinguistic competence (understanding of other cultures, register,

accent, dialects and interaction skills) i.e. the ability to say the

appropriate thing in a certain social situation and

 Strategic competence (verbal and non-verbal communication strategies

and compensation strategies) i.e. the ability to communicate effectively

and repair problems caused by communication breakdowns

During the last decade language communicative competence has included cultural

knowledge and exposure (Lund, 1996; Byram, 1998; McKay, 2002; Dirba, 2003)

but none of the existing classifications pays attention to language for

professional purposes. Nowadays communicative competence without awareness

of cultural dimensions in language use is not complete.

SPEECH COMMUNITY; SPEECH EVENT AND SPEECH SITUATION

SPEECH COMMUNITY

Hymes “tentatively define[s] the basic notion of speech community in terms of

shared knowledge of rules for the interpretation of speech, including rules for

the interpretation of at least one common code”. In other words, a speech

community is a group of communicators with joint knowledge for ways of

communicating and the meaning of communication. The emphasis on “shared”

46
guidelines for the conduct of, and meanings of, communicative behaviour

suggests that communication within speech communities is more a collective,

rather than solely an individual, process.

Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less

discrete group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way

among themselves.

Speech communities can be members of a profession with specialized jargons,

distinct social groups like high school students or even tight-knit groups like

families and friends. In addition, online and other mediated communities, such as

many internet forums, often constitute speech communities. Members of speech

communities will often develop slang or jargons to serve the group’s special

purposes and priorities.

Exactly how to define speech community is debated in the literature; Definitions

of speech community tend to involve varying degrees of emphasis on the

following:

 Shared community membership

 Shared linguistic communication

However, the relative importance and exact definitions of these also vary. Some

would argue that a speech community must be a ‘real’ community, i.e. a group of

people living in the same location (such as a city or a neighbourhood), while more

recent thinking proposes that all people are indeed part of several communities

(through home location, occupation, gender, class, religious belonging, and more),

and that they are thus also part of simultaneous speech communities.

Similarly, what shared linguistic communication entails is also a variable concept.

Some would argue that a shared first language, even dialect, is necessary, while

47
for others the ability to communicate and interact (even across language

barriers) is sufficient.

The underlying concern in both of these is that members of the same speech

community should share linguistic norms. That is, they share understanding,

values and attitudes about language varieties present in their community. While

the exact definition of speech community is debated, there is a broad consensus

that the concept is immensely useful, if not crucial, for the study of language

variation and change.

SPEECH SITUATION

It corresponds to the context of situation. It is the non-verbal context in which

speech events take place.

Members of speech community can recognize many situations which are

accompanied by the language.

Some would have labels such as walk, fights, meals, coffee breaks, fishing,

trials, wedding, planting and harvesting, graduation ceremony .

SPEECH EVENTS

A speech event is an activity in which participants interact via language in some

conventional way to arrive at some outcome. It may include an obvious central

speech act, such as ‘I don’t really like this’, as in a speech event of ‘complaint’.

Members of speech community can easily identify speech events. Several

different speech events can occur in the same speech situation. E.g. in cocktail

party- persuasive events, informative events, special occasion speaking,

after dinner speaking, story telling, Disccusions,

Speech event is relatively large scale speech activity e.g. lecture, debate,

argument, political interview.

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Speech event refers to as an event which has a speech in it. Speech events

are directly governed by rules/norms for the use of speech. I.e. there is an

agreement within a speech community on how to conduct a certain event.

Speech event definition can sometimes be derived from the event names given in

the community. In many ways, it is the nature of the speech event that

determines the interpretation of an utterance as performing a particular speech

act.

Components of speech events

Hymes started from an intuitive level that for every speech event there are

prior factors to be considered before speaking.

He lists seven speech components:

(a) Participants: at least two participants i.e. addresser and addressee.

Addressers are present in all speech events even though are not

sometimes physically present. E.g. books writers, broadcasting.

 Addresses may be active participants or not.

 He makes distinction between addresser/addressees,

speaker/hearer, and sender/receiver.

 Addresser might be different from speaker since a speaker may

address something prepared by someone else.

 Addressee is the intended group while hearer can be even those not

intended.

 The knowledge of the speaker enables us to predict what is going to

be said.

 The knowledge of the audience enables us to predict what we are

going to say.

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 (b) Setting: it covers time, place, cultural values, and equipment in the

speech event. It relates to the where and the when the speech

event takes place. Setting can determine the expectation of the

message to be given.

(c) Message content/topic: i.e. what is the interaction about?

(d) The form of the message: it relates to the how is the message

content in terms of vocabulary, grammar. The means of expression

may condition or control the topic i.e. what to be said. The form

varies depending on the context of situation. It can be manipulated

in a way it becomes meaningful. It can determine what a particular

content is about e.g. summon, debate.

(e) Channel: it relates to the transmission of the message i.e. written

or spoken, face to face, telephone, full message or telegraphic,

whistling, drumming, smoke signals etc.

(f) Code: refers to the language i.e. what language is being used. E.g.

Chinese, English or Kiswahili.

(g) Purpose: relates to the why. Why does the speech event take

place? It relates to the function and the intention of the speech

event.

These components are important or necessary/ obligatory to the speech

event.

SPEECH FUNCTIONS

Function is an aspect of what is intended or achieved through the use of

language in a speech event.

Apart from the linguistic aspects, the utterance has the communicative

functions. There are lists of functions given out by different linguists for

special reasons such as:

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 (a) Every human activity is purposeful. Language too must have purposes,

hence we want to describe these purposes

(b) In the description and explanation of linguistic phenomena, we gain

more if we have analytical insight/framework of analysis.

Hymes sets a list of functions and makes some claims that there is a link

between the functions of speech and speech components. Producing a piece of

discourse the focus is on the speech components. There are the predominant

functions at the time of the speech event as explained below:

(a) Expressive function: relates to the addresser. It allows the addresser

to reveal his/her attitudes, feelings, views about what is talking about

i.e. about the world. This will be reflected within the language used. It

can be brief or extended expression. There are certain expressions in

the language which show expressive functions e.g. I’m fed up. They also

correlate with non-verbal actions to support or help the expression

(b) Directive functions; relates to addressees. The speaker tends to

control the behaviour of the hearer/ addressees. There are certain

expressions which can help perform directive functions. E.g. command,

requests, suggestions, admonitions, questions. E.g. I would see the

doctor if I were you. Use a condom, danger, boil water before

drinking, could you open this for me?

(c) Referential function: it relates to the topic. It applies to all

grammatical and lexical functions- relates to ideational function. It is

realized by the propositions made by the speakers. It allows the

expression of the feeling, ideas. It expresses the facts. E.g. es Salaam

has the population of 3-4 millions, Jane is 33 yeas old, my printer is

not working, I have been reading this book about the past three weeks.

(d) Phatic/contact: it focuses on the channel. It establishes

contact/relation and maintains it. It seeks to keep the channel of

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 communication open. It keeps, promotes feelings of knowing each

other. E.g. good morning, enjoy the weekend; pleased to meet you,

I have heard a lot about you. It is an important function.

(e) Contextual function: it focuses on the setting. There some questions in

conversation which focus on setting. E.g. when was that said? Where

did it take place? That thing is in the wrong place, I declare the

meeting open or closed.

(f) Poetic function: focus on message form i.e. the appearance of the

language. It relates with the use of language imaginatively or in an

unconventionally. We talk of poetic licence. The language is manipulated

for its own sake and for the pleasure it gives to the addressees i.e. the

beauty of the language is important. The use in advertisement, in

political speech, poetry. E.g. the murmuring of innumerable bees.

There are such expression in ad for instance, talk more, boys will

be boys. Structural parallelism. i.e. repetition of structure. E.g.

anyone lived in a pretty how town with up so floating many fells

down; where to find the proper word, for the door of silence, to

open the strongs dance, close to my womans skin, which the good

Lord created, as an instrument of unpublished music.

(g) Meta-linguistic- connected to the code. There a few writing/occasion

where the writer might focus on the language. E.g. when providing the

definition of terms. If is mostly found in texts. E.g. the expression

“relativity” in the context of the article, what does the Ethiopian

government mean by “in principle”; “virtual reality” is a situation

created within a computer which simulates the real world

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SPEECH ACT THEORY

What is a Speech act?

The concept was introduced by the philosopher John Austin. In his own search

for ways of coping with language as a form of action (in reaction to logical

positivism, which did not accept meaning outside the realm of what could be

tested for its truth or falsity), he first made a distinction between ‘constatives

and performative’ utterances. In this dichotomy, constatives, such as we went

down to Makanyagio are utterances in which something is said which can be

evaluated along a dimension of truth or falsity. Performatives, on the other

hand, are utterances such as I promise to go to Makanyagio , in which

something is done which cannot be said to be true or false, but which can be

evaluated along a dimension of ‘felicity’. Thus, I promise to go to Makanyagio is

not felicitous unless I intend to go to Makanyagio.

Soon, however, Austin realised that such neat distinctions are problematic. For

example; in the following utterance which expresses a proposition which

describes a state of affairs in which there is a snake in the grass; ‘ There’s a

snake in the grass’. But even the interpretation of utterances with declarative

form like this cannot be discussed simply in terms of the recovery of a

proposition which is a description of a state of affairs. The speaker of this

utterance could be guessing that there is a snake; he could be claiming that

there is a snake, or he could be warning the hearer that there is a snake. He

could be expressing his surprise that there is a snake, or his relief that there is

53
a snake. Whatever he is doing he could not be described simply as expressing

the proposition that there is a snake in the grass.

If someone’s short-term memory is impaired and he does not really remember

what he did earlier today, there would be something infelicitous about ‘ we went

to down to Makanyagio’, even if he got it right by accident. ‘2015 will be a

year of prosperity and peace’ has the structure of a simple constative, but

where an evaluation as to truth or falsity could not be undertaken until some

years later, and where felicity would demand the author to be in a position to

know enough about the world to make some kind of authoritative predictions. He

noted that it is extremely difficult to provide a workable criterion for

distinguishing performative utterances from non-performative (or, as he calls

them, constative) utterances.

The fact that language is not used just to describe the world was the starting

point for Austin’s (1962) theory of speech acts. He pointed out that language

can be used to create obligations, to influence the actions of others and to

create new social relationships.

From this observation, therefore, Austin’s conclusion was simple: all utterances

contain both constative and performative elements; they are all saying and

doings at the same time. To capture the implications of this intuition, he

replaced the constative-performative terminology by a three-fold distinction:

‘locutions, illocutions, and perlocution.

Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts and in English

are commonly given more specific labels, such an apology, complaint, compliment,

invitation, promise or request.

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Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts

In Speech acts analysis, the effect of utterances is studied on the behaviour of

speaker and hearer, using a three folds distinction:

 A locutionary act, are acts of saying something (the uttering of the

string of sounds, ‘I promise to go to Makanyagio’ containing a

proposition, or the constative aspect of the speech act). The performance

of an utterance: the actual utterance and its ostensible meaning,

comprising phonetic, phatic and rhetic acts corresponding to the verbal,

syntactic and semantic aspects of any meaningful utterance. It

corresponds to the utterance of a sentence with a particular meaning. It

is the basic act of utterance, or producing a meaningful linguistic

expression. It is the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and

reference. If you have difficulty with actually forming the sounds and

words to create a meaningful utterance in a language (for example,

because it is foreign or you are tongue-tied), then you might fail to

produce a locutionary act.

 An illocutionary act: are what is done in saying something (in saying I

promise to go to Makanyagio I make a promise) the semantic

'illocutionary force' of the utterance, thus its real, intended meaning.

Here we look at the act that is performed as a result of the speaker

making an utterance-the cases where ‘saying=doing’ such as betting,

promising, welcoming and warning. The making of a statement, offer,

promise in uttering a sentence by virtue of conventional force associated

with it (or with its explicit performative paraphrase). These are known as

ILLOCUTIONARY ACT, are core of any theory of speech acts, and in

certain cases a further

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  A perlocutionary act: refers to the bringing about of effects on the

audience by means of uttering the sentence, such effects being special to

the circumstances of utterance. its actual effect i.e. here we look at a

particular effect the speaker’s utterance has on the listener; it involves

the effect that the speaker has on his or her addressees in uttering the

sentence; such as persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring,

or otherwise getting someone to do or realize something, whether

intended or not (Austin 1962).

For example: you can’t do that

This utterance may have the illocutionary force of protesting, but the

perlocutionary effects of checking the addressee’s action, or bringing him to

his senses, or simply annoying him.

NB: it is important to appreciate that the illocutionary force of an utterance

and its perlocutionary effect may not coincide. E.g. if I warn you against a

particular course of action, you may or may not heed my warning.

 if one says “stand up”- the uttering of the words i.e. the opening of mouth

and say the words is locutionary act

Command –illocutionary act

And if the hearer stands up – obedience – perlocutionary

 the bar closes in ten minutes to time

(h) Locutionary act- the act of a bar manager to open his mouth and give

out such propositional diction.

(i) Illocutionary act – alert/ remind/ warn

(j) Perlocutionary act- leaving of the drinking guys.

NB: all of these things/acts happen not sequentially but simultaneously.

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Illocutionary acts

The concept of an illocutionary act is central to the concept of a speech act.

Although there are numerous opinions as to what 'illocutionary acts' actually

are, there are some kinds of acts which are widely accepted as illocutionary, as

for example promising, ordering someone, and bequeathing.

Following the usage of, for example, John R. Searle, "speech act" is often meant

to refer just to the same thing as the term illocutionary act, which John L.

Austin had originally introduced in How to Do Things with Words (published

posthumously in 1962).

According to Austin's preliminary informal description, the idea of an

"illocutionary act" can be captured by emphasising that "by saying something, we

do something", as when someone orders someone else to go by saying "Go!", or

when a minister joins two people in marriage saying, "I now pronounce you

husband and wife." (Austin would eventually define the "illocutionary act" in a

more exact manner.)

An interesting type of illocutionary speech act is that performed in the

utterance of what Austin calls performatives, typical instances of which are "I

nominate John to be President", "I sentence you to ten years' imprisonment",

or "I promise to pay you back." In these typical, rather explicit cases of

performative sentences, the action that the sentence describes (nominating,

sentencing, promising) is performed by the utterance of the sentence itself.

Examples

 Greeting (in saying, "Hi John!", for instance), apologizing ("Sorry for

that!"), describing something ("It is snowing"), asking a question ("Is it

snowing?"), making a request and giving an order ("Could you pass the

57
 salt?" and "Drop your weapon or I'll shoot you!"), or making a promise ("I

promise I'll give it back") are typical examples of "speech acts" or

"illocutionary acts".

 In saying, "Watch out, the ground is slippery", Mary performs the speech

act of warning Peter to be careful.

 In saying, "I will try my best to be at home for dinner", Peter performs

the speech act of promising to be at home in time.

 In saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, please give me your attention", Mary

requests the audience to be quiet.

 In saying, "Race with me to that building over there!” Peter challenges

Mary.

The actions take place when someone says the performative words and not

before. A ship for example is named only when the act of naming is complete.

In such cases, to say is to perform. Austin thus called these utterances

performatives seeing them as very different from statements that convey

information (constatives).

Classifying illocutionary speech acts

There are thousands of possible illocutionary acts and several attempts have

been made to classify them into a small number of types. One influential

approach sets up five basic types. Searle (1975) has set up the following

classification of illocutionary speech acts:

 Representative (Assertive) = speech acts that commit a speaker to the

truth of the expressed proposition. They state what the speaker believes

to be the case or not. They are expressing a belief, making words fit the

world, and committing the speaker to the truth of what is asserted.

Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions and descriptions. E.g. reciting

a creed, - the earth is flat, Chomsky didn’t write about peanuts.

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 Directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular

action. The speakers use to get someone else to do something. They

express what the speaker wants. They are expressing a wish, making the

world fit the words, and counting as an attempt to get the hearer to do

something. They are commands, orders, requests, and suggestions. e.g.

don’t touch that.

 Commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action.

They are speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves to some

future action. They express what the speaker intends. They are

expressing an intention, making the world fit the words and counting as a

commitment for the speaker to engage in a future course of action. They

are promises, threats, refusals, pledges, and they can be performed by

the speaker alone or by the speaker as a member of a group. E.g. I’ll be

back, we will not do that, I’m going to get it right next time.

 Expressive = speech acts expressing a variety of psychological states,

having no direction of fit between words and world, and simply counting as

expressions of a psychological state. speech acts that express the

speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the proposition or about a state

of affair. They state what the speaker feels, e.g. congratulations, excuses

and thanks. E.g. I’m really sorry! Congratulations! Shit! Ouch! That’s awful!

What a beautiful painting!

 Declarations = speech acts that change the reality in accord with the

proposition of the declaration. They are those kinds of speech acts that

change the world via their utterance. Expressions which make both the

words fit the world and the world fit the words, and the point of which is

to bring about a change in (institutional) reality e.g. baptisms, pronouncing

someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife. I resign, I

baptize you peter, you’re fired, war is hereby declared.

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This classification of speech acts is the most influential one ever proposed.

However, there is another distinction of speech act notion that already made by

Austin, between explicit performatives and primary performatives.

 Explicit performatives (simply, and somewhat confusingly, called

‘performatives’ in later usage) are speech acts of the type, which contain

verbs such as promise and baptize in the first-person singular present

indicative active, describing the kind of act that is being performed.

 Primary performatives – all other forms of utterance are primary

performatives (also called, somewhat misleadingly, ‘implicit

performatives). For example: I’ll go to Makanyagio

The IFIDs

The most obvious device for indicating the illocutionary force (the Illocutionary

Force Indicating Device, or IFID) is an expression where there is a slot for a

verb explicitly names the illocutionary act being performed. Such a verb can be

called a performative verb (vp).

In the verbs like ‘promise’ and ‘warn’ would be the performative verbs and, if

stated, would be very clear IFIDs.

Speakers do not always ‘perform’ their speech acts so explicitly, but they

sometimes describe the speech act being performed. Most of the time, however,

there is no performative verb mentioned and they use other IFIDs which can be

identified are word order, stress and intonation.

It is any linguistic element that indicates or delimits the illocutionary force of

an utterance particularly in the primary performative acts:

 Performative verbs. E.g. I promise, I order you to

 Mood (sentence type) e.g. it is a strong indicator of illocutionary force of

an utterance. Characteristic use. E.g. declarative-statement

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  Modality (modal auxiliary verbs) distinguishes between different

illocutionary acts. E.g. you could go, you must go, you may go

 Intonation i.e. the rising and falling of the pitch level of the voice. The

way in which the level of your voice changes in order to add meaning to

what you are saying, for example by going up at the end of a question.

 Meta-comments are those comments which show relationship between

utterances. I.e. logical connectives e.g. let me explain…, I will give an

example….

 Punctuation for written documents e.g. full stop shows statements.

Question marks- show a question, use of capitals show emphasis

 Relevance –addressee has an assumed normality of the world on his/ her

culture.

Performatives

So why waste time looking at a distinction which Austin himself was soon to

abandon? There are two main reasons why it is worthwhile examining the

performative hypothesis:

It shows how Austin’s ideas developed and it demonstrates neatly the distinction

between a truth-conditional approach to meaning and Austin’s view of ‘words as

actions’ (in other words, it illustrates very clearly how and why pragmatics came

into being). A third reason is that performatives constitute a very interesting

subset of illocutionary verbs-performatives are fun! In fact, Austin claimed,

they are not statements or questions but actions, a conclusion he reached

through an analysis of what he termed ‘performative verbs’.

These are speech acts of a special kind where the utterance of the right words

by the right person in the right situation effectively is (or accomplishes) the

61
social act. In some cases, the speech must be accompanied by a ceremonial or

ritual action. Whether the speaker in fact has the social or legal (or other kind

of) standing to accomplish the act depends on some things beyond the mere

speaking of the words. These are felicity conditions, which we can also explain

by the “hereby” test. But let's look, first, at some examples.

Here are some examples from different spheres of human activity, where

performatives are found at work. These are loose categories, and many

performatives belong to more than one of them:

 Universities and schools: conferring of degrees, rusticating or excluding

students.

 The church: baptizing, confirming and marrying, exorcism, commination

(cursing) and excommunication.

 Governance and civic life: crowning of monarchs, dissolution of Parliament,

passing legislation, awarding honours, ennobling or decorating.

 The law: enacting or enforcing of various judgements, passing sentence,

swearing oaths and plighting one's troth.

 The armed services: signing on, giving an order to attack, retreat or open

fire.

 Sport: cautioning or sending off players, giving players out, appealing for a

dismissal or declaring (closing an innings) in cricket.

 Business: hiring and firing, establishing a verbal contract, naming a ship.

 Gaming: placing a bet, raising the stakes in poker.

The “hereby” test

One simple but crude way to decide whether a speech act is of such a kind that

we can aptly call it a performative is to insert the word “hereby” between

62
subject and verb. If the resulting utterance makes sense, then the speech act is

probably a performative. For example,

 “I hereby confer upon you the honourable degree of Bachelor of Arts…”

 “I hereby sentence you to three months' probation, suspended for a

year…”

 “I hereby appoint you Grandmaster of the Ancient, Scandalous and

Disreputable Order of Friends of the Hellfire Club …”

It is crude, because it implies at least one felicity condition - whatever it is to

which “hereby” refers. In the first example, “hereby” may refer to a physical

action (touching on the head or shoulder with a ceremonial staff or mace, say).

In the second example it may refer to the speaker's situation - in sitting as

chairman of the bench of magistrates. The third example is my (plausible)

invention - showing how all sorts of private groups (Freemasons, Rotarians, even

the school Parent Teacher Association) can have their own agreements, which

give to some speakers the power to enact performatives.

Characteristics of performative utterances

 They tend to begin with first person

 The verbal element is in simple present tense

 The verb belongs to a special class of verbal activities as they have

performative functions

 They generally have performative force which is reinforced by the adverb

‘hereby’

It is about a first person talking to the second person. So it is an I – YOU

pattern and not *YOU – I

For example:

I {hereby} VP {you} x

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FELICITY CONDITIONS

Speech acts are successful only if they satisfy several criteria, known as felicity

conditions. Austin stated his felicity conditions as follows:

A: (i) there must be a conventional procedure having a conventional Effect.

In a given culture (or sub-culture) there will probably be a conventional

procedure for a couple to get married. For example it involves a man and a

woman, who are not debarred from marrying for any reason (that neither of

the couple is already married), presenting themselves before an authorized

person, in an authorized place (place of worship or registry office), at an

approved time (certain days or times of day are excluded) accompanied by a

minimum of two witnesses. There they must go through a specified form of

marriage: the marriage is not legal unless certain declarations are made and

unless certain words have been spoken (that they make their own speech acts,

and so on). Also that they can understand the language being used and that they

are not play-acting or being nonsensical.

(ii) The circumstances and persons must be appropriate.

It includes the status or authority of the speaker to perform the speech act,

the situation of other parties and so on. I.e. the person performing the speech

act has to have the authority to do so. This is important constraint on the use of

such verbs as fine, baptise, arrest and declare war, where only certain people

are qualified to use these utterances. If the person(s) is not mandated

(authorized) and the time and place is not appropriate, the action performed

becomes unsuccessful or infelicitous.

For example:

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So, in order to confirm a candidate, the speaker must be a bishop; but a mere

priest can baptize people, while various ministers of religion and registrars may

solemnize marriages (in England).

A qualified referee can caution a player, if he or she is officiating in a match.

The referee's assistant (who, in the higher leagues, is also a qualified referee)

cannot do this.

B: (i) The procedure must be executed correctly –at marriage

ceremony, for example, (at least in theory) the words have to be the precise

ones laid down – a rough approximation will not do:

A: will you take this woman …?

B: Absolutely! I mean, I will.

Note that something which means the same as I will, will not do. Those precise

words have to be used.

(ii) The procedure must be executed completely – part of the

procedure is that the person conducting the wedding and the couple getting

married must sign the register before witnesses.

C: (i) the persons must have the requisite thoughts, feelings and

Intentions.

Speaker must be sincere:

• b) State-of-mind– speaker intends to carry out the promised act

• a) ability – speaker is able physically and mentally to carry through with the

promised act.

At a simple level these show that the speaker must really intend what he or she

says. In the case of apologizing or promising, it may be impossible for others to

know how sincere the speaker is. Moreover sincerity, as a genuine intention (now)

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is no assurance that the apologetic attitude will last, or that the promise will be

kept. There are some speech acts - such as plighting one's troth or taking an

oath - where this sincerity is determined by the presence of witnesses. The one

making the promise will not be able later to argue that he or she didn't really

mean it.

A straightforward example would be in the case of a marriage where one party

has been forced to marry under duress – ‘shotgun weddings’ are not legally

binding. A more tendentious case would be when one party claims (sometimes

years after the marriage took place) to have had ‘mental reservations’.

E.g. verbs such as apologise, guarantee and vow are effective only if speakers

mean what they say; believe and affirm are valid only if the speakers are not

lying

(ii) If consequent conduct is specified, then the relevant

parties must do it.

It is hard to find many convincing examples where subsequent conduct is

specified. ‘Subsequent conduct’ in the case of a marriage would be that the

marriage must be consummated. If this condition is not met, the marriage is

annulled.

Take refereeing of association football. When a referee cautions a player, he

(or she) should take the player's name, number and note the team for which he

plays. The referee may also display a yellow card, but this is not necessary to

the giving of the caution:

The mandatory use of the cards is merely a simple aid for better

communication.”

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Speech community

Speech situations

Funeral wedding conference

Speech events

Lecture debate summons

Speech acts

Promise declare congratulating.

INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

In the course of performing speech acts we ordinarily communicate with each

other. The concept of communication may be identical, or almost identical, with

the content intended to be communicated, as when a stranger asks, “What is

your name?”

However, the meaning of the linguistic means used may also be different from

the content intended to be communicated. One may, in appropriate

circumstances, request Peter to do the dishes by just saying, “Peter…!”, or one

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can promise to do the dishes by saying, “Me!” one common way of performing

speech acts is to use an expression which indicates one speech act, and indeed

performs this act, but also performs a further speech act, which is indirect.

One may, for instance, say, “Peter, can you open the window?” thereby asking

Peter whether he will be able to open the window, but also requesting that he

does so. Since the request is performed indirectly, by means of (directly)

performing a question, it counts as an indirect speech act.

Indirect speech acts are commonly used to reject proposals and to make

requests. For example, a speaker asks, “Would you like to meet me for

coffee?” and another replies, “I have class.” The second speaker used an

indirect speech act to reject the proposal. This is indirect because the literal

meaning of “I have class” does not entail any sort of rejection.

This poses a problem for linguists because it is confusing (on a rather simple

approach) to see how the person who made the proposal can understand that his

proposal was rejected. Following substantially an account of H. P. Grice, Searle

suggests that we are able to derive meaning out of indirect speech acts by

means of a cooperative process out of which we are able to derive multiple

illocutions; however, the process he proposes does not seem to accurately solve

the problem. Sociolinguistics has studied the social dimensions of conversations.

This discipline considers the various contexts in which speech acts occur.

John Searle’s theory of “indirect speech acts”

Searle has introduced the notion of an ‘indirect speech act’, which in his account

is meant to be, more particularly, an indirect ‘illocutionary’ act. Applying a

conception of such illocutionary acts according to which they are (roughly) acts

of saying something with intention of communicating with an audience, he

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describes indirect speech acts as follows: “in indirect speech acts the speaker

communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on

their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and non-linguistic,

together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the

hearer.” An account of such act, it follows, will require such things as an analysis

of mutually shared background information about the conversation, as well as of

rationality and linguistic conventions.

In connection with indirect speech acts, Searle introduces the notions of

‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ illocutionary acts. The primary illocutionary act is the

indirect one, which is not literally performed. The secondary illocutionary act is

the direct one, performed in the literal utterance of the sentence

 Speaker X: “we should leave for the show or else we’ll be late

 Speaker Y: “I am not ready yet.”

Here the primary illocutionary act is Y’s rejection of X’s suggestion, and the

secondary illocutionary act is Y’s statement that she is not ready to leave. By

dividing the illocutionary act into two subparts, Searle is able to explain that we

can understand two meanings from the same utterance all the while knowing

which the correct meaning to respond to is.

With his doctrine of indirect speech acts Searle attempts to explain how it is

possible that a speaker can say something and mean it, but additionally mean

something else. This would be impossible, or at least it would be an improbable

case, if in such a case the hearer had no chance of figuring out what the speaker

means (over and above what she says and means). Searle’s solution is that the

hearer can figure out what the indirect speech act is meant to be and he gives

several hints as to how this might happen.

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In order to generalize this sketch of an indirect request, Searle proposes a

programme for the analysis of indirect speech act performances, whatever they

are. He makes the following suggestion:

 Step 1: understand the facts of the conversation

 Step 2: assume cooperation and relevance on behalf of the

participants

 Step 3: establish factual background information pertinent to the

conversation

 Step 4: make assumptions about the conversation based on steps 1-3

 Step 5: if steps 1-4 do not yield a consequential meaning, then infer

that there are two illocutionary forces at work

 Step 6: assume the hearer has the ability to perform the act the

speaker suggests. The act that the speaker is asking be performed must

be something that would make sense for one to ask. For example, the

hearer might have the ability to pass the salt when asked to do so by a

speaker who is at the same table, but not have the ability to pass the salt

to a speaker who is asking the hearer to pass the salt during a telephone

conversation.

 Step 7: make inferences from steps 1-6 regarding possible primary

illocutions.

 Step 8: use background information to establish the primary illocution.

We can say that there is an easily recognized relationship between the three

structural forms (declarative, interrogative, and imperative) and the three

general communicative functions (statement, question, and command/request).

 You wear a seat belt. (declarative)

 Do you wear a seat belt? (interrogative)

 Wear a seat belt! (imperative)

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Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we

have a direct speech act. Whenever there is and indirect relationship between a

structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act. Thus, a declarative

used to make a statement is a direct speech act, but a declarative used to make

a request is an indirect speech act.

E.g. where the speaker wants the addressee not to stand in front of the TV. The

interrogative structure in b is not being used only as a question; hence it is an

indirect speech act. The declarative structures in c and d are also indirect

requests.

(a) Move out of the way (direct speech act)

(b) Do you have to stand in front of the TV?

(c) You are standing in front of the TV.

(d) You would make a better door than a window

CROSS-CULTURAL SPEECH ACTS

Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs,

values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial

relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions

acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and

group striving.

Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.

Culture is communication, communication is culture.

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Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behaviour; that is the totality of a

person’s learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more

briefly, behaviour through social learning.

Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members

of one group or category of people from another.

In different societies and different communities, people speak differently;

these differences in ways of speaking are profound and systematic, they reflect

different cultural values, or at least different hierarchies of values; different

ways of speaking, different communicative styles, can be explained and made

sense of in terms of independently established different cultural values and

cultural priorities (Wierzbicka, 1991: 69).

Cross-cultural speech acts refers to the study of the differences in cultural

ways of speaking. Or the study of differences in expectations based on cultural

schemata.

It is often difficult for speakers of other languages to understanding “what is

meant” by “what is said”. It is also difficult for mono-lingual speakers to

understand that this is a problem. People from different cultures use language

to do things in different ways. A student who says, “Give me a coffee” is seen

as rude by an English speaker in the UK. Jenny Thomas defines politeness as a

linguistic phenomenon rather than equating it with any moral disposition towards

one’s interlocutor. The student is therefore making a linguistic error rather than

being rude. Also a student in Tanzania who says “give me that pencil” to a shop

seller is seen as rude, however, the same request to a Kenyan student/person is

seen a right.

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THEORY OF CULTURAL DETERMINISM

The position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and values people learn as

members of society determines human nature. People are what they learn.

Optimistic version of cultural determinism places no limits on the abilities of

human beings to do or to be whatever they want. Some anthropologists suggest

that there is no universal “right way” of being human. “Right way” is almost

always “our way” that “our way” in one society almost never corresponds to “our

way” in any other society. Proper attitude of an informed being could only be

that of tolerance.

 The optimistic version of this theory postulates that human nature being

infinitely malleable; human being can choose the ways of life they prefer.

 The pessimistic version maintains that people are what they are

conditioned to be; this is something over which they have no control.

Human beings are passive creatures and do whatever their culture tells

them to do. This explanation leads to behaviourism that locates the

causes of human in a realm that is totally beyond human control.

CULTURAL RELATIVISM

Different cultural groups think, feel, and act differently. There is no scientific

standard for considering one group as intrinsically superior or inferior to

another. Studying differences in culture among groups and societies presupposes

a position of cultural relativism. It does not imply normalcy for oneself, or for

one’s society. It, however, calls for judgement when dealing with groups or

societies different from one’s own. Information about the nature of cultural

differences between societies, their roots, and their consequences should

precede judgement and action. Negotiation is more likely to succeed when the

parties concerned understand the reasons for the differences in viewpoints.

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CULTURAL ETHNOCENTRISM

Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture is superior to that of other

cultures. It is a form of reductionism that reduces the “other way” of life to a

distorted version of one’s own. This is particularly important in case of global

dealings when a company or an individual is imbued with the idea that methods,

materials, or ideas that worked in the home country will also work abroad.

Environmental differences are, therefore, ignored.

MANIFESTATIONS OF CULTURE

Cultural differences manifest themselves in different ways and differing levels

of depth. Symbols represent the most superfial and values the deepest

manifestations of culture, with heroes and rituals in between.

 Symbols are words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular

meaning which is only recognized by those who share a particular culture.

New symbols easily develop, old ones disappear. Symbols from one

particular group are regularly copied by others. This is why symbols

represent the outermost layer of a culture.

 Heroes are persons, past or present, real or fictitious, who possess

characteristics that are highly prized in a culture. They also serve as

models for behaviour.

 Rituals are collective activities, sometimes superfluous in reaching desired

objectives, but are considered as social essential. They are therefore

carried out most of the times for their own sake (ways of greetings,

paying respect to others, religious and social ceremonies)

 The core of a culture is formed by values. They are broad tendencies for

preferences of certain state of affairs to others (good-evil, right-wrong,

natural-unnatural). Many values remain unconscious to those who hold

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 them. Therefore they often cannot be discussed, nor can they be directly

observed by others. Values can only be inferred from the way people act

under different circumstances.

 Symbols, heroes, and rituals are the tangible or visual aspects of the

practices of a culture. The true cultural meaning of the practices is

intangible; this is revealed only when the practices are interpreted by the

insiders.

Problem of cross-cultural differences in the use of performative verbs. If you

live in a country/culture which does not have baptism, there will be no

performative forms like ‘I baptize you....’ or the verb may exist, but cannot be

used performatively. This is the case with the verb ‘to divorce’: for instance, in

Britain divorce exists, and they have a verb to divorce, but (no matter what your

religion) you cannot felicitously use the utterance ‘ I divorce you’ to separate

yourself legally and permanently from your spouse (Thomas, 1995)

LAYERS OF CULTURE

People even within the same culture carry several layers of mental programming

within themselves. Different layers of culture exist at the following levels:

 The national level: associated with the nation as a whole

 The regional level: associated with ethnic, linguistic, or religious

differences that exist within a nation

 The gender level: associated with gender differences (female vs male)

 The generation level: associated with the differences between

grandparents and parents, parents and children

 The social class level: associated with educational opportunities and

differences in occupation

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  The corporate level: associated with the particular culture of an

organization. Applicable to those who are employed.

RECONCILIATION OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

1 Cultural awareness:

 Before venturing on a global assignment, it is probably necessary to

identify the cultural differences that may exist between one’s home

country and the country of business operation. Where the differences

exist, one must decide whether and to what extent the home-country

practices may be adapted to the foreign environment. Most of the times

the differences are not very apparent or tangible. Certain aspects of a

culture may be learned consciously (e.g. methods of greetings people),

some other differences are learned subconsciously (e.g. methods of

problem solving). The building of cultural awareness may not be easy task,

but once accomplished, it definitely helps a job done efficiently in a

foreign environment.

 Discussions and reading about other cultures definitely helps build

cultural awareness, but opinions presented must be carefully measured.

Sometimes they may represent unwarranted stereotypes, an assessment

of only a subgroup of a particular group of people, or a situation that has

since undergone drastic changes. It is always a good idea to get varied

viewpoints about the same culture.

2 clustering cultures:

 Some countries may share many attributes that help mould their cultures

(the modifiers may be language, religion, and geographical location). Based

on this data obtained from past cross-cultural studies, countries may be

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 grouped by similarities in values and attitudes. Fewer differences may be

expected when moving within a cluster than when moving from one cluster

to another.

To look at the ways in which meaning is constructed by speakers from different

cultures will actually require a complete reassessment of virtually everything we

have considered so far in this survey.

 The cooperative principle and the maxims- we should consider the cultural

differences

 Turn taking mechanisms we did not explore the powerful role of silence

within the normal conversational practices of many cultures.

 Speech acts should include observations on the substantial differences

that exist cross-culturally in interpreting concepts like ‘complimenting’,

‘thanking’, or ‘apologizing’. Indeed, it is unlikely that the division one

cultural group makes between any two social actions such as ‘thanking’ or

‘apologizing’ will be matched precisely within another culture.

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APPLICATION TO GENRE

Genre analysis

Genre Analysis is an approach that attempts to explain regularities in texts in

terms of shared communicative purposes within discourse communities. It is

usually associated with John Swales's analysis of the move structure of article

introductions by North American and British academics. But since 1990, it has

taken on other forms of analysis (rhetorical structure, analysis of variation,

Systemic Functional Linguistics), other discourses (popular genres and legal

genres as well as academic texts), different cultures (the academic writing of

Finland, Czechoslavakia, or Germany), and different modes (in studies of

pictures, electronic texts, and activities).

Genre is social action; hence genres are not static; but rather dynamic social

processes

Genres signal membership; hence this part explains the following telephone

conversation, formal meetings, new interviews and class room interaction

Telephone conversation

1.1. Telephone conversation openings

In general, the beginning of conversations has received much attention in the

fields of sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and conversation analysis.

The study of conversation openings, particularly on the telephone, has become

prominent for their following particular reasons:

a) Openings are interactionally compact and brief

b) Generally, at the beginning of a conversation, participants may utilize

conversational strategies or “routines” to negotiate interpersonal relationships.

This also counts for the beginnings of conversations on the telephone, as co-

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participants have resources available to them to manage identification and

recognition of one another.

c) Schegloff (1972, 1979, 1986) describes telephone conversation openings in

American English in terms of an ordered set of four core opening sequences:

(1) the summons-answer sequence (the phone ring and hello);

(2) the identification-recognition sequence (i.e. partners display each other’s

recognition of the other) (for example, hello Clara?/yeh);

(3) the exchange of greeting tokens (hi/hi), and

(4) the how are you sequence (how are you/I'm awright. how are you) (1986:115).

d) Another important feature of telephone conversation openings is that they

have a "perfunctory" character (Schegloff, 1986:113). In other words, in opening

a telephone conversation, participants go through these routines in a rather

automated manner.

e) Further, one interactional organization feature of telephone conversation

openings is that they provide a position that is described by Schegloff (1986:

117) as the “first topic”. According to Schegloff (1986:117), after identification

and recognition are achieved and a set of “how are yous” (if relevant) are

exchanged, the caller usually uses the “anchor position” to introduce the “first

topic” or the “reason for the call”. However, as Schegloff (1986: 117) notes, this

is not the only possible position for the introduction of the first topic. In fact,

there are possibilities for co-participants (the caller and the answerer) to

preempt the introduction of the first topic. Therefore, “routine” openings need

to be understood as “achievements” going through possibilities for preemptive

first topic, rather than a “mechanical or automated playing out of pre-scripted

routines”(Schegloff, 1986: 117).

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1.2. Cross-cultural studies on telephone conversation openings

TOPIC Formal Informal

Meetings Meetings
Opening Ladies and Let’s get started.
gentlemen. Shall we begin?
I declare the
meeting open.
Absence Are there any Is everyone here?
apologies for
absence?
Minutes I move that the Let’s take the
minutes of the last minutes as read.
meeting be
accepted.
Agenda Has everyone Do we all have the
received a copy of agenda?
the agenda?
Asking someone to Would you like to Do you have
speak say something on anything to say?
this topic?
Finishing a topic Has anyone Does anyone want
anything else to to say anything?
add?
The next item Could we move on? Let’s move on now.
Seconding Would anyone like Who’ll second?
to second that?
Taking a vote Can we have a Let’s take a vote.
show of hands?
Voting Those in favor? How many for?
Those against the How many against?
motion? How many don’t
Any abstentions? know?
The motion is
carried
unanimously.
The motion is
rejected.
AOB Is there any other Anything else?
business?

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Closing I declare the That’s all for
meeting closed. today.
Thank you.

81