Scan0056

acceptable (that is to say, appropriate in context) without being grammatically well-formed as a sentence. This would seem to suggest that speech-act meaning cannot, after all, be subsumed under the study of sentence meaning.

Since an utterance consists of a certain seąuence or phrase with a certain syntactic structure and madę up of words with certain meanings, its interpretation will depend on the hearer’s linguistic knowledge. However, sińce it is produced by a particular speaker on a particular occasion and the hearer’s task is to discover what that speaker meant on that occasion, its interpretation will also depend on the non-linguistic knowledge thatshe brings to bear. ...

The assumption ... is that there is a distinction between a hearer’s knowledge of her language and her knowledge of the world. In this section I shall argue that it is this distinction that underlies the distinction between semantics and pragmatics. ...

The assumption that there is a distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge marks our approach as modular, and thus as consistent with the view of language found in Chomskyan generative grammar. According to this approach, knowledge of language is one of a system of interacting modules which make up the mind, each of which has its own particular properties. This implies that the mind does not develop as a whole, but with specific capacities developing in their own ways and in their own time. In other words, knowledge of language cannot be regarded as the result of generał intelligence. It also implies that actual linguistic performance—that is, the way we use language—is a result of the interaction of a number of differ-ent systems, and that the acceptability of an utterance may be affected by factors other than its grammatical well-formedness. An utterance may consist of a perfectly grammatical sentence and still be unacceptable. Equally, an ungrammatical sentence may be used in the production of a perfectly acceptable utterance.

O How do the last two sentences in this text key in with the points madę in Text 12 f

t> How do the points madę about modules in this text cor-respond to what is sald about them in Text 19?

I> Reference is madę here to the ‘occasion of utterance. In Text

108 READING S

20 reference is madę to the ‘contexf of utterance. Do they mean the same, and are they given the same weight in the description of meaning?

Chapter 6

Current issues

Text 22

deborah schiffrin \ Approach es to Discourse.

Blackwell T994, pages 418-19

This text raises ąuestions about the scope of linguistics as a discipline (see Chapter 6, pages 69-72). When the study of language is extended to account for the pragmatics of dr. course (see Chapter 5, pages 61-S) il neccssarily he, orne involved in the real world context$ in whii li language r. u-.ed for communication. This lahes u - heyoud tln- ope .9 Im guistics as tradilionally < om eiued and mtn ,1 houiih-i um-idu ciplinary enąuiry aboul hunian knou lrdgr .md lu-h.n euu Linguistics may he neeessary, hut ii /■. o. a uf je tent

... I want to suggest that discourse ca miot bt .iii.tly.-. .1 rvrn it one considers one’s analysis linguistically niolivalt il .md hnr, 111. tically relevant—through one discipline alone. Considei ilu isnir-. about which all discourse anaiysts make assumptions: sl i uclure and function, text and context, discourse and communication. In each pair of concepts, the first member is the one that fits most comfortably into the realm of linguistic inquiry. To be specific: structures can be identified at many levels of linguistic organiza-tion (sounds, sentences), but functions are usually seen as non-linguistic (e.g. cognitive, social); texts are linguistic, but contexts include non-linguistic situations and people; even discourse, although rarely seen as confined to language per se, is certainly morę langnage-centred a concept than communication (which involves peiiple, inieiitions, and knowledge).

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