PRAGMATİCS

 Pragmatics is concerned with the interpretation of

linguistic meaning in context
 Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choices of
language in social interaction and the effects of our
choices on others
 Pragmatic competence is the ability to use the
appropriate linguistic expressions for the intended
meaning and purpose according to the rules of
conversation (cognitive, biological, psychological,
cultural, sociological, contextual factors, and choices
such as, informal vs. formal, polite vs. sarcastic styles,
are important)
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 Speaker meaning?
 Shared assumptions and expectations?

 The context?

 Pre-existing knowledge?

 Interpretation of the intended meaning?

 ‘BABY AND TODDLER SALE’

 ‘HEATED ATTENDANT PARKING’

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 Context of language: variety of language, time, place,
occasion, participants, and the purpose.
 Features of language (sentence length, type, word
choice, level of formality, intonation)
 Features of Context (place, occasion, participants,
purpose, and time)
 Shared Knowledge (existing knowledge)

 Knowledge of the World (cultural knowledge, personal

and social relationships, and psychological distances of
the specific language)
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 A text has coherence if the concepts and relationships expressed
are relevant and logical
 Linguistic/co-context?

 Physical context? Mental representations?

 Cohesion refers to the existance of linguistic devices such as

conjunctions and pronouns that tie the sentences together
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 Deictic expressions: person (we/they), relative (which/who),
time/temporal (now/later), place/spatial (here/there), direction
(behind/backward), demonstrative (this/there)
 ‘You’ll have to bring it back tomorrow because she isn’t here
today’
 Antecedent: the first mentioned word or expression
 Anaphora: referring back to maintain reference (pronouns,
repetitions, related words or expressions) (see p. 129)
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Reference: identifying things, people, places, and time
 Proper nouns (Chaplin, Jane)

 Nouns in phrases (my sister, his older brother)

 Pronouns

 Invented descriptions (the big blue thing)

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Inference: a connection between what is said and what must be
meant (indirect reference)
 Invented names (Mr. Perfect is approaching)

 Picasso is on radio

 Shakespeare is in İstanbul

 She bought a Dali in the auction.

 I’ll order some Italian!

 Where’s the spinach salad sitting?

 Jennifer is wearing Calvin Klein

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 Presupposition: assumptions about what our listener already
know.
She’s divorced again!
Did he stop smoking?
How much did you drink?
Read the following chapter for next week
I used to regret buying this house
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 Speech Acts
 Speech acts are used to describe actions such as ‘requesting’,
‘commanding’, ‘questioning’ or ‘informing’.
 Action performed by a speaker with an utterance

 Ex: I’ll be there at six (speech act of promising)

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Direct and indirect speech acts
 Direct speech act: referring, informing, telling, reporting (did
you eat the pizza?, can you ride a bicycle?, how much is it?)

 Indirect spech act (the syntactic structure and the function do

not match)
 ‘Can you pass the salt?’

‘You left the door open’ (Can you close the door?)
‘Do you have time?’
‘Do you know where the post office is?’ (see p. 131-132)
The function?
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 Politeness (face-threatening/saving act)
 Face: public image, emotional and social sense of self that
everybody needs to recognise.
 Politeness: showing awareness and cosideration of another
person’s face.
 Face-threatening act: threat to person’s self image (Give me that
paper!)
 Face-saving act: use of indirect speech act lessens the threat to
another person’s face (could you pass me that paper?)
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 Negative face: need to be independent and free from imposition.
Face-saving act emphasising a person’s negative face will show
concern about imposition (I’m sorry to bother you…I know that
you’re busy but…)

 Positive face: need to be connected, to belong, to be a member of

the group. So, a face-saving act that emphasising a person’s
positive face will focus on common goal (let’s do this together…
you and I have the same problem…)
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Pragmatic Presumptions
 Communicative presumptions: Communicative Intention

 Linguistic presumptions: Background of speaker

 Presumptions of Literalness: Literal vs. non-literal meaning

(sarcasm, metaphors, simili)