Minicurso: (im)Polidez em Contextos Virtuais de Língua Inglesa

02/07/2020
● Pragmatics may be defined as the study of language use in context.
○ Its knowledge is part of our knowledge of how to use language
appropriately.
● DISCOURSE = language in use
● CONTEXT = immediate context (event of speech = communicative intent +
participants)
● Central topics of pragmatics:
○ implicature (mismatch between in what is been said and their intention)
○ pressuposition (shared knowledge and cognition)
○ speech acts (we meay interfere in reality)
○ deixis (personal pronouns, context based indicators [times etc])
● Sentence meaning: explicature
● Speaker’s meaning: implicature
○ Speakers imply x Interlocutors infer
○ Perlocutionary factor: we do not know if the interlocutor will infer the
implicature
● Central insight behind the Theory of Speach Acts: to utter something - either
orally or in writing - is to do something.
● FELICITY CONDITIONS = just as a sentence can be considered
ungrammatical if it violates the rules of synthax, it is possible for a speech act
to be infelicitous if it violates the rules governing speech acts.
○ The right thing been said by the right people at the right time and place
■ A priest saying “ I declare you husband and wife” at a church
■ A president declaring “ I hereby resign” and putting in writing
○ My bad = I am sorry
■ Is it felicitous to say my bad at a funeral?
● POLITENESS = involves the recognition and linguistic acknowledgement of
much subtler threats to the self-image that a person presents publicly (face)
(Brown and Levinson 1978).
○ Positive face: utterance in such a way as to emphasize the ​solidarity
between you and your interlocutor, you are appealing to their positive
face;
■ to attend to one’s needs
○ Negative face: utterance in such a way as to allow them space and the
freedom to decline
■ invade one’s space
○ Any sentence can touch both faces