Step 5 – Pragmatics

Tutor/a: Cristian Felipe Canon

Estudiante: Lida Xiemena Bolaños Anacona

Código: 1004269505

Grupo: 518017_62

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD

Escuela Ciencias de la Educación

Licenciatura en lenguas extranjeras con enfasis en ingles

Introduction to linguistics

Pitalito- Huila

Mayo 2020
 1. Read the document “Introduction”, Chapter 1, pages 1-20, in ‘Huang Y. Pragmatics.

Oxford: OUP Oxford; 2007.; found in the Course Contents, UNIT 2, in the

Knowledge Environment; once you have studied and deliberated on the concepts,

please answer the following analysis.

Study questions

2. What are the differences, if any, between sentence and utterance?

A between is a group of words that convey a complete meaning or thought, generally a

sentence contains a subject or a verb.

There are different types of prayer.

Simple sentences, complex sentences, compound sentences and complex compound

sentences.

Examples.

My uncle plays. Simple sentence.

The lawyer won the trial and the defendants were jailed. Compound sentence.
I like to shop at that establishment. Complex sentence.

Although she asked me to come, she simply cannot go because Jin was ill and was

expecting a visitor. Complex compound sentence.

A utterance is a word or set of words between two pauses, a clause or even a complete

sentence, it is the message that is communicated in a phonic group, or set of linguistic

signs.

Example

¡Congratulations!

¡Tomorrow you come to see me!

Every morning is the same.

It may be true.

Therefore, the difference between a sentence and a statement is that while a sentence

conveys a full meaning through a combination of clauses, a statement conveys a meaning

through a few words that cannot even compile a clause. A sentence is in written and spoken

language, but a statement is in spoken language only.

3. What is context? Why is it so important to pragmatics?

The Context are the set of circumstances in which communication occurs and which serve

the receiver to interpret the message transmitted by the sender.

When context information is not given, communication may be ineffective, such as in the

following message:

"Antonio returned" → does not provide the necessary information to understand the

message.

Therefore, it is important in pragmatics since in this way the person produces and

understands the meanings through language.

4. Imagine the following situation: a lady friend comes from a beauty parlor; she has a new

haircut. Once you see her you say: “you just had your hair cut!”.

Cleary, you are not saying anything unknown, you friend knows perfectly that she just had

her hair cut… then, what is the function and purpose of your utterance? Explain (Taken

from: Escandell.2011)
As we know, a utterance, strictly speaking, is a pragmatic unit, which generally expresses

the content of a proposition, mandate, desire or belief.

In this case, the way in which the sentence is announced and the tone used makes it

exclamatory, which expresses surprise or admiration, its structure is simple since it has only

one verb, in this case the sender wants to transmit information with feeling for surprise.

This would explain how, despite the apparent instability of language, we can communicate

through contexts with languages that do not respect formal requirements. Context

intervention is reduced to the minimum possible and, if it is, the motivation is expected to

be syntactic or semantic.

5. The concept ‘Linguistic underdeterminacy’ it is explained as “a huge gap between the

meaning of a sentence and the messages actually conveyed by the uttering of that sentence.

In other words, the linguistically encoded meaning of a sentence radically underdetermines

the proposition the speaker expresses when he or she utters that sentence” Huang (2017:5),

this concept is pivotal at understanding how pragmatics meaning work; how do you

understand it, give one example.

Communication capacity that humans have in all aspects of a language as a specific

manifestation. language in relation to the context where the idea is developed, that is,

sentences produce a semantic acceptance, therefore, sentences produce a semantic

acceptance but their meaning and interpretation depends on the content and the linguistic

context and that the sentence itself can have various meanings in different contexts.
A sentence can have different intentions or interpretations in different contexts (it can be

literal, ironic or metaphorical).

Example:

Maria and Helen are in a cafeteria.

A tourist approaches and this one addresses them in English to ask them something.

Mary says:

Helen! you who say you know a lot of english answer him.

Hearing the tourist's question, Helen remains silent.

Maria understands then that what Helen had told her was a lie

Maria: ¿How well do you speak English, ¿eh?

6. At a daily basis, in teaching and translating areas, linguistics is used even without being

realized; do an inquiry and explain how this disciplined is implemented in any task at

teaching or translating. Your writing will emphasize in any of the classical linguistic levels:

grammar, speech sounds, semantic or pragmatic level. In your explanation be clear and

concise, avoid fuzzy ideas.

Applied linguistics in general is responsible for increasing the understanding of the role of

language in human events and, therefore, contributes with the necessary tools to support

decision makers in different areas in which language is used as a form of communication,

be it educational, labor or legal. All this explains that linguistics is applied in teaching at the
level of speech sounds when the emitter encodes in a sound signal the linguistic

information that he wishes to transmit. The receiver must decode the information

transmitted by the sound wave that the emitter has emitted.

The speech is a sonorous continuum. Contrary to what happens in written language, there

are no "separations" between sounds or words. Decoding requires segmenting the

continuum into language units. The process of converting a meaning into sound matter and

the association of sound movements with concrete meanings, assumed between

interlocutors (speakers / listeners), that belong to a common linguistic code. This exchange

of information is generally carried out through speech in humans.

Many studies have shown that second language learners have generally not adequately

developed their ability in speech sounds. Therefore, despite having extensive knowledge of

grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, most students still have trouble understanding the

language used in certain contexts and also when communicating with native speakers of the

language. So it is essential to recognize these elements in the discourse of our interlocutors

and to know how to put them into practice on our own.

Bibliographic references.

Huang, Y. (2007). Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP Oxford. Retrieved from

http://bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1640096&lang=es&site=eds-live&scope=site

Actos de habla y conversación (27 nov 97) Uso del lenguaje: enfoques funcionales para la

sintaxis https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/edling/handouts/speechacts/spchax2.html

Academia JAF (2 abr 2018). YouTube. Diferencia entre Oración y Enunciado

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QoOOhkFKKQ

La Profe Noemi (15 sep 2018). YouTube. El enunciado Y la Oración.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrKuNu0NAk8