Lecture X.

03.01.2013

Introduction to Linguistics with Elements of History of English

Pragmatics the study of speaker's meaning; what the author wanted to say.

The study of the invisible meaning or how we recognize what is meant, even when it is actually not said or written.

Examples:

∗ Do you have a watch ? meaning: what's the time?

∗ Heated attendant = sign: heated attendant parking = You may park here, an attendant is available, and the parking garage is heating

1.Context is the environment of the linguistic.

Two types:

• Linguistic context ( co-text)= is a set of other words used in a phrase or sentence.

• Physical context= is the reality in which a word is placed.

Without context we can misunderstand the meaning.

2.Deixis are words which cannot be interpreted without context.

Example: She is watching the movie on her laptop = we don't know who is she.

= Pointing via language

Two types of deictic expressions:

- Person deixis- words or phrases which are used to point to people and also to things eg. it, she, him, them, those cars.

Spatial deixis- words or phrases which are used to point to place or to location eg, here, above.

Temporal deixis- words or phrases which point to time eg. now, then, last week. Free beer tomorrow!

Reference - related to dexis, is an act by which a sender uses language to enable a receiver to identity an entity, to perform an act of reference: eg. to identify a teacher- names; to identify writer, friend - pronouns like she, he, they, etc.

Types of reference:

1.Inference - is additional information used by the receiver to create a connection between what is said and what must be meant.

Example: X can be a name of the author or a book written by the author.

2.Anaphora- is a reference to the already meant entity.

Example: Paulina is watching a movie. She is…

3.Presupposition - is what the speaker or sender assumes is true or known by the receiver.

Example: How fast were you going when you ran the red line?

Speech acts -an action performed by a speaker with an utterance.

Example: I am sorry - act of apologize.

Politeness = showing awareness of and consideration for another person's face.

Face is a person's desired public self image.

face-threatening acts- when you uses direct speech act; are used by police forces, elderly people, etc.; not polite way if you say something that represents a threat to another person's self image.

face- saving acts - over polite, using indirect speech.

negative face- is the need to be independent and free from imposition.

positive face- is the need to be a member of the group.

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Speech acts

Direct speech acts are used to perform the assigned actions:

• Did you eat the pizza interrogative question

• Eat the pizza! imperative command

Indirect speech acts are used to perform the unassigned actions:

• Have you got a watch? The speaker wants to know the time.

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