TSL 3101

INTRODUCTION TO
LINGUISTICS

PRAGMATICS
MEANING AND CONTENT, AND THE
INTENTION TO COMMUNICATE

ANNISA NOR JETTEY, PHD

JBTN BAH, IPGK PM, MELAKA 1

FRAMEWORK OF TOPICS

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“Can you pass the salt?”

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What is Pragmatics?
A branch of linguistics concerned with the
use of language in social contexts and the
ways in which people produce and
comprehend meanings through language. In
other words, it is language use to perform
speech acts.

 Examples:
 Assert, inform, claim, declare, state…
 Predict, forecast, …
 Describe, assess, classify, …
 Offer, propose, ….
 Apologize, condole, congratulate, greet,
thank, ...
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In pragmatics, two kinds of
contexts are relevant.
The first is linguistic context – the
discourse that precedes the
phrase or sentence to be
interpreted;
the second is situational context –
virtually everything non-linguistic
in the environment of the speaker.
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It seems that the man loves the
woman.
Many people think he loves her.

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Deixis
In pragmatics (linguistics), deixis
is a process whereby words or
expressions rely absolutely on
context.
The Origo is the context from
which the reference is made, in
other words, the "point of view"
that must be understood in order
to interpret the statement.
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(If Tom is speaking and he says
"I", he refers to himself, but if
Tom overhears Betty and she
says "I", then the origo is with
Betty and the reference is to
Betty.)

A word that depends on deictic

clues is called a deictic or a
deictic word.
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Pronouns
are generally considered to be
deictics, but a finer distinction is often
made between personal pronouns
such as I, you, he, she, it and
pronouns that refer to places and
times such as now, then, here, there.
In most texts, the word "deictic"
implies the latter but not necessarily
the former.

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Closer-to-speaker deictic
references are often termed
proximal, (here, this, these) while
the others are named distal
(there, that, those)

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Maxims of Conversation

A conversation is communication
by two or more people, or
sometimes with one’s self, on a
particular topic. Conversations are
the ideal form of communication in
some respects, because they allow
people with different views on a
topic to learn from each other.
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Paul Grice, a British-educated
philosopher of language who
spent the final two decades of his
career in the U.S., noted that all
conversations follow a basic set
of rules which people use to
express themselves when
speaking.

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The four Conversational Maxims
 
A. Maxims of quality

According to the first rule, people are

expected to say what they know to be true.
When talking with each other we expect
the others to tell us the truth. If your friend
asks, “…have you seen my pencil-case?”
an honest answer is expected.

1. Do not say what your belief to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack
adequate evidence.
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 Itis also possible to violate the first maxim by
being too informative. For example:

 When one arrange a luncheon date, they often

ask something like "Where should we meet?"

 "How about if you come to my office?"

 Rather than something much more detailed like

"Please come to my office door, and I will be
standing 27 centimeters inside of it."

 The latter is bizarre, presumably by virtue of

being overly specific.
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B. Maxims of quantity
 
According to this rule, when talking,
we are expected to provide just
enough information to get our point
across. We usually assume that
people are telling us everything we
need to know. If they don’t say
something, then we assume they
simply don’t know that information.

1. Make your contribution as

informative as required.
2. Do not make your contribution
more informative than is required.
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 The second maxim has to do with truthfulness.
Generally, conversation partners assume that the
other is telling the truth, or at least what the
speaker believes to be the truth. On some
occasions, it is permissible to violate this maxim-
for example, to be ironic. Imagine that a friend
who's missed a lecture in a class in which you are
both enrolled asks, "How was class today?" You
can respond, "Utterly fascinating!" even if it really
was dry as toast, if you somehow signal that your
answer isn't to be taken literally. Rolled eyes,
exaggerated intonation, winks, and the like help to
communicate that your violation of the maxim of
quality is itself meant to communicate something-
in this case, ironic humor. If you simply utter an
untruthful response without letting your listener
know .the truth
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 C. Maxim of relation
 
 According to this rule, you are expected to stay on the
topic. In other words, make sure that what you say is
relevant for what is talked about. If asked, “Isn’t Larry the
biggest jerk you ever met?” you certainly won’t be on
topic if you answer by saying “Uh, it sure is nice for this
time of year, eh?”

1. Be relevant.
 Someone who consistently violates the third maxim of
relation by responding with irrelevant utterances will have
a bigger problem: He or she will simply be regarded as, at
best, very bizarre. To illustrate, imagine a conversation
between Tom and Joe, two college roommates:
 TOM (looking around): Hey, Joe, have you seen my
sweater?
JOE (looking at Tom, and smiling): Lo, a flaming squirrel!
 If Joe persists in violating the maxim of relation, he will
likely find himself at a complete loss for conversation
partners, if not roommates and friends.
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 D. Maxims of manner

 The last rule states that your comments

should be direct, clear, and to the point.
 This maxim relates to the form of speech
you use. You shouldn’t use words you know
your listeners won’t understand or say
things which you know could be taken
multiple ways.
 You should also not state something in a
long, drawn-out way if you could say it in a
much simpler manner.
 As an example, we have “Miss Singer
produced a series of sounds corresponding
closely to the score of The Star-Spangled
Banner” vs. “Miss Singer sang The Star-
Spangled Banner.”
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1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief.
4. Be orderly

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The fourth maxim, the maxim of manner,
generally governs the way you choose to
construct your conversation contributions.
The general idea is that you should speak
as clearly as possible, using language
appropriate to your listener and the
context. Among other things, this maxim
forbids you to answer your professors in pig
Latin or your younger siblings in
"academese." It also prevents you from
holding a filibuster (unless you are a
congress person) and requires that you at
least try to organize what you say before
you begin speaking.
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Violations of the maxims produce
conversations that are noticeably odd.
For instance, if someone asks, "Do you have
a watch?" and you respond, "Yes, I do," you
are violating the first maxim of quantity:

You are being less informative than is

required.

As a member of the language community

that you live in, you are expected to know
that the question asked is really a request
for the time and to respond appropriately.
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Implicature
In pragmatics, it means an indirect or implicit
speech act: what is meant by a speaker's
utterance - that is not part of what is explicitly
said. It is the act of suggesting that
something is true, although you do not say it
directly.
You are being careful about what you say:
imply, get at, convey, hedge, fudge, evade,
skirt, parry, intimate, mince (your) words. In
other words, what a speaker intends to
communicate is characteristically far richer
than what she directly expresses
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Assume a husband and wife are
getting ready to go out for the
evening:

Husband: How much longer will

you be?
Wife: Make yourself a
drink.
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To interpret the utterance in Sentence 2, the
husband must go through a series of
inferences based on principles that he knows
the other speaker is using. . . .
The conventional response to the husband's
question would be a direct answer where the
wife indicated some time frame in which she
would be ready.
This would be a conventional implicature with a
literal answer to a literal question. But the
husband assumes that she heard his question,
that she believes that he was genuinely asking
how long she would be, and that she is capable
of indicating when she would be ready.
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The wife . . . chooses not to extend
the topic by ignoring the relevancy
maxim. The husband then searches
for a plausible interpretation of her
utterance and concludes that what
she is doing is telling him that she
is not going to offer a particular
time, or doesn't know, but she will
be long enough yet for him to have
a drink. She may also be saying,
 'Relax, I'll be ready in plenty of
time.'"
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Speech Acts
We use the term speech act to describe
actions such as 'requesting,'
'commanding,' 'questioning,' or
'informing.‘

I'll
be there at six,
You are not just speaking, you seem to
be performing the speech act of
'promising.' It is an utterance defined in
terms of a speaker's intention and the
effect it has on a listener.
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Can you ride a bicycle?

When an interrogative structure

such as Did you . . .? Are they . . .?
or Can we . . .? is used with the
function of a question, it is
described as a direct speech act.
For example, when we don't know
something and we ask someone to
provide the information, we usually
produce a direct speech act such as:
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Compare that utterance with
Can you pass the salt? [Here] we
are not really asking a question
about someone's ability. In fact, we
don't normally use this structure as
a question at all. . . . This is an
example of an indirect speech
act.

 
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