Re p u b lic o f the Ph ilip p in e s

CAVITE STATE UNIVERSITY

Ca vite City Ca m p us
Pu lo II, Da la h ic a n, C a vite C ity, Ph ilip p in e s

BSEE 21: INTRODUCTION TO LINGUSTICS

HANDOUT

TOPIC: Pragmatics

INTRODUCTION

To start our discussion on pragmatics, try to examine the following exchange which we commonly hear or
encounter.

A: Hey John, are you coming to party?

B: I have an exam tomorrow?

What do you think of B's answer? In a literal sense, B's answer is irrelevant. Yet A will immediately interpret
the answer as a 'no' or 'most likely not'. Apparently, this is now the meaning we referred to earlier as the
'invisible meaning'. So how do we account for this ability to grasp the meaning of the statement? This is
another aspect of language meaning

being studied in one of the core branches of linguistics called pragmatics. Pragmatics deals with the aspect
of meaning that largely hinges on the context and the communicative intention of the speaker. In other
words, pragmatics focuses on the utterances and the intended meaning of the speaker.

PRAGMATICS
In pragmatics, understanding the intended speaker's meaning can only be interpreted or understood when
the situations or contexts are taken into account. Different contextual factors including the speaker, the
setting, manner of speaking, the receiver and other non linguistic factors contribute to and affect the
intended meaning. Pragmatics focuses on the aspects of meaning that cannot be predicted by our
semantic knowledge alone, thus taking into account our knowledge and experience of both the physical
and social world. As you read the following terms embodying the different theories and principles in
pragmatics, we hope that in the end, you will have a good grasp of what pragmatics is all about.

SPEAKER MEANING VS. SENTENCE MEANING

(1) "The wind is cold"

As studied in semantics, the sentence meaning is the literal meaning of a sentence. Speaker meaning, on
the other hand, is the meaning that a speaker intends that may be well beyond the sentence conceptual
meaning. Hence, the meaning implied in the sentence or the meaning not directly expressed by the
speaker is what is being dealt with in pragmatics. This implied meaning is also being referred to as 'invisible
meaning'- that is, meaning that one needs to recognize even when it is not actually said or written. The
literal or sentence meaning of (1) is obvious, but if the context has to be taken into account, let's say that
the utterance is made by a husband to his wife who is standing by the window, there is an invisible or
implied meaning to it - that is: "Let's close the window because the wind is getting colder" or "Let's sleep
now."

CONTEXT
(2) "See you later at the bank."

Pragmatics is about the contextual meaning of utterances which means that the intended speaker's
meaning largely depends on the context surrounding an utterance. There are two kinds of context: the
linguistic context or co-text and physical context. Few examples are the words like bank or court that have
more than one meaning. One way to identify their meaning is by recognizing the words surrounding them.
This is what we call as the co-text. Meanwhile, physical context does not only mean that word meanings
have to be understood as they are used in the physical world. Physical context also pertains to the
connections we attached to the word as products of our experiences in the physical world. "We have been
to the bank to withdraw or deposit money" - that's our physical experience with the physical context of
'bank'.

DEIXIS
(3) "Did you go there yesterday?"

There are words that can only be understood or interpreted in relation to the situation in which they are
uttered. They are referred to as deictic expressions. Deixis or a deictic expression is a word or phrase
whose meaning depends on their context of use. An example is the sentence (3), unless we know who
were talking, where they were, when it happened, etc, we will not understand the words "you, there, and
yesterday." Hence, these words are deictic pointing to the time, place, or situation being referred to by the
speaker.

In linguistics, deixis is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person
in context. A deictic expression (or deixis) is a word or phrase that points to the time, place, or situation in
which a speaker is speaking.

Examples:

1. "I wish you'd been here yesterday."

In this sentence the words 'I,' 'you', 'here', and 'yesterday' all function as deixis - they reference a speaker
and an addressee, a location and a time. As we are outside of the context, we cannot know who 'I' is,
where 'here' is, nor can we be entirely sure when 'yesterday' was; this information is known to the speaker
instead and is therefore termed 'deictic'.

2. "Last week I flew over there for a quick visit."

In this sentence, 'last week', 'I' and 'there' are the deixis - referencing time, speaker and place.

We do not have enough context to completely understand the whole sentence, whereas the speaker and
the addressee do; they don't need to repeat or state the precise context. Instead, they use words and
phrases that refer to people, time and place and these function deictically.

Types of Deixis
There are three traditional types of deixis:
1. Personal deixis relates to the speaker, or the person spoken to: the 'who'.
2. Temporal deixis relates to time: the 'when'.
3. Spatial deixis relates to place: the 'where'.

Personal deixis
Personal deixis refers to the way language points to the participants in a conversation. It involves the use of
words and expressions that refer to the speaker (first person), the listener (second person), and others
(third person). Personal deixis is essential in communication as it helps to identify who is speaking, who is
being addressed, and who is being referred to.

NOTE: the 1st and 2nd person pronouns (I, you, we) are typically active participants (in that they speak and
hear speech); the third person pronouns (she, he, they) refer to inactive, ie non-speech or narrated
participants.

Temporal deixis
Temporal deixis refers to the use of language to refer to the time in which an event takes place. It involves
the use of temporal expressions such as "now", "then", "yesterday", "tomorrow", "last week", "next month",
and so on. Temporal deixis is important in understanding the meaning of a sentence, as it allows the
listener or reader to determine when the event being referred to occurred or will occur.

Spatial deixis
Spatial deixis describes the way language refers to spatial locations, such as those related to the speaker
and the listener. It involves the use of spatial markers and indicators, such as adverbs, pronouns, and
prepositions, to indicate the location of objects or events in space.
Examples:
I wish you'd been here yesterday.

1. 'I' and 'you' are examples of personal deixis, (people)

2. 'Here' is an example of spatial deixis, (place)
3. And 'yesterday' is temporal deixis. (time)

Last week I flew over there for a quick visit.

1. 'Last week', which relates to when, is the temporal deixis,

2. 'I' refers to a person, and becomes the personal deixis,
3. 'There' refers to location, and is the spatial deixis.

PRESUPPOSITION
"Where are you hiding your horcruxes?"

When we use referring expressions, we assume that our listeners (or readers) already know their referents
or understood what we meant by the expression. This is what we mean by presuppositions. Of course,
presuppositions may also be mistaken, but most of the time they are appropriate. If someone asks "How
long have you been with each other?" there is an obvious presupposition that you are engaged in a certain
kind of relationship. Presuppositions are very common in our daily interactions. Being aware of their
occurrence is important as this guides the recipient of an utterance, discourse or text towards its intended
meaning. Now, do you know anyone who has a horcrux?

IMPLICATURE

A: Have you already texted them?

B: I don't have load.

Related to presuppositions are the implicature. An implicature is something that is suggested or implied in
an utterance. For example, it can be understood that B has not yet texted them. This implied meaning or
information is what we meant by implicature. It is the hidden or implied meaning in an utterance
conveyed beyond its proposition. The importance of implicature is that they help us communicate more
efficiently than by explicitly expressing everything we want to communicate. We have to make sure, though,
that the intended meaning in our utterance will be captured by our audience;otherwise, one or more of the
maxims (discussed below) will be violated either purposefully or unintentionally.

COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

H. Paul Grice introduced the Cooperative principle in his 1975 article 'Logic and Conversation'¹. The
principle is based on the assumption that participants in a conversation cooperate with each other and
usually attempt to be truthful, informative, relevant, and clear in order to facilitate successful
communication.

Grice suggested that meaningful dialogue is characterized by cooperation and said that:
Each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually
accepted direction.

In simple terms, the Cooperative Principle describes how people achieve effective communication in
everyday situations and aims to explain how and why conversations tend to succeed rather than fail.

Grice expanded on his Cooperative Principle with his four Conversational Maxims. He based the maxims
on the idea that in order to facilitate successful communication, it is necessary to say enough to get your
point across, be truthful, be relevant, and be as clear as possible.

The four conversational maxims are: the Maxim of Quality, the Maxim of Quantity, the Maxim of Relevance,
and the Maxim of Manner. Grice believed that anyone wishing to engage in meaningful communication
must follow these four Maxims and assume that others will also be following them.
The 4 maxims of cooperative principles

1. The Maxim of Quality

 You should only say things you believe to be true.
 You shouldn't say things that you can't back up with evidence.

Of course, definitions of the truth may vary from person to person. Abiding by the Maxim of Quality means
not telling a lie on purpose.

Example:
'The capital of India is New Delhi.'

Here the speaker believes that they are telling the truth to the best of their knowledge.

2. The Maxim of Quantity

 You should make your contribution to the conversation as informative as necessary.
 You should not make your contribution more informative than necessary.

It is important not to withhold information necessary to keep the conversation going. W e Should not
bombard our listeners with too much irrelevant information.

Example:
Speaker A: 'Do you know if Katie got on okay with her exams?'
Speaker B: 'Yes, I do. She did really well and got an A! '

Here speaker B could have ended their reply after 'yes, I do.' However, they shared all of the information
they knew in order not to flout the Maxim of Quantity.

3. The Maxim of Relevance

 You should only say things that are relevant to the conversation.

This Maxim helps keep conversations on track and prevents random conversations that lack continuity. The
Maxim of Relevance also helps us to understand utterances in conversations that may not be initially
obvious.

Example:
Speaker A: 'Do you think Leo is dating someone new?'
Speaker B: 'Well, he goes to Brighton most weekends.'

Due to the Maxim of Relevance, we can infer that there is a link between Leo dating someone and him
going to Brighton, and speaker B isn't just randomly telling us about Leo's trips to Brighton.

4. The Maxim of Manner

 You should avoid obscurity or ambiguity.
 You should be brief and orderly.
 You should try and be as clear as possible.

This Maxim mainly refers to the choice of words you use. For example, we should avoid using big or overly
complex words we know our listener won't understand, and we should try our best to be concise and
coherent.

Example:
'I'm writing an essay on metonymy. It's a type of figure of speech! '

Here the speaker knows that it is possible that the listener doesn't know the term metonymy and decides to
give a quick explanation.
SPEECH ACT THEORY
'Language describes the world around us'. That's the common view. A sentence (for example, 'it's cold in
here, isn't it?') describes a situation. But is there more going on than that? When we speak, are we only
ever describing the world around us? Or are we also somehow 'acting within it'.

Speech act theory is a subfield of pragmatics. The theory is concerned with the way words can be used
to not only give information but also to perform certain actions, or to cause others to perform them.

Locutionary, Illocutionary, and Perlocutionary Speech Acts

1. Locutionary Act
A locutionary act is the basic production of an utterance, comprising all of its verbal, social, and
rhetorical meanings.
Locutionary acts can be broken into two main types: utterance acts and propositional acts.
Utterance acts can be any form of sound and do not necessarily have to be intelligible. In contrast,
propositional acts must express a definable point. For example, a grunt would be an utterance act and a
statement would be a propositional act. Propositional acts typically refer to the literal meaning of the
speech act.

Example:
Charly sees a spider and says, 'Eurgh, I hate spiders'.
Here is an example of a propositional act. The literal meaning is that Charly does not like spiders.

The statement 'Eurgh, I hate spiders' is the locutionary act.

2. Illocutionary Act
An illocutionary act is the active result of the implied meaning from the locutionary act. For example, the
listener makes sense of what is being said to them and can then apply any implied meaning to the
utterance. This answers the question “what the speaker wants to convey?”. It carries the purpose,
intention, and implication of what has been said.

Example:
Charly sees a spider and says, 'Eurgh, I hate spiders'.

As an illocutionary act, the listener can infer that Charly hates spiders and probably does not want this one
near her.

When a customer asks “Do you have salt?” to a waiter in a resto, the illocutionary act is a request even the
locutionary was to ask a question about the salt.

There are five illocutionary speech acts that we can achieve in our atterances:
A. Assertives - where speakers assert their intention and beliefs on the proposition by making statements
than can be verified as either true or false
B. Directives - intended to get someone to do what the speaker desires
C. Commisives - commiting to some future ctions, such as promises or oaths
D. Expressives - speech acts that expresses speaker’s attitudes or emotions manifested through the
utterances such as excuses and thanks.
E. Declaration - change the propositional content corresponding with reality such as baptisms,
pronouncing someonr guilty, pr pronouncing someone husband and wife.

3. Perlocutionary Act
A perlocutionary act is the effect the locutionary and illocutionary acts have on the listener. A
perlocutionary act can influence others to change their behavior or their thoughts and feelings.

Example:
Charly sees a spider and says, 'Eurgh, I hate spiders'.

Based on the previous implied understanding that Charly probably doesn't want the spider near her, the
listener may get up and remove the spider.
Examples of the speech acts:

Speaker A: "Would you like to play tennis? "

Speaker B: "My racket's broken "

 The propositional speech act (literal meaning) = Speaker B's racket is broken.

 The illocutionary speech act (implied meaning) = Speaker B may want to play tennis but cannot
because their racket is broken.

 The perlocutionary speech act (effect on the listener) = Speaker A may infer that speaker B wants to
play but cannot and offers them one of their rackets.

“Can you please get me a glass of water?”

 Locutionary act - “Can you please get me a glass of water?”

 Illocutionary - the speaker is commanding the listener.
 Perlocutionary - the listener gets a glass of water.