UY a Eats pa UV Ui COGNITION, CONTEXT & CULTUREPragmatics Cognition, Context & Culture Laura Alba-Juez J. Lachlan Mackenzie ‘This book is more than a university course on pragmatics. With exquisite balance, it offers a fascinating journey into the often complex relativuship between linguistic form and what it can communicate in relation to cultural contexts and the mind. It further combines cutting-edge erudition with reader-friendliness and provides students ~and any reader- with an abundance of insights for critical reflection on topics that are still undergoing exploration in linguistic theory. I strongly recommend making extensive and continued use of this great work? Ricardo Mairal, Full Professor of Linguistics, UNED, Madrid, Spain ‘Avery readable and didactically strong introduction to Pragmatics. Besides offering a complete overview of the field, this book explores connections tu cognitive, cultural, and grammatical approaches to language, thus contributing to an integrated theory of human communication. Ad Foolen, Assuviule Professor of Linguistics, Radboud University, The Netherlands — ‘A carefully crafted account of pragmatics that will guide readers Uuough the discipline’s many intricacies? Angela Downing, Full Professor of Linguistics, Universidad Complutense de Madrtd, SpainTHULE “il Table of contents IX TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ... 4m Introduction ... 1. Pragmatics: definition and scope * Main objectives of the chapter * Main topics of the chapter LL. What is pragmatics and why slivuld we develop praguuatic awareness? 1.2, Context: a dynamic concept . 1.3. The underdeterminacy of language and its relation to context 14. The scope of pragmatics: Main schools and central topics .. 1.4.1. Micro and macroprasmatics 1.5. Pragmatics and cognition .. 16. Indirect meanings: why they are always pragmatic in nature 1.6.1, Conventionalized and grammaticalized indirect meanings 1.6.1.1 Conventionalization 1.6.12 Grammaticalization 1.7. Pragmatics and culture .. 1.8. Conclusion oenreee 21 .. 23 * Summary ...... * Self-evaluation questions * Developing our pragmatic competence: exercises for reflection and amplification ... .. 82 2. What we do with language: Speech acts * Main objectives of the chapter * Main topics of the chapter 2.1. On sauing and doing .. 2.2. Austin’s reaction to logical positivism and truth-conditional semantics .... 37 .3, Performative acts 2.3.1. Types of performatives 2.3.2. Felicity conditions _ 7 3. Explicit and implicit performatives 2.4. Types of speech acts (Austin 1962): Locution, Hocution and Perlocution 2.8. Form and function: Do they always coincide?X Table of contents //////I/IIAIIIIIILIILLIIILUL HAMALLULY, 2.6. Types of speech acts (Searle 1989) .6.1. Indirect speech acts 2.7. The impact of Austin and Searle’s work on linguistics 28. Conclusion .. + Summary Self-evaluation questions Developing our pragmatic competence: exercises for reflection and amplification 8. On referring, saying, and implicating: Reference and inference ...... 73 Main objectives of the chapter * Main topics of the chapter 3.1. Reference .. 3.1.1. Why is reference an essentially pragmatic mechanism’ 3.1.2, Types of reference ... 3.2. Deixis: indexicals and context 3.2.1, Types of deixis ... 3.2.2. Grammaticalized deictic meanings 3.3. Inference and implicit meanings 3.3.1, Types of Inference 3.3.2. Presupposition: shared assumptions and background knowledge 3.3.2.1 Types of presuppositions 3.3.2.2. Grammar and presupposition 3.3.3. Implicature .. 3.3.3.1 Conversational Implicature .. . 3.3.3.2. Other ways of not observing the maxims ... 101 103. 3.3.3.3 Conventional Implicature .. 104 3.3.3.4 How do conventional and conversational implicatures difter? . 105 3.3.3.5 Generalized and particularized conversational implicature . 107 3.3.3.6 Neo-Gricean theories of implicature . . 109 3.4. Conclusion . 14 * Summary . 115 * Self-evaluation questions . 18 * Developing our praymatic competence: exercises for reflection and amplification (Chapter 3) ... 121MMMIMITLULLILEL Table of coutents XL 4, Politeness and Impoliteness: How to verbally reconcile our interlocutors’ wants with our own (or not) © Main objectives of the chapter .. © Main topics of the chapter ... 4.1. Politeness as an important element for the development of pragmatic competence .. 4.2. Approaches to politeness .. 4.2.1. The conversational maxim view: Lakoff, Leech and Gu 4.2.1.1 Robin Lakoff .. 4.2.1.2. Geoffrey Leech’s Politeness Principle (PP) 42.13 Yueguo Gu 4.2.2. The face-saving view: Brown & Levinson 4.2.2.1 The concept of face . 42.2.2 Politeness strategies 4.2.28 Sociological variables: D, P&R 4.2.3. Criticisms leveled at both Leech’s and B&L's approaches 4.3. Theories of impoliteness 157 4.8.1. Culpeper’s approach 158 4.3.2. Kaul de Marlangeou's approach 160 4.3.3. Further work on (im)politeness: the rise of the relational view 4.4. Conclusion .. © Summary * Self-evaluation questions * Developing our pragmatic competence: exercises for reflection and amplification 129 129 129 . 130 131 137 151 154 170 173 176 5. Relevance: Processing effort and contextual effects of communication .. * Main objectives of the chapter 181 181 * Main topics of the chapter 181 5.1. Relevance Theory 182 5.2. The Principle of Relevance. 183 3. Relevance and cognition ... . .. 185 5.4. The notions of communication and context within RT _ 187 5.5. The comprehension process 190 190 100 194 5.5.1. Implicature and explicature 5.6.1.1 Explicature .. Implicature .XII Table of contents 5.6. Conceptual vs. procedural meaning/encoding .. 5.7. Relevance and grammar 8. Salience and inference 5.9. Images and RY .. 5.10. Conclusion © Summary . © Self-evaluation questions * Developing our pragmatic competence: exercises for reflection and amplification... 6. Other topics of interest in pragmatics © Main objectives of the chapter .... * Main topics of the chapter 6.1. Introduction .. 6.2. Pragmatics as an important component of grammar 6.2.1. Pragmatics and syntax: how they interact 6.2.2. Pragmatics and the lexicon .. 6.2.3. Pragmatics and phonology: prosody ... 63. Stance and Evaluation asa dynamical, pragmatic system 230 6.4. Emotion: Intersubjective pragmatic meanings 236 6.5. Historical pragmatics 6.6, Pragmatics and computational linguistic: 6.7. Experimental pragmatics .. 6.8. Cyberpragmatics .. 69. Conclusion .. + Summary .. * Self-evaluation questions * Developing our pragmatic competence: exercises for reflection and amplification .. References . Key to self-evalu: m questions and exercises .. Index .IMUM U MUU MUUMAMUMAMUL / Acknowledgements XIII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As Stephen Levinson points out in his well-known book on pragmatics, writers “must he intellectual sponges and spongers” (1983: xiv), and our case as writers of this book has been no exception. We are grateful to all the authors from whose works we have drawn, without whom our work would have been impossible. In particular, we want to thank onr colleagues and friends Silvia Kaul de Marlangeon, Victoria Escandell-Vidal, Francisco Yus and Ad Foolen, for having sent and shared with us not ouly (heir published books and articles, but also some of their unpublished work. Silvia and Victoria were also kind enough to read the first manuscript of two different chapters, and their comments on their respective topics of expertise were of invaluable help. We also owe a debt of gratitude to Joaquin Armijo, for his hard work and artistry in designing the cover and the illustrations in the different chapters, and to Cristina Sanchez, of MeGraw Hill, for her guidance through the process of preparing the volume. Finally, due acknowledgement has to be given to the funding received from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the EMO FUNDETT project (FF12013-47792-C2-1-P PI Laura Alba-Juez) and the project The construction of discourse as social interaction: Contrastive implications and applications (FF12013-40517-P, PI Maria de los Angeles Gomez Guuzdlez).LILLLLISILELTL Introduction — XV INTRODUCTION Pragmatics is a relatively new field of research in the history of linguistic studies, but its findings and scope are so relevant to the understanding of human language that it would nowadays be unthinkable to make a serious analysis of anu language without taking pragmatic considerations into account. Pragmatics is about meaning, but as we shall see throughout this book, it goes beyond the traditional, truth-conditional approaches to semantics. It deals with a broader body of information that draws not only on the text but also on the discursive context, and depending on the perspective taken by its practitioners, its scope may be limited to a micropragmatic analysis or may be macropragmatic in nature, in which case as we shall point out the ficld is difficult to distinguish from that of discourse analysis. This book attempts to explain these perspectives and to bring them together, as well as presenting the major topics and issues that have been explored within the field. The early pragmatic approaches to language came from the field of philosophy, and therefore many of their main concepts and tenets are philosophical in nature and may be difficult to grasp on a first encounter, but this is also one of the reasons why the study of pragmatics provides us with fundamental information not only about language but also about human nature in general. In this respect, it can be said that anyone who embarks on the study of pragmatics will simultaneously embark on an inner voyage that will lead to a better understanding of their own motives, intentions and reactions when interacting with other people. The main aim of this book is, therefore, to present the reader/student with the main concepts, tenets and perspectives of pragmatics as they have been expounded bu the main authors in the field and at the same time to contribute our own perspective to the different issues discussed. In addition, the volume has been conccived as a university course that can be uscd in both traditional and distance education environments. It is precisely because the possibility of autonomous learning was contemplated that the book contains self-evaluation questions and a body of exercises with their corresponding keys in its final pages. Chapter overview and organization ‘This book has six chapters. The first presents the two main perspectives on pragmatics and seeks to define and delimit the field, bearing in mind that this is no easy task, considering the different approaches taken by the scholars working on the subject. In addition, we discuss the three crucial concepts profoundly intertwined with pragmatics which form the subtitle of this book: cognition,XVI Introduction context and culture. Chapters 2 and 3 present the reader with other concepts and topics that are fundamental for the comprehension of the way) human language works, namely speech acts, reference and the different types of inference. Chapters 4 and 6 deal with two of the most influcntial pragmatic thcorics developed to date, Politeness Theory and Relevance Theory. Finally, Chapter 6 looks into both the micropragmatic and the macropragmatic approaches, first dealing with pragmatics as an important component of the grammar of any language and its relationship to other levels of linguistic analysis (syntax, lexicon, phonology), going on to explore a) two functions of language that have gained considerable attention from pragmaticists in the 21° century, the evaluative and the expressive/emotive functions, and b) four relevant subfields that have emerged from the original, philosophical-lingnistic conception of the discipline, namely historical, computational, experimental and cyberpragmatics. All chapters have the same overall organization, with the following fixed sections: * Main objectives of the chapter + Main topics of the chapter * Main body of the chapter, divided into sections * Conclusion * Summary © Self-evaluation questions * Developing our pragmatic competence: Exercises for reflection and amplification At the end of the book there are keys to both the self-evaluation questions and the exercises from each chapter. These have heen especially designed for those readers who want to approach the study of the subject within distance education environments or who simply want to approach the study of pragmatics in an autonomous manner.PRAGMATICS: PERT AND. Pee MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THE CHAPTER: Tu define and delimit the field of linguistic pragmatics MAIN TOPICS OF THE CHAPTER: + Pragmatics as a sub-discipline of Linguistics: origins and scope * Context as a dynamic concept * Language underdeterminacy * Main approaches to and central topics in pragmatics * The relationship of pragmatics to cognition + Indirect meanings * Conventionalization and grammaticalization * Pragmatics and culture2 Pragmatics: definition and scope //// aii |. WHAT IS PRAGMATICS AND WHY SHOULD WE DEVELOP PRAGMATIC AWARENESS? When defining pragmatics, as when defining anu other field of knowledge, the approach or perspective taken for its study will undoubtedly shape and influence the definition finally adopted. As will be made apparent in this chapter, pragmatics is a complex, dynamic discipline whose boundaries are far from clear, and which is therefore not easy to define in static, absolute terms. Let us start our discussion by saying that pragmatics Is a subdiscipline of linguistics that can be traced back to the classical traditions of rhetoric and stylistics, but whose status as a modern, independent field of study was not acquired until the first half of the 20 century, when Morris (1938: 21) wrote about the “pragmatic dimension of semiosis” as “the relation of signs to interpreters”. Indeed, pragmatics does not deal with abstract idealizations of how language is structured, or prescriptive rules about how language should work, but rather with how, when, why, etc. speakers/writers (Morris's ‘interpreters’) actually use language for different purposes. One thing we know for sure: Pragmatics deals with meaning. But the concept of meaning in pragmatics is much broader than in traditional, truth-conditional semantics.’ Meaning in pragmatics goes further than the word or the sentence, to be regarded as a crucial aspect of the whole social, cultural and even cognitive context. We should then distinguish between a) the basic meaning of an expression resulting from ils syntactic structure (i.e., Grice’s 1967 timeless meaning), and b) what someone means by using such an expression in a given situation. Semantics is mainly concerned with a), while pragmatics is mainly concerned with b). Thomas (1995) refers to the former as ‘abstract meaning’ and to the latter as ‘utterance’ or ‘contextual’ meaning. Leech (1983: 6) explains this difference very clearly and in a nutshell, when pointing out that the difference between semantics aud praymatics lies in two different uscs of the verb to mean. Semantics will try to answer the question What does X mean?, while pragmatics will try to find an answer to What did you mean by X? But in spite of these differences, the boundaries hetween the two subdisciplines of linguisties are not clear-cut: they share a great deal of common ground and thus it can be said that, far from being opposed, they not villy complement each other but even overlap in some respects. 1 ‘Trull-conditional semantics is an approach to ccmantics that accounts for the meaning of propositions in terms of the conditions under which they are logically true. The first attempts to account for meaning on the basis of truth are attributed to Donald Davidson. See Navidson (1967).MALIA LALA Pragmatics: definition and scope 3 Therefore, when doing pragmatics we are taking a theoretical and methodological approach to language that focuses more on context and actual linguistic behavior than on some abstract, idealized system. This view is inevitably linked to a functional perspective on language, as opposed to a formal one. Taking a functional view entails giving paramount importance to the purposes and functions of language, including all of its uses. Notwithstanding, a pragmatic approach to the study of language may (and, in fact, should) take into account many of its formal aspects, because they also form part of and contribute to a satisfactory determination of the meaning of utterances. Mackenzie (2016: 470) points out that all functional views of language share the assumption that languages in human societies “have the primordial function of permitting sophisticated communication of ideas and fcclings” and this is precisely what pragmatics allows us to do: to understand communication by trying to work ont not only the literal meaning of words and sentences, hnt also the hidden, indirect or implied meanings of utterances and/or whole texts. Indeed, one interesting aspect of the study of the pragmatic dimension of language is the fact that it can help us understand how human beings can ‘say what they mean without meaning what they say” (as Cutler 1974 put it in the title of her famous article on ironic meanings). And even if prayiatics as a field is nul easy tu define, il is undisputed that all (competent) users of any given language share a vast array of both general and specific pragmatic knowledge without which it would be impossible for them to interact. This kind of knowledge allows us, among other things, to interpret the same utterance in completely opposite ways if said in different situations, as is the case of How clever of her in (1a) and (1b), taking into account that in (1a) being able to work out the solution to a math problem is in general considered as something positive, while in (1b) both Susan and Peter have a negative opinion of John, and thus, in this particular case, they both think that Ann has made the wrong choice. Thus, their hackground knowledge of the situation and their shared pragmatic knowledge” are both key factors to interpreting Peter's utterance in a literal way in (1a) and as an ironic remark in (1b): (@) a. Susan: Ann has finally worked out the solution to that difficult math problem. Peter: How clever of her! b. Susan: Ann has finally decided to marry John. Peter: How clever of her! 2 Such as, for instance, the knowledge of the fact that in English (as in all languages, it would appear) one can say something and mean the opposite (or something very different from the literal meaning), given the appropriate discursive conditions.TILLEY. 4 Pragmatics: definition and scope —//////////////I//////I/ But pragmatic knowledge is necessary not only for understanding complex and intricate ironic meanings, but also for such simple things as disambiguating the real person or thing behind a referring term or a deictic® pronoun. For instance, knowing the syntactic properties of pronouns in English is not enough to interpret you or him in (2): (2) You and you, but not him, will come to London with me. We know that both pronouns could be used to identify different referents in different contexts, and therefore we need contextual information about the situation in which they are used, as well as some knowledge about the speaker's intention. Normally, the speakers of a language use their pragmatic knowledge (and thus work ont the meaning of utterances and whole discourses) in an unconscious way. However, a conscious management of pragmatic resources and strategies can be of great help not only in the obvious case of a learner of a foreign language and culture, but also in cascs of intracultural communication, where a skillful use of these resources will most surely bring about payoffs of various kinds. When it comes to achieving successtul communication, developing pragmatic awareness is a crucial factor: Not only is it a sign of high communicative competence, but also of social and emotional intelligence. Pragmatic knowledge and skills, therefore, are indispensable tools for any communicatively competent speaker of a language. But before discussing the possible definitions and our own view of pragmatics, it is worth looking into some key points and aspects related to the field, such as the concept of context, the underdeterminacy of language, or the relation between pragmatics and cognition. We now turn to these matters. 1.2. CONTEXT: A DYNAMIC CONCEPT Everything people do, whether they are speaking or not, occurs in a context. Context has a powerful effect on discourse, not only for the hearer as he® interprets a 1essaye but also for the speaker as she formulates it. Contexts arc far from static: the contextual elements of any given situation may change once or several times in the course of a single conversation or any other type of discourse interaction. Even within a single utterance, the context is changed by 3° See Chapter 3. 4 For further treatment of the concept of emotional intelligence, see Goleman (1995). 5 For organizational purposes, we refer to the speaker as “she” and to the hearer as “he”.J/NI/111 Pragmatics: definition and scope 5 what the speaker says, affecting both how she can complete her uttcrance and the ongoing interpretation by the hearer. By way of example, although (3a) and (3b) contain the same propositional message, they are (and have to be) encoded in different ways due to the particular contextual circumstances in each case: (3) Tom is very happy because he has won the lottery and delivers the good news to a) his wife and later to b) his boss. a) To his wife, at home: Honey, you won't believe this: We're rich!!! We won the first prize in the lottery! Yoohooo! We won't need to work anymore for the rest of our lives! b) To his boss, at the companu's headquarters: Mr. Williams, I'm veru happu to inform you that I have won the first prize in the national lottery, and as a. consequence I'm giving you a month’s notice of my resignation from my position in this company. As you will understand, it will not be necessary for me to continue working here or indeed in any other company. But what do we exactly mean by context, and what types of context can there be? We shall refer to context as both the linguistic and extra-linguistic information affecting the meaning that is finally settled on by both speaker and hearer. Fetzer (2004: 4-12) views context as a multifaceted phenomenon which influences the connection between language and its use, and identifies several types of context, namely the linguistic, the social, the socio-cultural and the cognitive context. But apart from these, we believe there is another, very relevant type that should be considered, namely, the emotional context. All of them we shall explain in the following paragraphs, going on to show how each type of context is interrelated with the other types. The linguistic context covers the preceding and upcoming words and sentences that condition the ongoing utterance (sometimes called the co-text) but much more besides. The time and location of utterance are also included in the linguistic context since they affect the understanding of words such as now and here; so is the identification of the speaker and hearer(s), which determines ‘the interpretation of pronouns like J and you. These factors together make up the speech situation. Whereas it is uncontroversial that current utterances are affected by what went before, it needs to be stressed that predicted follow-up contributions also belong to the linguistic context: for example the nature of a desired response will determine the form of a question. In other words, utterances: are both constrained by contexts and themselves build new contexts. Linguistic context also encompasses more global settings: for example, the genre job interview’ provides a context for (and limits) the exchange that takes place between the candidate and the committee6 Pragmatics: definition and scope WUT HIATT The social context is broader, including such questions as the institutional coutext in which the interaction is occurring (a school, a doctor's office, a courtroom, etc.). These wider contexts entail certain roles and statuses (known as footings”), which for instance determine who leads a conversation, who asks the questions, etc. Another aspect of social context concerns how participants in an interaction conceive their own identities in terms of seniority, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and so on: clearly, any one person's identity is a complex matrix, different aspects of which will be important in different situations. Yet another aspect of the social context affects such fundamental choices as that between spoken and written communication (as well as intermediate forms like chatting, ‘whatsapping’, etc.) or the possible use of more than one language (code-switching) and/or two varieties of the same language (diglossia). It is immediately obvious how social pressures impact upon communicative choices but also how changes in society are reflected in those choices: it nowadays happens that bosses fire employees with 4 mere (ext message, sumetiting unthinkable even ten years ago. Seen from this social perspective, context is something negotiable, arising from the interaction of human beings who are aware of their multiple roles in society but also are continually maneuvering towards the achievement of their personal goals. The cultural context reflects how the variables of the social context are interpreted frum the perspective of a particular culture. A culture may align with a specific language community, as when people talk of ‘English-speaking culture’ or with a group of such communities, as in ‘Latin culture’, alternatively, different cultures can be recognized within one and the same group speaking (more or less) the same language, for example distinguishing Brazilian and European Portuguese cultures. Cultural context can influence such fundamental aspects of language as the understanding of time (for example as linear or not) or of space (for instance as independent of the human body or not). At a more micro level, it can determine what associations people have with words: in many cultures, the word normat is evaluated negatively and is associated with notions like ‘ordinary’, ‘run-of-the-mill’, ‘unexceptional’; on the contrary, in Dutch culture, normaal tends to be evaluated positively in the sense of ‘agreeable’, ‘not irritating’. Cultural context is so important for analyzing language use that researchers studying undocumented languages have to immerse themselves int the speakers’ culture before they can grasp how those languages are used to communicate. Cultural context is also key to understanding how a community uses language in serious vein for government and religious rituals and in lighter vein for humor and mockeru. Cultures are veru far from being static or monolithic: just consider how British culture has changed and internationalized under the 5 Eg. Goffman (1981).Pragmatics: definition and scope 7 influence of immigration, EU membership and globalization. The dynamism of modern cultures means that the impact of cultural context on language use is sometimes hard to trace; but no one doubts its powerful influence. The cognitive context refers to the mental processes that allow language users to perform within their own social and cultural contexts. This context contains a set of beliefs and assumptions, some of which have the status of facts for particular speakers. These can be expressed as propositions. Within any given culture, there will be atheists, agnostics and believers (in very different percentages, of course, depending on the culture under analysis). For the atheists, the proposition ‘God exists’ has the status ‘untrue’; for the agnostics, it has the status ‘may or may not be true’; for the believers, it has the status ‘true’ in other words, it is a fact. The particular setting of their cognitive context will subsequently affect how they form and interpret utterances about faith, religion and theology. One belief that is shared by everyone from the age of three upwards, with the partial exception of sufferers from autism and related conditions, is that part of the cognitive equipment of other people (and of oneself) 1s intentionahtu: the desire to inform others, coupled with the desire to have this desire recognized as such by those others. To the fonr types of context proposed by Fetzer (2004) we wish to add a fifth that has had increasing attention in recent years, the emotional-attitudinal context. Long before we can communicate with language, we are very effective at communicating our emotions (as any childcarer will confirm) as well as our attitudes of acceptance and refusal. The impact of emotion on our communication continues through childhood and adult life, providing the engine for our thinking, inspiring our cultures, motivating our sociality and impacting our language in countless ways (Foolen 2012). Everything we do is dependent upon our emotional state and our attitudes. Imagine you have a week to write an essay on a poem. The way you go about this linguistic task is ultimately determined by your feelings: How do you fecl about the message of the poem? Ilow do you feel about having to write about it? How do you feel about the teacher who gave you the assignment? Its common experience that all these feelings and many more have a decisive impact un how your sind sets to work, Even if your essay is expressed in the ‘cool’ prose of scholarly discourse, there is a profounder context for the entire experience that is deeply rooted in the processes of your body. This emotional-attitudinal context also affects how readers and hearers react: voters may be bombarded with written manifestoes and political broadcasts but ultimately their decision at the ballot box will be determined by their feelings. Although the details of the relation between language and emotion are still not well understood, the increasing interest among researchers in this elusive but fascinating area justifies our recognizing emotional-attitudinal context as a crucial type of context, which affects and is affected by all the other types.& — Pragmatice: definition and ecape UT In effect, our memories for the linguistic context, our sensitivity to the social context and our exposure to the cultural context are all mediated by the thinking brain as well as by our emotions and attitudes, but at the same time it can also be said that the language, the society and the culture we are immersed in also shape our cognitive system and our emotions in some way or another. Figure 1 shows our attempt to represent this phenomenon. Figure |: Types of context Hence, it is apparent that utterances cannot be treated in isolation, but as a function of their possible contexts. We have consequently tried to explain here that pragmatic studics include phenomena which reflect the interaction between elements of the purely linguistic context and elements of the more qeneral cognitive, attitudinal and socio-cultural context (e.g. perception, personal and/or cultural beliefs, inference, etc.). And in relation to this, it should be pointed out that these phenomena cannot be properly investigated withont drawing on the findings of other disciplines, such as cognitive science or sociology, which makes pragmatic studies interdisciplinary. It is clear, thus, that an approach to pragmatics that takes into consideration both the ‘purely linguistic’ and the non- linguistic factors will be far more enriching and revealing for the analyst than an approach that considers only the ‘purely linguistic’ ones. Our main intention in this section has been to explain that the concept of context is a multifarious and dynamic one, which changes continually and always influences the linguistic product of a discourse interaction. Consequently, it can contain various kinds of interrelated information that is crucial for the characterization of a wide range of pragmatic phenomena such as deixis, reference or implicature (to name a few), all of which will be presented and analyzed in this book in due course.MELT Pragmatics: definition and scope 4 1.3. THE UNDERDETERMINACY OF LANGUAGE AND ITS RELATION TO CONTEXT If we analyze the utterances we hear or read every day, we shall see that there could always be some way in which they are unclear. This is what in pragmatics we call the ‘underdeterminacy’ of language, which refers to the fact that any given utterance could have more than one possible meaning, depending on the conditions surrounding the speech event. The cognitive work we carry out as users of a given language — based on all the contextual information we have — will determine which of all the possible meanings Is the one intended by the speaker in each particular situation. Thus, it can be said that most (if not all) linguistic expressions are underdetermined in some way or another and that their interactive meanings can only be assessed and worked ont within a given context. One of the authors of this book always remembers how much at a loss she felt the first time she had to pay for her groceries at an American supermarket, when the cashier asked the underdetermined question Paper or plastic? The exchange went as transcribed in (4): (4) Cashier: Good morning. Have you found everything you needed Ma'am? Laura: Yes, thank you. Everything’ fine. Cashier: Great. Paper or plastic? ixcuse me? (Thinking: what in the world could she mean???) Cashier: P-a-p-e-r o-r p-l-ars-t-i-c? Laura: Sorry, but ... Do you mean “Am I going to pay with bills or credit card??” Cashier: No, ma'am, I mean, “do you want paper or plastic bags for your groceries?” Laura: Erm... ‘The question put by the cashier (Paper or plastic?) is a prototypical case of an underdetermined utterance which is normally understood by everyone in a certain context or culture and therefore does not generally need to be explained. In this particular case, since Laura was visiting the USA for the first time in her life, she did not have the cultural background to automatically know that the cashier was referring to the type of bag she wanted to have her groceries put into, and therefore it was necessary for her to ask for the explicature! that would clarify the intended meaning of the cashier's question. Without it, Laura was thinking of a more far-fetched explanation, for as can be seen in (4), she had We shall deal with the concept of explicature in Chapter 5.PIALTUALEED ALLE ion ond scope 10 Pragmatics speculated about paper and plastic being metaphors for cash and credit respectively, considering that bills are made of paper and credit cards of pl (but of course, she was wrong). In this particular case the meaning encoded in the linguistic expre! used underdetermines the proposition expressed (i.e. what is said). Some a (e.g. Carston 2002) argue that this is the only type of underdeterminacy should be covered in pragmatics. However, other authors (e.g. Grundy 2008 Huang 2016) include other types within its scope: they also include instances: which a) the linguistic meaning underdetermines what is meant, or b) what & said underdetermines what is meant. An example of a) would be the sign “ Psychiatrist” (Grundy 2008: 9) on the door of an office in a clinic, where the retrievable’ and appropriate interpretation would be that it refers to a psychiatrist who treats children and not to a psychiatrist who happens to be a child, but if we only considered the possibilities given by the logic and grammar of the English language, both meanings arc equally possible. In the following examples (5b and. 6) we shall deal with cases of b) above, i.e. examples in which what is said underdetermines what is meant. And here is where we could include instances of irony, understatement and the like. Consider, then, (5a) and (5b): (5a) Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas (the famous sign at the entrance of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA) (5b) A: I didn’t know there was so much crime and vice in this city. B: Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas. 8 To use a term from Relevance Theory (See Chapter 5)///I] Pragmatics: def mond scope Il As the reader will surely have realized by now, the meaning of (5a) is rather different from that found in (5b), even if the linguistic expression used is exactly the same one. And the reason why they are interpreted differently is precisely because the context of appearance of the expression is not the same: In (5a) we will normally interpret it as a friendly welcome message to all people visiting Las Vegas, whereas the message in (5b) has little to do with the expressive illocutionary act of welcoming. In fact, itis a warning message, which intends to make the listener aware of the fact that the city of Las Vegas can be a dangerous place, and therefore not so ‘fabulous’. Consequently, if the expression Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas were devoid of context, its meaning would be quite underdetermined and we would not be able to define the specific function fulfilled by it in each case. Another interesting example, in which itis important to take the variable of time as part of the context, is found in the following exchange of What's App messages between one of the authors and her younger son: © Gulian is helping out at the Tech Department of his school during the summer holidays) Laura: Julian, will you come for lunch today? 11:08 Julian: Vet you know soon. 11:09 Laura: What does “soon” mean for you? 13:53 Julian: Sorry! I won't be long. I'll be back later. 13:54 It is obvious here that Laura is not really interested in knowing what the word soon means for Julian, but that she is being reproachful towards her son because almost three hours have elapsed since the time he said he would “let her know soon” whether he was coming for lunch or not. Thus what she says underdetermines what she means, a fact that can also be clearly observed in Julian's reaction to his mother’s (rhetorical) question, which turns out to be an apology instead of an explanation of what the word “soon” means for him. The function and the meaning of the question What does “soon” mean for you? in (6) are different from, for instance, its function and meaning in (7), simply because the context is different and, among other things, the variable of time is not affecting the question in the same way as in (6): @ (Ais going on an errand) A; Till be back soon B: What does “soon” mean for you? ‘A: Ermmm....In an hour or so, This is a normal conversation in which each turn occurs immediately after the previous one, and where B only wants to have a more precise idea of the time12 Pragmatics: definition and scope /////////////////I///////LII) at which B will be back, nu reproach being intended. Thus, contrary to Julian's Tesponse in (6), the response given by A in (7) is uot an apoloc but a simple act Of providing B with the piece of information previously requested, As the reader may have noticed, underdeterminacy is related to ambiguity. Both are properties of everyday language that are important and dealt with in pragmatics. Huang (2016: 206), for instance, provides interesting examples of lexical and syntactic ambiguity which also present underdeterminacy if taken out of their contexts, such as (8) and (9): (8) John is looking for his glasses. (9) They are cooking apples. (8) is an cxample of an ambiguous, underdetermined utterance in that — if the context is not provided — there are at least two possible interpretations: 4) John is looking for his spectacles, or b) John is looking for his drinking vessels, And the utterance in (9) could be the answer to at least two different questions: a) What are they doing in the kitchen? Or, b) What kind of apples are thse? Possessive constructions in English constitute another case of contex(- dependent, underdetermined and ambiguous expressions. For instance, if someone is speaking of Lachlan’s book, there could be at least four immediate possible interpretations: a) the book that Lachlan wrote or is writing, b) the book that he Possesses, C) the book that he is now reading, or d) the book that he is holding in his hand. Only if we have access to the context(s) in which the expression is used can we choose one of these four (or any possible uther) alternatives, For all the reasons explained above, it is understood that the feature of language called underdeterminacy is of key importance within pragmatic studies, Other properties of everyday language related tu underdeterminacy (and ambiguity), such as relevance, appropriateness, non literaV/ndirect meauillys, etc, are also part uf Ute scope of pragmatics, In the next sections (and chapters) we shall try to delimit its scope by lovkisyg into these, as well as other central topics. I.4. THE SCOPE OF PRAGMATICS: MAIN SCHOOLS AND CENTRAL TOPICS As we pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, pragmatics is a complex and dynamic sub-discipline of linguistics whose boundaries are nol easy to define. One of the reasons why it is not easy to draw clear lines regarding the scope of Pragmatics is because, as we also pointed out above, pragmatic studies step out of the frame of ‘pure linguistics’, and thus also draw on the findings of otherJIJ/I/— Pragmatics: definition and scope 13 disciplines such as psychology, sociology or neurology. And it is precisely due to this widening of scope that, within pragmatic studies, we may find different schools of thought, the two principal ones being a) the Anglo-American School, and b) the Buropean Continental School. The Anglo-American School holds what has been called the component view af pragmatics, because within this conception, pragmatics is considered to be ‘one more of the core components of a linguistic theory, aluug wilh phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and scmantics. This tradition is represented by authors such as Levinson (1983), Leech (1983), Yule (1996) or Cummings (2005). As Huang (2016: 208) remarks, “the component view of pragmatics is to some extent a reflection of the modular conception of the human mind”, and thus within this framework of thought, pragmatics may be defined as “the systematic study of meaning by virtue of, or dependent on, the use of language. The central topics of inquiry include implicature, presupposition, speech acts, deixis and reference” (2016: 208). Indeed, the topics alluded to in Huang’s definition are central and unavoidable topics for any researcher in the field, but a great number of scholars believe that this constitutes too narrow a view of pragmatics. The European Continental conception of linguistics is embodied in the work of linguists such as Jef Verschueren, who defines pragmatics as “the cognitive, social, and cultural science of language and communication” (2009: 1), and who consequently advocates a broader view, presenting a functional perspective on ail levels of linguistic description and beyond. As Bublitz & Norrick (2011: 4) put it, within this broader point of view, pragmatics is seen as “the scientific study of all aspects of linguistic behavior” and as an area of research that is “fundamentally concerned with communicative action in any kind of context”. Consequently, according to the Continental view, pragmatics is nol confined within the boundaries of just one linguistic component, but is ‘omnipresent’ in all components and every aspect of linguistic behavior. This broader view has been more inclined than the component view to consider pragmatic phenomena as Enguistic data (hal necessarily have to be studied in relation to other domains, giving risc to new sub areas of research such as computational, historical, anthropological or experimental pragmatics. But the above dichotomy of views does not in fact present the real current picture: As Huang (2016) points out, tere has been sume convergence between ‘the Anglo-American and the Continental traditions, for there has been important ssork done on topics such as implicature or presupposition from a Continental perspective, and at the same time the Anglo-American School has delved into farther research on the relation of praymatics to areas such as cognitive psucholinguistics, computational linguistics or neuro-linguistics, just to name a few As we see it, this convergence was a necessary and fruitful one, for it unitesthe efforts, knowledge and strengths of both schools, which obviously complement each other. Other authors, such as Ariel (2010) ar Mey (2008 [1993}), also adhere to the reconciliation of the component and the perspective views. Mey makes the following concludiny remark, which is very much in-syne with the approach taken in this book: ‘Thus, we could have a pragmatic component, understvud as the set of whatever pragmatic functions can be assigned to language, along with a pragmatic perspective, i, the way these functions operate. We could either ask how users ‘twean what they say’, that is, how they communicate, using language, or how they ‘say what they mean’, employing the linguistic devices at their disposal to express themselves. (Mey 2008 [1993]: 9) 1.4.1. MICRO AND MACROPRAGMATICS ‘The scope, interests and methodology of the Anglo-American School could be identified with what has been called micropragmatics and thosc of the Continental European School with so-called macropragmatics. So, when doing micropragmaties we would he concerned with specific theoretical discussions about topics such as implicature, reference or deiwis, while when doing iacropraymiatics the emphasis would be placed more on the perspective taken than on any theoretical point in particular, which would simply entail taking a functional perspective (in a very broad sense) on the study of language in all its aspects. But, again, this dichotomization of the field of pragmatics presents its problems and raises some important questions, such as: a) Cana researcher do micropragmatics and relate her findings on the topics of implicature, presupposition, etc. to other non-linguistic social, cultural or clinical phenomena’, or b) If macropragmatics is about ‘the study of language in all aspects’, how does it differ from discourse analysis, and why would it be necessary in the first place? ‘To the first question we would feel inclined to respond that the answer is ‘yes’, and that we in fact should try to find the relationship between these theoretical topics and their contexts of whatever type, as we illustrated in 1.2, So, again, the boundaries between one view and the other remain blurry and undefined, and it would be limiting to stick to either one of them ina fundamentalist way. As for question b), it is very likely that, if we define pragmatics as a discipline that ‘studies language in all its aspects’, we shall immediately start to wonder if there is any use in distinguishing it from discourse analysis or even linguistics (if taken in a broader sense). Thus, while aNAMUMIMUTLUUITTULLTLILLL — Peagmaties: definition and scope IS convergence of both approaches seems desirable, the all-embracing character of macropragmatics seems too broad to make pragmatics a necessary sub-field of linguistics, distinct from any other. Along this line of thought, then, we feel more prone to think that the findings and objectives of both micro and macropragmatics are of great use for linguists and discourse analysts, but that, whereas pragmatics is an indispensable source for the analysis of discourse (Alba-Juez 2009: 46), it is, however, not the sane thing. Pragmatics provides discourse analysts with important tools and basic concepts without which their work would be impossible to carry out, but discourse analysis is a broader, more empirically-oriented discipline that is not particularly interested in Uieoriziny about, for instance, inferences or deiuis (pragmatics already docs that!). Among other things, discourse analysis includes many schools and traditions (e.g critical discourse analysis, ethnography of communication, ete.) which in our view do not form part of pragmatics, although they do draw on its findings. Based on the above discussion, in this book we shall not cover all approaches to the study of language or discourse or, for obvious reasons, ‘all aspects of language’, and shall thus concentrate more on the topics that have traditionally been studied within micropragmatics, without disregarding the findings of macropragmatics. We shall mainly explore, therefore, topics such as politeness, speech acts, implicature or reference, placing onr emphasis on the fact that they always occur in cognitive, social, emotional or cultural contexts (Chapters 1 to 5), and at the same time also devote some space and time to the discussion of some topics from the areas of, for instance, historical or computational pragmatics, which could be placed more within the field of what so far has been called macropragmatics (mainly in Chapter 6). 1.5. PRAGMATICS AND COGNITION As we mentioned in 1.2 ahove, our ability to function in social and cultural contexts is dependent on our mental capacities. In the approach to the mind favored by generative linguistics, questions of communicative context were ruled out as belonging to performance rather than competence. Scholars interested in the cognitive context of communication therefore turned to other traditions, notably functionalism and in particular pragmatics. As a result, these traditions began to thrive, spawning such new fields as Cognitive Linguistics and Discourse Analysis in which the relation of utterances to their social, cultural and cognitive settings is of central importance.15 Pragmatice: definition and seope —////////////II/ An important contributor to the study of the cognitive context of communication is Bara (2011). He defines Cognitive Pragmatics as the study of the mental states of people who are engaged in communication. Some of these mental states are shared, such as those that concern the nature of the ongoing communication: a teacher and her student, for example, will have a shared representation of the class activities that are taking place. Other mental states are not shared, of course: the teacher may well be assessing (he student during the interaction without communicating that assessment; and the student may be secretly daydreaming about his favorite football team. When the brain is damayed, as in Wraumatic brain injury, the patient's linguistic abilities may be affected (luckily, this does not happen very often since only about 2% of cases suffer persistent language disorders, Granacher 2008: 275). ‘The disorders can, as one might expect, also affect patients’ communicative abililies. McDonald & Pearce (1996) tested brain-damaged patients for their ability to recognize sarcasm, as in their example (10): (10) Mark: What a great football game. Wayne: Sorry I made you come. Here Wayne's reaction shows that he has understood (probably on the basis, of the evidence of his own eyes, too) that Mark was being sarcastic. The researchers found that a proportion of their subjects were unable to detect the sarcasm, whereas normal subjects generally could. The brain-damaged subjects typically could process the literal meaning but failed to infer what Mark really intended to communicate. Whereas gencrative linguistics holds that our language faculty is antonamons, ie. distinct from our ather cognitive abilities, cognitive pragmatics emphasizes how language is inseparably interwoven with the totality of our mind and body. This position has been characterized by Lakoff (1987) as cexperientialism, a philosophical stance that sees reason as not being objective but rather as arising from our genetic and environmental involvedness with the world around us. For some scholars in pragmatics, this entails (cf. Cuenca 2003: 2) conceiving “the system ... in a dynamic way, intcrrclating linguistic structure (syntax), meaning (semantics), language use (pragmatics) and conceptual structure (cognition)”. As a consequence of this view, the advocates of this approach tend nol Lo believe in clear-cut dichotomies (e.g. competence/ performance, syntax/semantics, semantics/pragmatics) and rather call for an integration of all linguistic levels along a dynamic continuum One of the trickiest issues in the study of language and cognition concerns the extent to which our conceptualization, i.c. the way we categorize our experience af the world, is determined hy the language that we happen to speak.