◇What is Pragmatics?
"Pragmatics
is a systematic way of explaining language use in context. It seeks to explain
aspects of meaning which cannot be found in the plain sense of words or
structures, as explained by semantics. As a field of language study, pragmatics
is fairly new. Its origins lie in philosophy of language and the American
philosophical school of pragmatism" (Moore).
If you
want to learn what pragmatics is, click here! ↓
◇Theories of Pragmatics
☆Conversation Theory
People
have rules in conversation, but only one person speaks and the unequal power
balance such as teacher and student are not called conversation. “Even the most
casual of conversations have an interactional function” (Cutting 27).
It is
important to speak by turns. It is called turn-talking. It needs to judge the
end of sentence and “A point in a conversation where a change of turn is
possible called a Transition Relevance Place or TRP” (Cutting 28). If hearers
mistake a point, they interrupt speaker.
Moreover,
there are four maxims in conversation to proceed with a conversation smoothly.
The first maxim is quality. It means it which does not tell a lie. Second is
Quantity. It conveys appreciate amount of information. Third is relation.
Speaker must speak things which relate with contexts. Fourth is manner. Speaker
say in plain language such as obeying order and telling clearly. If speakers do
not obey these maxims, hearers will mistake speaker’s meaning. (Cutting 34-35)
Also, a correlation is important to obey four maxims, because closely
relationship knows the other person very well. In short, it is possible to
convey a little information. (Griffiths 143)
☆Politeness Theory
"Humans
everywhere tend to be polite insimilar ways, based on two basic social
requirements: 'No criticism' and 'No interference'. Humans want to be approved
of , and they do not want to be imposed upon" (Aitchison 133).
✿Politeness is
"the expression of the speaker’s intention to mitigate face threats
carried by certain face threatening acts toward
another" ("Politeness Theory").
✿The concept of ‘face’ = "the public self-image
every adult portrays, which must be attended to in interaction"
("Politeness Theory").
✿two
aspects of this ‘face’
1. Positive
face = "the positive consistent
self-image that people have and want to be appreciated and approved of by at
least some other people" or " the need to be connected"(Li 73).
2. Negative
face = "the right to territories,
freedom of action and freedom from imposition; essentially the want that your
actions are not impeded by othersessentially the want that your actions are not
impeded by others" or "the need to be independent "(Li 73).
✿A Face Threating Act = FTA =
"If a speaker says something that represents
a threat to another individual’s expectations, it is described as a Face Threatening Act" (Li 73).
a threat to another individual’s expectations, it is described as a Face Threatening Act" (Li 73).
✿Here are options to use politeness
superstrategies with FTAs to save face ("Politeness Theory") .
1. Bold on record
|
Not attempting to minimize the face threat.
|
2. Positive face
|
Showing you value someone so minimizing the threat to the positive face.
|
3. Negative face
|
Not impeding on someone so minimizing the threat to the negative face.
|
4. Off record
|
Avoiding responsibility for the FTA often by being indirect.
|
5. Withhold
| Not performing the FTA. |
("Politeness Theory")
determined by contextual factors
("Politeness Theory")
✿Power relations between speaker and
listener ("Politeness Theory").
✿Social distance between speakers and
listener ("Politeness Theory").
✿How great the threat of the face
threatening act is ("Politeness Theory").
If you
want to learn more about Politeness theory, click here! ↓
☆Speech act Theory
Speech
act’s definition is “Speech act theory said that the action performed when an
utterance is produced can be analysed on three different levels” (Cutting 13).
One level is locutionary act is an act that speaks something. Second level is
illocutionary act is an act that does what speaker said. Third level is
perlocutionary effect. When speakers said something, hearer does it. (Cutting
14) Three levels are given an example. A said “I think this room is hot, so open
the window.” Locutionary act is speaking this sentence and illocutionary act is
an act that opens the window. However, B heard the word “hot”. Then B opens the
window. It is perlocutionary effect. Also, sample of illocutionary acts are
statement, order, question, prohibition, greeting, invitation, felicitation and
apology. (Griffiths 148)
Moreover,
there are direct speech act and indirect speech act. Direct speech act is
convey a literally message. “there is a direct relationship between the form
and the function” (Cutting 17). The other hand, indirect speech conceals a real
meaning and implies it. “the form and function are not directly related”
(Cutting 17). For example, “I want to water” and “I am thirsty”. First sentence
is direct speech and second sentence is indirect speech.
✿Grice’s Maxims
"An
American philosopher, Paul Grice, is sometimes regarded as the 'father of
pragmatics'. Grice emphasized that human beings communicate efficiently because
they are by nature helpful to one another. He attempted to specify the
principles which underlie this cooperative behavior, and proposed four 'maxims'
or rules of conversation"(Aitchison 124).
Four
Maxims are below:
Quantity
|
For
example...
If
someone asked 'Who is that person next to John?', "a cooperative
reply" (Aitchson 124) would be 'That is his little sister,
Mery.' "An uncooperative reply"(Aitchson 124) would be 'A
woman'(too brief), or
'That is Mery Mirror, aged 15 years old, born in London, who likes
musical....etc.'(too much information)
|
Quality
|
“Be truthful.”(Aitchison 125)
For
example...
"If
someone asked you the name of unfamiliar animal, such as a platypus, reply
truyhfully, and don't say 'It's a kookaburra,' or 'It's a duck,' if you know
it's a platypus"(Aitchison 125).
|
Relevance
|
“Be relevanct.”(Aitchison 125)
For
example...
"If
someone says, 'What's for supper?', give a reply which fits the question, such
as 'Fish and chips', and not 'Tables and chairs' or 'Buttercup are
yellow'"(Antchison 125).
|
Manner
|
“Be clear and orderly.”(Aitchison 125)
For
example...
"describe
things in order in which they occurred: 'The plane taxied down the runway, and
took off to the west' rather than 'The plane took off to the west and txied
down the runway,' which might confuse people as to what actually
happened"(Aitchison 125).
|
Let's think
about Maxims!
Which maxim is
not considered in the discourse below?
Petruchio:
And you, good sir. Pray have you not a daughter Called Katherina, fair
and virturous?
Baptista:
I have a daughter, sir, called Katherina.
answer
In this
passage, Petruchio asked Baptista two questions about Katherina, but Baptista
answered to only one of the questions. He intentionally did not say that
Katherina was “fair and virtuous”. In short, he signified that
Katherina was not “fair and virtuous”, without mentioning. Therefore, his
statement was against Maxims
of Quantity.
*What is ‘Politeness’, ‘face’, and ‘FTA’?
*What are Grice’s four maxims?
* Do you understand about rules in conversation?
◇How is Pragmatics studied?
Pragmatics can be studied using various different methods.
☆method 1:Contrastive Pragmatics
Contrastive
Pragmatics is one of pragmatics and recent years linguists are interested in
pragmatics. Contrastive Pragmatics is a study that compares communicative
function among different language and compare it how appear same communicative
function among different languages.
At First,
linguists thought that Contrastive Pragmatics is not need, because pragmatics
is thought that it is a wastebasket of semantics. However it changes the
treatment of pragmatics. Since Wieslaw Oleksy says “It is impossible to
approach questions of linguistic communication adequately without paying
attention to the socio-cultural, institutional and attitudinal restrictions
that verbal interaction imposes upon the language users” (Oleksy 4-5).
☆method 2:Experimental Pragmatics
"Recently,
a new strand of research emerged under the name of experimental pragmatics, the
attempt to gain experimental data on pragmatic and semantic issues by using
psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic methods. Experimental
evidence can be used, together with intuition and recordings, to confirm or
disconfirm hypotheses" (Experimental Pragmatics/Semantics).
"Experimental
pragmatics are particularly interested in issues at the semantics-pragmatics
interface, but use methods of investigation (eye tracking, timed response to
stimuli, the choice of a ‘best’ sentence to describe X from a set of
candidates, etc.)" (Experimental Pragmatics/Semantics).
☆method 3:Empirical Pragmatics
"This
is a relatively new method of pragmatics and involves studying actual language
in use. The language data can be collected in various ways such as interview,
spontaneous speech and experiments. Pragmatic theories and ideas are then
applied to analyze features and the text as a whole" ("How is
Pragmatics studied?").
☆method 4:Corpus Pragmatics
"A
corpus is a selection of electronic texts which are collected and
ordered. They can be searched according to different criteria. Frequency and
patterns of usage can easily be shown. Generalizations about language can be
drawn from patterns and pragmatic analysis can be applied to the data"
("How is Pragmatics studied?").
☆method 5:Historical Pragmatics
Historical
Pragmatics is still a new study within linguistics, so it is difficult to
analyze. It combines with methodology of pragmatics and historical linguistics
which look back the tradition for long days. Historical linguistics and
pragmatics are thought that it should combine to solve the questions about
language use at developing of the different stage, as a result Historical
Pragmatics was born.
Historical Pragmatics
compare the realization of linguistics in one language developing that is
different stage and study language change and language developing by social act
of communication under historical incident. Moreover, historical linguistics
focus on language use, but historical pragmatics focus on language change.
(Jucker 3-26)
If you
want to learn more about methods to approach to Pragmatics, click here! ↓
-Questions -
*What kinds of approaches to Pragmatics are considered?
*What features does each method have?
♢Key Words
*Politeness
= "the expression of the speaker’s
intention to mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening acts
toward another" ("Politeness Theory").
*Face = "the public self-image
every adult portrays, which must be attended to in interaction"
("Politeness Theory").
*FTA
(Face Threating Act) = "an
act which deliberately threatens the face needs of others"
("Politeness Theory").
*Speech
Act theory = "the action performed when an
utterance is produced can be analyzed on three different levels" (Cutting
13).
*Grice’s four maxims = Quantity/
Quality/ Relation/ Manner
♢Links
<useful linguistics sites>
<about
experimental pragmatics>
♢Works Consulted
Aitchison,
Jean. Aitchison's Linguistics. London: Teach Yourself, 2010. Print.
Archer,
Dawn and Karin Aijmer and Anne Wichman. Pragmatics:
An Advanced
Resource
Book for Students. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print.
Cummings,
Louise. Pragmatics: A Multidisciplinary
Perspective. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh U, 2005. Print.
Cutting,
Joan. Pragmatics and Discourse.
Abingdon: Routledge, 2002.Print.
Experimental
Pragmatics / Semantics. John Benjamin Publishing Company. web. 12
Jan. 2014.
Griffiths,
Patrick. An Introduction to English
Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh U, 2006. Print.
"How
is Pragmatics studied?" All About Linguistics: To Discover
and Understand. The
University of Sheffield. Web. 12
Jan. 2014.
Jucker,
Andreas H. Historical Pragmatics.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing,
1995. Print.
Li, Wei.
"Different Communication Rules between the English and Chinese
Greetings."
Asian Culture and History 1.2
(2009):72-74. CCSENET. org. Web. 12 Jan.
2014.
Moore,
Andrew. Pragmatics and Speech Acts. Web. 12 Jan. 2014.
Oleksy, Wieslaw.,
ed. Contrastive Pragmatics.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Publishing, 1989. Print.
"Politeness
Theory." All About Linguistics: To Discover and Understand.
The University of Sheffield. Web. 12 Jan. 2014.
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