CIU INSTITUE OF RESEARCH AND GRADUADTE STUDIES

ELT DEPARTMENT/ 2019-2020 SPRING

Kameran Noori Abdullah
Email:Englishhome24@gmail.com

Explain and exemplify differences between semantics and pragmatics briefly. Can the
knowledge of semantics and pragmatics be beneficial for language learners and teachers?
How?

Pragmatics and semantics are two subfields of linguistics which are both concerned with
the meaning of the communicated language and the linguistic expressions. However, while
these two disciplines show to overlap to some extent, they basically are different from each
other. In fact, Sematics is the study of linguistic and the exact literal meaning of the words
within the phrases and sentences, and the abstract interrelationships between different
sentence components, while pragmatics is the study of the meaning within the context and
how one percieves the meaning of the stated utterences in specific situations or settings and is
also considered as the knowledge of the inferred meaning. It also focuses on the way people
understand each other while the literal meaning of what they say is different from what they
try to convey.

In simple words, while semantics deals with the surface meaning of what is said, pragmatics
focuses on the deeper layers of the uttered words and digs in the communicated expressions
and therefore deals with the in-depth and underlying meaning of what is said. To make this
distiction more tangible, I provide an example below:

A: Did you try the Jeans mom bought for you? Did it fit you?

B: Well, I think I should lose weight!

[ From this conversation and based on the context and the situation the subject is being raised,
it is implied that the speaker B, means the jeans were not her size and did not fit her
(pragmatic), while semantically she says she must lose weight which is incoherent with the
question being asked from her, then the surface meaning is not intended].

Having the knowledge of semantic and pragmatics is essential specially for the EFL learners
so that they can distinguish between the literal meaning of what is said and its true underlying
meaning. This is so helpful in making communication easier and in developing students’
communicational understanding level. It also has a positve impact on improving all their four
skills of reading, speaking, writing and listening, for using this knowledge they can
understand better of what they read and listen and they can better convey their meanings
under the magic of words through what they write or say. In fact it helps them to learn how to
use language apprpriately in different context and learn how to interpret the sentences and
utterences in different situations and contexts.

Teachers also benefit from teaching this knowledge to the students, for they can challange the
students’ understanding by making them face with such differences between literal meaning
and implied meanings and can use teaching pragmatics and semantic knowledge as a tool to
facilitate students’ learning and specially enhancing their communicational skills by helping
them learn about the way language is used in different contexts.

Considering the speech acts theory, write what possible illocutionary acts can be carried
out in the following sentences in differing contexts:

a) That animal is poisonous. => Here in the situation of encountering an animal in a

place like jungle or an old cabin or where ever that the speaker want to warn someone not
to get close to it for it is dangerous and might harm him/her. Here the speaker has used
illocutionary act to warn and the implied meaning is “watch out! It’s dangerous!”
b) I have seen it before. => Here in the situation when someone shows something to the
speaker while that thing is not new to the speaker and he has experienced it before, Here
the speaker has used declarative illocutionary act to make the hearer aware that its
repetitive for her and the implied meaning is that “ it is not something new to me”
 c) Don’t you think you ought to help your mother?=> Here in the situation that the hearer is
someone that does not help his mother while she needs his aid, the speaker uses this
sentence with the aim of advising to direct the hearer to help his mother. Therefore, in
such context the speaker has used directive illocutionary act to advice and the implied
meaning is “go and help your mother!”
d) I will meet you again. => Here in the situation that two intimate friends or two with
close relationship are separating from each other, and the speaker uses this sentence to
promise the hearer that they will not stay too much away from each other. Therefore, in
such context the speaker has used commissive illocutionary act to promise for the close
future and the implied meaning is “we won’t stay far away too much!”

Explain and exemplify how the study of language functions had an impact on language
teaching and also on the development of modern language teaching methods.

In every language , we can use different parts of speech and put the words and verbs together
in a way that represent a use of language for a particular purpose like requesting, ordering,
appologyzing and so on. These different uses of language for specific purpose is called
language functions. The need for the use of language functions in every day oral or written
communication activities and its importance in helping students to communicate correctly, soon
directed the special attention of the scholars and researchers in the field of ELT towards
teaching these language functions and considering it in the English language teaching
methodology. In fact, by the passage of time the importance of communication and L2
interaction in English language teaching area found its special place and since language
functions play a key role in conducting a successful interaction and appropriate
communication, the bulk of studies on this issue lead researchers and scholars towards
developing new approaches such as Communicative language teaching (CLT)methodology on
the basis of using different fuctions of language in different situations and contexts.

In fact, the transition from traditional English language teaching approaches to the modern
approaches changed the teaching goals towards preparing students to communicate effectively
and teaching language function found to be a great way to equip students to produce the actual
 language. Therefore language functions became the focus of the modern language teaching
methods, speacially communicative approach to teaching the foreign language and Task-based
language learning.

Teachers are responsible for planning the situations and contexts within which learners will be
able to use the L2 language for a purpose, and through this way providing the necessary context
for the students to use language functions. Soon diffrent techniques raised for teaching these
language functions to the students and accordingly, P-P-P model was developed to assess the
language functions in three stages of teaching including Presentation, Practice and Production,
which was later criticized and gave its place to new ways of teaching lnguage functions for l2
communications. Accordingly some new activities and excercises were appeared in the modern
approaches to asses students’ ability to use language functions in their communications
including the use of problem solving, communicative drills, communicative games, oral story
telling, free discourse, and completion discourse.

According to Grice, what are the five types by which the speaker fails to observe a maxim?
Explain three of them and give your own examples.

Grice made a distinction among five types by which the speaker fails to observe a maxim. These
five types are as follows:

(1) Opting out: Refers to the situation where the speaker , for any different reason, decides
and chooses not to cooperate and follow the maxim as it requires him to do. Like in the
situation where the speaker feels to be in danger or when he has had swear to keep a
secret. Such as the situation with court or when one is arrested by police and doesn’t want
to speak out from his crimes or the political interviews when the authorities find it not in
the benefit of the country or themselves to talk about some specific issues. Below is an
example for this case:
 Journalist: Mr. President, Is it true that the first case of Covid-19 was observed in our
country a month before you announce it to people and warn them about it?
President: I prefer not to comment about it, next question please.

(2) Suspending: Refers to the situation where the speaker does not cooperate to follow the
maxim and the listener also does not expect him to fulfil the maxim.
(3) Infringing: Refers to the situation where the speaker unintentionally fails to observe the
maxim, due to low level of language skill like in children or Foreign language learners
for the reasons such as lack of enough knowledge about the foreign language or the
culture of the country he is speaking in, or it might be due an impairment and for the
reasons such as nervousness, fear, excitement, and so on. Therefore what he says might
be misleading but the speaker basically had no intention to produce such a misleading or
deceiving implicature. Below is an example for such situation:

Native speaker: Excuse me, where is the post office around here?
Foreigner: I didn’t see any officer posting around here.

(4) Violating: refers to the situation where the speaker says something which is true but he
hides the implied meaning.
(5) Flouting: refers to the situation where the speaker deliberately and intentionally fails to
observe the maxim without the aim of misleading the listener for communicative goal. In
this situation the speaker keeps cooperating with the listener in the communication and
wants the listener to understand what he means from what has indirectly stated, and the
listener must decide what he said and find his implied meanings in most cases. Below is
an example of such situation:

Bride : I don’t like the dress she made for me, it does’nt look good on me.

Sister in law: Being on good shape is a blessing.

“ Here the sister in law implies that the dress is not good on bride because she is overweight
and she should not blame the dress maker, for it is her body which makes dress to look ugly
on her.”