Pragmatics – the study of ‘intended speaker meaning’ of the words.

Pragmatic competence- to inderstand other speaker intend meaning, what is meant by our interlocutor

Context:

linguistic (co-text) – words used in the same phrase or sentence, which has strong impact on the meaning of the word

physical – the time and space in which we encounter linguistic expressions

Deictic expressions – can be understood only in their physical context:

person deixis: me, you, him, them

place deixis: here, there

time deixis: now, then, last week

Reference – act by which the speaker (or writer) uses language to enable a listener (or reader)

to identify something (Can I look at your Chomsky?).

Inference – additional information used by the listener to connect what is said to what must be meant (I enjoy listening to Mozart).

Antecedent and anaphora:

Book – antecedent (mentioned for the first time)

It – anaphoric expression (reference to already introduced entity)

Presupposition - knowledge which the speaker assumes to be true or known by the hearer. I used to not like my car but I like it now (I have a car- presupposition)

Constancy under negation:

My car is (not) a wreck = I have a car.

Speech acts – an action that a speaker performs when making an utterance, such as: requesting, commanding, questioning, informing

direct speech act - eg. question Did he..?, Are they…? used to ask the question (get the

information)

indirect speech act – using a form, which performs different action than it would suggest: You left the door open. = Close the door.

Politeness – showing awareness of another person’s face (public self-image).

face-threatening act – eg. direct orders to show the social power over somebody (Give me that salt!)

face-saving act – lessens possible threat to someone else’s face, eg. indirect speech acts (Could you give me that salt, please?)

Face: negative – the need to be independent and free from imposition

positive – the need to be connected, to belong, to be a member of the group

antecedent- a linguistic expression which provides the interpretation for a second expression (anaphor) which has little meaning of its own.

anaphora- words or phrases like pronouns, when they point backwards to sth earlier in the text

She ran into her room.