1、PragmaticsTeaching Material by Sherman ZHENGSECTION ISurveyChapter 1Definitions and backgroundI What is pragmatics?Read p.3-4Pragmatics can be usefully defined as the study of how utterances have meanings in situations(Leech,1983).Definitions and background(1)When a diplomat say“yes”,he means“perhap
2、s”,when he says“perhapshe means“no”;and when he says“no”he is no diplomatWhen a lady says“no”,she means“perhaps”,when she says“perhaps”she means“yes”and when she says“yes”she is no lady.(Voltaire)Definitions and backgroundII The origin and the historical vagaries of the term pragmaticsThe modern usa
3、ge of the term pragmatics is attributable to the philosopher Charles Morris(1983),who was concerned to outline the general shape of a science of signs,or semiotics.Within semiotics,Morris distinguished three distinct branches of inquiry:syntactics(or syntax),being the study of“the formal relation of
4、 signs to one another”,semantics,the study of“the relation of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable”(their designata),and pragmatics,the study of the relation of signs to interpreters”(Levinson,1983)Definitions and backgroundIII Semantics and pragmaticsPragmatics is the study of all
5、 those aspects of meaning not captured in a smenatic theory.Or,as Gazdar(1979:2)has put it,assuming that semantics limited to the statement of truth conditions.Pragmatics has as its topic those aspects of the meaning of utterances which cannot be accounted for by straightforward reference to the tru
6、th conditions of the sentences uttered.Put crudely:PRAGMATICS=MEANING TRUTH CONDITIONS.Definitions and background(2)What does x mean?(3)What did you mean by x?Semantics traditionally deals with meaning as a dyadic relation,as in(2),while pragmatics deals with meaning as a triadic relation,as in(3).T
7、hus meaning in pragmatics is defined relative to a speaker or user of a language,whereas meanings in semantics is defined purely as a property of expressions in a given language,in abstraction fromparticular situations,speakers,or hearers.Definitions and background(4)Donkey means“ass”.(5)When Miss T
8、rowood said Janet!Donkeys!she meant by this remark that Janet was to drive the donkeys off the lawn.We may note about meaning(5)that(i)It involves the speakers intention to convey a certain which may,or may not,be evident from the message itself.Definitions and background(ii)Consequently,interpretat
9、ion by the hearer of this meaning is likely to depend on context;and(iii)Meanings,in this sense,is something which is performend,rather than something that exists interaction(the meaning being”negotiated”between speaker and hearer on the basis of their mutual knowledge.)The following then are outwar
10、d criteria for judging whether a particular discussion of meaning takes us into the realm of pragmatics:Definitions and background(a)Is reference made to addressers or addressees,or speakers or hearers?(b)Is reference made to the intention of the speaker or the interpretation of the hearer?(c)Is ref
11、erence made to Context？(d)Is reference made to the kind of act or action performed by means of or by virtue of language?If the answer to one or more of these questions is yes,there is reason to suppose that we are dealing with pragmatics.Definitions and backgroundIVAspect of speech situations1.Addre
12、ssers or addressees2.The context of an utteranceOne way of embarking upon the analysis of context is to ask what kinds of knowledge a fluent speaker of a language must possess in order to produce and understand contextually appropriate and comprehensible utterances in that language.Let us list some
13、of these:Definitions and background(i)Each of the participants must know his role and status.(ii)The participants must know where they are in space and time.(iii)The participants must be anble to categorize the situation in terms of its degree of formality.Definitions and background(iv)The participa
14、nts must know that medium is appropriate to the situation.(v)The participants must know how to make their utterances appropriate to the subject-matter;and the importance of subject-matter as a determinant in the selection of one dialect or one language rather than another in bilingual or multilingua
15、l communities.(vi)The participant must know how to make their utterance appropriate to the province or domain to which the situation belongs.Definitions and backgroundV.Current interest in pragmaticsThere are a number of convergent reasons for the growth of interest in pragmatics.Some of these are e
16、ssentially historical:the interest developed in part as a reaction or antidote to Chomskys treatment of language as an abstract device,or mental ability,dissociable from the uses,users and functions of language.Definitions and backgroundBut there have been powerful motivations of a different kind.In
17、 the first place as knowledge of the syntax,phonology and semantics of various languages has increased,it has become clear that there are specific phenomena that can only naturally be described by recourse to contextual concepts.On the one hand,various syntactis rules seem to be properly constrained
18、 only if one refers to pragmatic conditions,similarly for matters of stress and intonation.The performance theory of pragmatics is assigned the job of fillering out the acceptable sentences.Alternatively,pragmatics and other linguistic components or levels can be allowed to interact.Definitions and
19、background There are also a number of general motivations for the development of pragmatic theory.One of the most important of these is the possibility that pragmatics can effect a radical simplification of semantics.The hope is based on the fact that pragmatic principles of language usage can be sh
20、own systematically to“read in”to utterances more than they conventionally or literally mean.Definitions and background(6)Some ten cent pieces are rejected by this vending machine.Another powerful and general motivation for the interest in pragmatics is the growing realization that there is a very su
21、bstantial gap between current linguistic theories of language and accounts of linguistic communication.It is becoming increasingly clear that a semantic theory alone can give us only a proportion of a general account of language understanding.Definitions and background(7)A:I could eat the whole of t
22、hat cakeB:Oh,thanks.Finally,another very important general motivation for the recent interest in pragmatics is the possibility that significant functional explanations can be offered for linguistic facts,most recent linguistic explanations have tended to be internal to linguistic theory:that is to s
23、ay,some linguistic feature is explained by reference to other linguistic features,or to aspects of the theory itself.But there is another possible kind of explanation:some linguistic feature is motivated by principles outside the scope of linguistic theory.Definitions and backgroundRegularityPeople
24、tend to behave in fairly regular ways when it comes to using language.Lets analyze these sentences:1.How are you?-Fine,thank you.2.How are you?-Praise to God.3.Good morning,teacher.4.Have you eaten?Definitions and backgroundWe also have learned that some linguistic forms in the language without lear
25、ning the pragmatics of how those forms are used in a regular pattern by social insiders,look at these sentences:(1):A:I could eat an ox.B:Dinner will be ready in a minute.(2):A:Hi,John!B:Hi!How are you doing?Definitions and backgroundA:Say,what are you doing?B:Well,were going out.Why?A:Oh,I was just
26、 going to say come out.(3)A:Do you know what that word means?B:Dont you have a dictionary?Lets analyze these sentences from the perspective of pragmatics:Definitions and background(1)Peter bought a car.(2)It was Peter who bought a car.(3)It was a car that Peter bought.(4)What Peter bought was a car.
27、Definitions and backgroundThe pragmatic wastebasketExercises:Analyze the meaning of“well”in the following sentences(1)A:How long have you known him?B:Well.I should say about five years.(2)A:Do you have an umbrella with you?Its raining.B:Well,I never thought it would rain!Definitions and background(3
28、)A:How do you like this dress?B:Well,the colour is nice.(4)A:Do you like chamber music?B:Well,no,not really.Deixis and distanceI What is dexis?The single most obvious way in which the relationship between language and context is reflected in the structures of languages themselves,is through the phen
29、omenon of dexis.The term is borrowed from the Greek word for“pointing”or“indicating”.The use of demonstrative,first and second person pronouns,tense,specific time and placeadverbs like now,then,here,and there,and,a variety of other grammatical features are tied directly to the circumstances of utter
30、ance.Deixis and distance(1)Ill be back in an hour.Because we dont know when it was written,we cannot know when the writer will return.Or,suppose we find a bottle in the sea,and inside it a message which reads:Deixis and distance(2)Meet me here a week from now with a stick about this big.We do not kn
31、ow who to meet,where or when to meet him or her,or how big a stick to bring.Suppose Harry just wanted to say the following sentense,the power was suddenly off:Deixis and distanceListen,Im not disagreeing with you but with you and not about this but about this.In the darkness,we cannot get any deicti
32、c information,after hearing the sentence,we cannot understand what is said.Another example:包装纸上注明的“当天产品，保证新鲜”Deixis and distance Essentially,deixis concerns the ways in which language encode or grammaticalize features of the context of utterance or speech event,and thus also concerns ways in which t
33、he interpretation of utterances depends on the analysis of that context of utterance.Deixis and distance Deixis belongs within the domain of pragmatics,because it directly concerns the relationship between the structure of languages and the context in which they are used.Deixis and distanceII Two kinds of usage of deictic expressionsBy deictic expression we mean those linguistic units or morphemes
