Introduction to

Pragmatics
Semantics
 Focuses on the literal meanings of words,
phrases and sentences;
 concerned with how grammatical processes

build complex meanings out of simpler ones

Semiotic triangle
Pragmatics
 Focuses on the use of language in particular
situations;
 aims to explain how factors outside of

language contribute to both literal meaning

and nonliteral meanings which speakers
communicate using language
Pragmatics vs. semantics
 The study of meaning in use
 Provides tools to help us understand the

meaning in a given social context, including

the effect that language has on those
involved in the speech situation
 Semantics – the study of meaning outside of

its contextualized use with a focus on the

literal meaning of words and phrases
Pragmatics v. semantics
 Semantics – concerned with what language
says
 Pragmatics – concerned with what language

can do
 Semantics – sense
 Pragmatics – force
 Semantics: words or lexemes are central to

the study
 Pragmatics: events or potential events are of

main interest
Pragmatics
 Speech act theory
 Conversational implicature
 Deixis
 Presupposition
Speech act theory
 We often think that the role of language is to
explain, inform, describe, and say sth about
the world
 Language – also used to do things, such as

promise, bet, request, threaten, warn,

apologize, swear (in court), etc.
Speech act theory
 J.L. Austin, How to do Things with Words
(1955)
 "It was for too long the assumption of

philosophers that the business of a

'statement' can only be to 'describe' some
state of affairs, or to 'state some fact', which
it must do either truly or falsely.„
 Wittgenstein: „Don't ask for the meaning, ask

for the use." - language as a vehicle for social

activity
Speech Act Theory
 Austin suggested that most utterances are
created not to ‘describe’, but to perform
action
 His approach was not of „What do sentences

mean?” but „What kind of act do we perform

when we utter a sentence?”
Speech Act Theory
 Austin emphasized the contexts in which
utterances take place and suggested that
they should be defined as felicitous or not,
rather than false or true
 Felicity conditions: describe all the

circumstantial properties of an utterance

which are relevant to its successful
accomplishment
Speech act theory
 Austin questioned the truth value of
statements, a view which centered on the
conditions of an utterance that can be
declared true or false
 Austin examined performatives: sentences

that are used to do things, rather than

declare or state sth
Speech acts
 Performatives: „I now pronounce you husband
and wife”
 Only certain people in certain conditions can

do this kind of pronouncing; if the conditions

are right, then a change has taken place
through the uttering the words
Exercise
 Make a list of performative utterances.
 What new state of affairs do the utterances

create?
 What conditions must be present for the new

state of affairs to come about?

Speech acts
 A) I promise to visit tomorrow
 B) She promised to visit tomorrow
 Sentences which perform actions –

performatives (A); other sentences (B) –

constatives
 A good test of whether a sentence is a

performative is whether you can insert the

word hereby before the verb (I hereby
promise; *I hereby walk)
Speech Act Theory
 Syntactic markers of a performative
utterance:
 1) the subject is in the 1st person
 2) the verb is in the simple present tense
 3) the indirect object is ‘you’
 4) it is possible to insert the adverb ‘hereby’
 5) the sentence is not negative
Performatives
 Speech acts which in themselves constitute
an action
 This aspect of language – illocutionary force
 The illocutionary force of an utterance is its

ability to carry out an act

Speech acts
 Locutionary act: the act of saying sth
 Illocutionary act: the act of doing sth by

saying sth
 Perlocutionary act: the act of achieving sth by

saying sth
Speech acts
 John Searle took work on speech acts further
by introducing direct ad indirect speech acts
 "In indirect speech acts the speaker

communicates to the hearer more than he

actually says by way of relying on their
mutually shared background information,
both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together
with the general powers of rationality and
inference on the part of the hearer”
Speech acts
 There are speech acts which are so
fundamental to communication that they are
captured through the mood of our utterance:
 Indicative mood: giving information
 Interrogative mood: request for information
 Imperative mood: command to do sth
Speech acts
 The mood of each utterance signals its
illocutionary force
 Context – key in explaining what people are

trying to do with the language they use

Exercise: write the common locutionary act of the
underlined words, illocutionary act and the
perlocutionary act
 Scenario 1:(in an elevator, 3 people, A and B
know each other, C is smoking:
 A (to B): Ahem, did I ever tell you that I am

allergic to cigarette smoke?

 Scenario 2: (A is filling in a form for a dating

service): A (writing on form): I am allergic to

cigarette smoke.
Exercise: for each utterance, state the mood. Then
state the direct speech act which it could represent,
and the indirect speech act which it more likely
represents
 1. Would you mind handing me the salt?
 2. Go ahead, try it. See where that’ll get you!
 3. Honey, the phone’s ringing!
 4. I have always wanted to have a pair of

earrings just like those.

 5. I’m sure I must look awful.
Key
 1. DSA = requesting information ISA =
commanding or requesting service
 2. DSA = commanding ISA = warning
 3. DSA = informing ISA = requesting a

service
 4. DSA = informing ISA requesting (a gift?)
 5. DSA = informing ISA fishing for

complement/apologizing for state

Linguistics and the law
 The function of the legal language – usually
seen as directive: used to impose obligations
or to confer rights, to command or empower:
mandatory and discretionary law
 Law uses language as a tool, an instrument

for achieving things in the world; linguistics –

language as an object of study
Speech act theory and the law
 In the communication process, whenever acts
become formalised, they involve rules and
conventions, or ‘shared group commitments’,
which seem to correspond to J. Austin’s
felicity conditions and allow to recognise
whether the act is valid or not
Speech act theory and the law
 H.L.A. Hart commented on linguistic speech
acts and pointed to their correspondence with
formal legal acts such as the transfer of
property or making of a will
 Suggested that performative utterances

should be called operative utterances,

evoking the analogy with what lawyers called
‘operative words’ in legal language
Speech act theory and the law
 Acts in law presuppose that the performer, in
order to perform the act, needs to be able to
exercise their legal power
 These powers, e.g. to enter a contract, to

make a will, or even to enact a law,

presuppose ‘power conferring rules’ which
stipulate which persons and under which
conditions can perform the act
Intention in legal documents
 The interpretation of any legal document
requires analysis of a relevant intention which
has been incorporated into the text
 The notion of intentionality relates to the

problem of implicitness and explicitness in

language
 Grice’s conversational implicatures (1975)
Grice’s conversational maxims
 Imagine you overhear the following
conversation:
 A: Are John and Mary back together again?
 B: I saw a red Porche parked outside 1128

Green Street last night…and it was still there

this morning!
Grice’s conversational maximes
 In the exchange above, we might assume that
B’s response is providing A with the
information requested.
 We can make the connection between the

question and the answer by relying on

presupposition: B presupposes that A also
knows the following:
 John has a red Porche
 Mary lives at 1128 Green Street
Grice’s Cooperative Principle
 In order to help us understand how context
works in deciphering meaning in a given
situation, we can look to Grice’s Cooperative
Principle, which explains how people act in
conversation: ‘Make your conversational
contribution such as is required, at the stage
at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose
or direction of the talk exchange in which you
are engaged’
Grice’s conversational maximes
 Grice is not telling us what to do, but rather
providing an explanation for how we behave
in communicative situations ad how we
assume other people behave
Grice’s conversational maximes
 Grice further divided his Cooperative Principle
into sub-principles of:
 Quantity
 Relevance
 Quality
 Manner
Grice’s conversational maximes
 Quantity:
 Maxim 1. Make your contribution as

informative as is required
 Maxim 2. Do not make your contribution

more informative than is required.

Grice’s conversational maximes
 Relevance:
 Maxim 1. Be relevant.
Grice’s conversational maximes
 Quality:
 Maxim 1: Do not say what you believe to be

false.
 Maxim 2. Do not say that for which you lack

adequate evidence.
Grice’s conversational maximes
 Manner:
 Maxim 1: Avoid obscurity of expression.
 Maxim 2. Avoid ambiguity.
 Maxim 3. Be brief.
 Maxim 4. Be orderly.
Grice’s conversational maximes
 When we break any of the sub-principles, we
create an instance of conversational
implicature:
 A: I heard you did well on the exam
 B: Yes, and pigs fly.
 Flouting the maxim of quality, as I am telling

an obvious untruth
Grice’s conversational maximes:
options
 Observing the maxims
 Violating one or more maxims (e.g. lying)
 Opting out (e.g. refusing to answer a direct

question)
 Not fulfilling one maxim because of a clash

with another
 Flouting a maxim in order to make a

conversational implicature
Conversational implicature
 1. The speaker deliberately flouts a
conversational maxim to convey additional
meaning not expressed literally, e.g. a speaker
responds to the question: „How did you like the
guest speaker?” with the following utterance:
„Well, I’m sure he was speaking English”.
 If the speaker is assumed to be following the

cooperative principle in spite of flouting the

Maxim of Quantity, the utterance must have an
additional nonliteral meaning, such as: „The
content of the speech was confusing.”
Conversational implicature
 2. The speaker’s desire to fulfil two conflicting
maxims results in his flouting one maxim to
invoke the other, e.g. when he responds to the
question „Where is John?” by saying: He’s either
in the cafeteria or in his office
 The Maxim of Quantity and the Maxim of Quality
are in conflict: a cooperative speaker doesn’t
want to be ambiguous but also doesn’t want to
give false information by giving a specific answer
in spite of his uncertaity. By flouting the Maxim
of Quantity, he invokes the Maxim of Quality
Exercise: suggest which maxim is being
flouted (Quality, Quantity, Relevance, Manner)
and what is being communicated through that
flouting
 A. How’s your work coming along?
 B. It sure is sunny outside.
Key
 B is flouting the maxim of relevance. Given
that B responds with an utterance which is
clearly irrelevant, A can assume that work is
NOT coming along
Which maxim is flouted? (Quality,
Quantity, Relavance, Manner)
 1. In a recommendation letter for a sales job:
 Dear Sir, I have been asked to write a few

lines in suport for Jon Smith’s application for

work in sales within your company. What
perhaps is most ipressive about John is that
his appearance is impeccable, and his class
attendance has been faultless. Sincerely, A.
Key
 The maxim of quantity, the letter is not very
informative. This seems t ocommunicate that
A does not have very much to say that is
positive about John, and to avoid violatind the
maxim of Quality and lying, and to avoid
attacking John, A is not as informative as the
situation requires
Exercise: Quantity, Quality,
Relevance, Manner
 2. A. Do you like Anne’s new shoes? B: I can’t
imagine where she’s got them from.
 B flouts the Maxime of Relevance, as the

utterance does not answer A’s question,

perhaps to avoid either disagreeing with A or
violating the Maxim of Quality and lying
about liking the shoes
Exercise: Quantity, Quality,
Relevance, Manner
 Do you think the kids would like some of that
freezing cold creamy concoction that could
be served in an edible dylinder-like
container?
 A flouts the Maxim of Manner, as it would be

much clearer and briefer to say ‘ice-cream’.

The hearer can thus understand that A does
not want the kids to know about the
possibility
Exercise: Quantity, Quality,
Relevance, Manner
 A: How did Mary and John do on their exam?
B: Mary did fine.
 B flouts the Maxim of Quantity, as no

information is provided about John. Thus A

will assume that John did not do well, and
that B does not want to provide displeasing
information.
Exercise: Quantity, Quality,
Relevance, Manner
 A. Were you invited to John’s party? B: Were
you?
 B flouts the Maxim of Relevance in not

providing an answer to A’s question. A might

thus understand that B does not want to hurt
his/her feelings
Exercise: Quantity, Quality,
Relevance, Manner
 A. Are you free this evening? B: I have had so
much work lately! I had to finish a 20-pages
paper, my dog has been sick and I had to take
him to the vet, and now my mother says she’s
coming to visit this weekend!
 B flouts the Maxim of Quantity/Manner – the
answer is more informative than required, and
it is not brief. A will probably get the picture
that B is not free that evening, and will probably
not follow through with a suggestion or
invitation
Deixis
 words and phrases that cannot be fully
understood without additional contextual
information
 Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is

fixed but their denotational meaning varies

depending on time and/or place.
 Words or phrases that require contextual

information to convey any meaning – e.g.,

English pronouns – deictic
Deixis
Deixis: traditional categories
 Person
 Place
 Time
Person
 The center of the deictic system
Place
 The most salient English examples are the
adverbs“here” and “there” and the
demonstratives “this” and “that”, e.g.:
 I enjoy living in this city
 Here is where we will place the statue
 She was sitting over there
Time
 Time, or temporal, deixis concerns itself with
the various times involved in and referred to
in an utterance.
 This includes time adverbs, e.g. "now",

"then", "soon", etc. and also different tenses

 Example: tomorrow denotes the consecutive

next day after every day. The "tomorrow" of a

day last year was a different day from the
"tomorrow" of a day next week.
Deixis: other categories
 Discourse
 Social
Social deixis
 concerns the social information that is encoded within various
expressions, such as relative social status and familiarity.
 Two major forms of it are the so-called T–V distinctions and
honorifics.
 T–V distinctions, named for the Latin “tu” and “vos” - the
name given to the phenomenon when a language has two
different second-person pronouns.
 The varying usage of these pronouns indicates something
about formality, familiarity, and/or solidarity between the
interactants, e.g. the T form might be used when speaking to
a friend or social equal, whereas the V form would be used
speaking to a stranger or social superior - common in
European languages
Discourse
 Discourse deixis, also referred to as text
deixis, refers to the use of expressions within
an utterance to refer to parts of the discourse
that contains the utterance — including the
utterance itself: e.g. This is a great story
Anaphora
 .
 An anaphoric reference refers to something

within a text that has been previously identified,

e.g. "Susan dropped the plate. It shattered loudly"
the word "it" refers to the phrase "the plate".
 A cataphoric reference refers to something within

a text that has not yet been identified, e.g. in "He

was very cold. David promptly put on his coat"
the identity of the "he" is unknown until the
individual is also referred to as "David".
Anaphora
 A. Do you see that baby girl over there? She is
cute.
 When a word or phrase picks up its meaning

from some other piece of language nearby,

the relationship between the two – anaphora
 A word which gets its meaning in this way –

an anaphor, and the piece of language which

gives the anaphor its meaning – its
antecedent
Presupposition
 Presupposition - when a speaker’s choice of
words shows that he is taking sth for granted
 E.g.: John stopped crying at noon – makes

sense if it is assumed that John was crying

just before noon.
Presupposition
 an implicit assumption about the world or
background belief relating to an utterance
whose truth is taken for granted, e.g.:
 Jane no longer writes fiction.
◦ Presupposition: Jane once wrote fiction.
 Have you stopped eating meat?
◦ Presupposition: you had once eaten meat.
 Have you talked to Hans?
◦ Presupposition: Hans exists.
Presupposition
 A presupposition must be mutually known or
assumed by the speaker and addressee for
the utterance to be considered appropriate in
context.
Presupposition
 Presuppositions – often understood in terms
of the notion of common ground
 The common ground – a set of propositions

which the participants in a conversation

mutually assume
 The common ground - a major part of the

context of use, and helps us make explicit

the role of presupposition
Meaning and the intention to
communicate
 Indexicality and presupposition – aspects of
pragmatics which have to do with the
relationship between context of use and
semantic meaning
Culture-specific implicature
 Cultural assumptions can be crucial in determining
speaker’s meaning
 Example: if two Chinese people are looking at the
dessert display in a French restaurant, and one says to
the other, “That tart is not too sweet”, she intends this
comment as praise of the tart. She might intend to
implicate that her dinner partner should order the tart.
This meaning arises, in part, from the fact that it is
common knowledge among Chinese people that most
of them find western desserts too sweet. Among some
other groups, the same comment could be interpreted
as a criticism, rather than a compliment
Culture-specific implicature
 The cultural specificity of the speaker’s
meaning is not a fact about the Chinese
language
 The implicature could arise regardless of the

language they are speaking

Pragmatics summary
 Pragmatics – about how the context of use
contributes to meaning
 Core topics: indexicality, presupposition,

implicature, speech acts