Introduction to Pragmatics

Semantics
▶ Focuses on the literal meanings of words, phrases and
sentences;
▶ concerned with how grammatical processes build
complex meanings out of simpler ones
Semiotic triangle
Pragmatics
▶ Focuses on the use of language in particular situations;
▶ aims to explain how factors outside of language
contribute to both literal meaning and nonliteral
meanings which speakers communicate using language
Pragmatics vs. semantics
▶ The study of meaning in use
▶ Provides tools to help us understand the meaning in a
given social context, including the effect that language
has on those involved in the speech situation
▶ Semantics – the study of meaning outside of its
contextualized use with a focus on the literal meaning
of words and phrases
Pragmatics v. semantics
▶ Semantics – concerned with what language says
▶ Pragmatics – concerned with what language can do
▶ Semantics – sense
▶ Pragmatics – force
▶ Semantics: words or lexemes are central to the study
▶ Pragmatics: events or potential events are of main
interest
Pragmatics
▶ Speech act theory
▶ Conversational implicature
▶ Deixis
▶ Presupposition
Speech act theory
▶ We often think that the role of language is to explain,
inform, describe, and say sth about the world
▶ Language – also used to do things, such as promise,
bet, request, threaten, warn, apologize, swear (in
court), etc.
Speech act theory
▶ J.L. Austin, How to do Things with Words (1955)
▶ "It was for too long the assumption of philosophers
that the business of a 'statement' can only be to
'describe' some state of affairs, or to 'state some fact',
which it must do either truly or falsely.„
▶ Wittgenstein: „Don't ask for the meaning, ask for the
use." - language as a vehicle for social activity
Speech Act Theory
▶ Austin suggested that most utterances are created not
to ‘describe’, but to perform action
▶ His approach was not of „What do sentences mean?”
but „What kind of act do we perform when we utter a
sentence?”
Speech Act Theory
▶ Austin emphasized the contexts in which utterances
take place and suggested that they should be defined
as felicitous or not, rather than false or true
▶ Felicity conditions: describe all the circumstantial
properties of an utterance which are relevant to its
successful accomplishment
Speech act theory
▶ Austin questioned the truth value of statements, a
view which centered on the conditions of an utterance
that can be declared true or false
▶ Austin examined performatives: sentences that are
used to do things, rather than declare or state sth
Speech acts
▶ Performatives: „I now pronounce you husband and
wife”
▶ Only certain people in certain conditions can do this
kind of pronouncing; if the conditions are right, then a
change has taken place through the uttering the words
Exercise
▶ Make a list of performative utterances.
▶ What new state of affairs do the utterances create?
▶ What conditions must be present for the new state of
affairs to come about?
Speech acts
▶ A) I promise to visit tomorrow
▶ B) She promised to visit tomorrow
▶ Sentences which perform actions – performatives (A);
other sentences (B) – constatives
▶ A good test of whether a sentence is a performative is
whether you can insert the word hereby before the
verb (I hereby promise; *I hereby walk)
Speech Act Theory
▶ Syntactic markers of a performative utterance:
▶ 1) the subject is in the 1st person
▶ 2) the verb is in the simple present tense
▶ 3) the indirect object is ‘you’
▶ 4) it is possible to insert the adverb ‘hereby’
▶ 5) the sentence is not negative
Performatives
▶ Speech acts which in themselves constitute an action
▶ This aspect of language – illocutionary force
▶ The illocutionary force of an utterance is its ability to
carry out an act
Speech acts
▶ Locutionary act: the act of saying sth
▶ Illocutionary act: the act of doing sth by saying sth
▶ Perlocutionary act: the act of achieving sth by saying
sth
Speech acts
▶ John Searle took work on speech acts further by
introducing direct ad indirect speech acts
▶ "In indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to
the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying
on their mutually shared background information, both
linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general
powers of rationality and inference on the part of the
hearer”
Speech acts
▶ There are speech acts which are so fundamental to
communication that they are captured through the
mood of our utterance:
▶ Indicative mood: giving information
▶ Interrogative mood: request for information
▶ Imperative mood: command to do sth
Speech acts
▶ The mood of each utterance signals its illocutionary
force
▶ Context – key in explaining what people are trying to
do with the language they use
Exercise: write the common locutionary act of the underlined
words, illocutionary act and the perlocutionary act

▶ Scenario 1:(in an elevator, 3 people, A and B know each

other, C is smoking:
▶ A (to B): Ahem, did I ever tell you that I am allergic to
cigarette smoke?
▶ Scenario 2: (A is filling in a form for a dating service): A
(writing on form): I am allergic to cigarette smoke.
Exercise: for each utterance, state the mood. Then state the
direct speech act which it could represent, and the indirect
speech act which it more likely represents
▶ 1. Would you mind handing me the salt?
▶ 2. Go ahead, try it. See where that’ll get you!
▶ 3. Honey, the phone’s ringing!
▶ 4. I have always wanted to have a pair of earrings just
like those.
▶ 5. I’m sure I must look awful.
Key
▶ 1. DSA = requesting information ISA = commanding or
requesting service
▶ 2. DSA = commanding ISA = warning
▶ 3. DSA = informing ISA = requesting a service
▶ 4. DSA = informing ISA requesting (a gift?)
▶ 5. DSA = informing ISA fishing for
complement/apologizing for state
Linguistics and the law
▶ The function of the legal language – usually seen as
directive: used to impose obligations or to confer
rights, to command or empower: mandatory and
discretionary law
▶ Law uses language as a tool, an instrument for
achieving things in the world; linguistics – language as
an object of study
Speech act theory and the law
▶ In the communication process, whenever acts become
formalised, they involve rules and conventions, or
‘shared group commitments’, which seem to
correspond to J. Austin’s felicity conditions and allow to
recognise whether the act is valid or not
Speech act theory and the law
▶ H.L.A. Hart commented on linguistic speech acts and
pointed to their correspondence with formal legal acts
such as the transfer of property or making of a will
▶ Suggested that performative utterances should be
called operative utterances, evoking the analogy with
what lawyers called ‘operative words’ in legal language
Speech act theory and the law
▶ Acts in law presuppose that the performer, in order to
perform the act, needs to be able to exercise their legal
power
▶ These powers, e.g. to enter a contract, to make a will,
or even to enact a law, presuppose ‘power conferring
rules’ which stipulate which persons and under which
conditions can perform the act
Intention in legal documents
▶ The interpretation of any legal document requires
analysis of a relevant intention which has been
incorporated into the text
▶ The notion of intentionality relates to the problem of
implicitness and explicitness in language
▶ Grice’s conversational implicatures (1975)
Grice’s conversational maxims
▶ Imagine you overhear the following conversation:
▶ A: Are John and Mary back together again?
▶ B: I saw a red Porche parked outside 1128 Green Street
last night…and it was still there this morning!
Grice’s conversational maximes
▶ In the exchange above, we might assume that B’s
response is providing A with the information requested.
▶ We can make the connection between the question and
the answer by relying on presupposition: B
presupposes that A also knows the following:
▶ John has a red Porche
▶ Mary lives at 1128 Green Street
Grice’s Cooperative Principle
▶ In order to help us understand how context works in
deciphering meaning in a given situation, we can look
to Grice’s Cooperative Principle, which explains how
people act in conversation: ‘Make your conversational
contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it
occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk
exchange in which you are engaged’
Grice’s conversational maximes
▶ Grice is not telling us what to do, but rather providing
an explanation for how we behave in communicative
situations ad how we assume other people behave
Grice’s conversational maximes
▶ Grice further divided his Cooperative Principle into
sub-principles of:
▶ Quantity
▶ Relevance
▶ Quality
▶ Manner
Grice’s conversational maximes
▶ Quantity:
▶ Maxim 1. Make your contribution as informative as is
required
▶ Maxim 2. Do not make your contribution more
informative than is required.
Grice’s conversational maximes
▶ Relevance:
▶ Maxim 1. Be relevant.
Grice’s conversational maximes
▶ Quality:
▶ Maxim 1: Do not say what you believe to be false.
▶ Maxim 2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence.
Grice’s conversational maximes
▶ Manner:
▶ Maxim 1: Avoid obscurity of expression.
▶ Maxim 2. Avoid ambiguity.
▶ Maxim 3. Be brief.
▶ Maxim 4. Be orderly.
Grice’s conversational maximes
▶ When we break any of the sub-principles, we create an
instance of conversational implicature:
▶ A: I heard you did well on the exam
▶ B: Yes, and pigs fly.
▶ Flouting the maxim of quality, as I am telling an
obvious untruth
Grice’s conversational maximes: options
▶ Observing the maxims
▶ Violating one or more maxims (e.g. lying)
▶ Opting out (e.g. refusing to answer a direct question)
▶ Not fulfilling one maxim because of a clash with
another
▶ Flouting a maxim in order to make a conversational
implicature
Conversational implicature
▶ 1. The speaker deliberately flouts a conversational maxim
to convey additional meaning not expressed literally, e.g. a
speaker responds to the question: „How did you like the
guest speaker?” with the following utterance: „Well, I’m
sure he was speaking English”.
▶ If the speaker is assumed to be following the cooperative
principle in spite of flouting the Maxim of Quantity, the
utterance must have an additional nonliteral meaning, such
as: „The content of the speech was confusing.”
Conversational implicature
▶ 2. The speaker’s desire to fulfil two conflicting maxims
results in his flouting one maxim to invoke the other, e.g.
when he responds to the question „Where is John?” by
saying: He’s either in the cafeteria or in his office
▶ The Maxim of Quantity and the Maxim of Quality are in
conflict: a cooperative speaker doesn’t want to be
ambiguous but also doesn’t want to give false information
by giving a specific answer in spite of his uncertaity. By
flouting the Maxim of Quantity, he invokes the Maxim of
Quality
Exercise: suggest which maxim is being flouted
(Quality, Quantity, Relevance, Manner) and what is
being communicated through that flouting

▶ A. How’s your work coming along?

▶ B. It sure is sunny outside.
Key
▶ B is flouting the maxim of relevance. Given that B
responds with an utterance which is clearly irrelevant,
A can assume that work is NOT coming along
Which maxim is flouted? (Quality,
Quantity, Relavance, Manner)
▶ 1. In a recommendation letter for a sales job:
▶ Dear Sir, I have been asked to write a few lines in
suport for Jon Smith’s application for work in sales
within your company. What perhaps is most ipressive
about John is that his appearance is impeccable, and
his class attendance has been faultless. Sincerely, A.
Key
▶ The maxim of quantity, the letter is not very
informative. This seems t ocommunicate that A does
not have very much to say that is positive about John,
and to avoid violatind the maxim of Quality and lying,
and to avoid attacking John, A is not as informative as
the situation requires
Exercise: Quantity, Quality, Relevance,
Manner
▶ 2. A. Do you like Anne’s new shoes? B: I can’t imagine
where she’s got them from.
▶ B flouts the Maxime of Relevance, as the utterance
does not answer A’s question, perhaps to avoid either
disagreeing with A or violating the Maxim of Quality
and lying about liking the shoes
Exercise: Quantity, Quality, Relevance,
Manner
▶ Do you think the kids would like some of that freezing
cold creamy concoction that could be served in an
edible dylinder-like container?
▶ A flouts the Maxim of Manner, as it would be much
clearer and briefer to say ‘ice-cream’. The hearer can
thus understand that A does not want the kids to know
about the possibility
Exercise: Quantity, Quality, Relevance,
Manner
▶ A: How did Mary and John do on their exam? B: Mary
did fine.
▶ B flouts the Maxim of Quantity, as no information is
provided about John. Thus A will assume that John did
not do well, and that B does not want to provide
displeasing information.
Exercise: Quantity, Quality, Relevance,
Manner
▶ A. Were you invited to John’s party? B: Were you?
▶ B flouts the Maxim of Relevance in not providing an
answer to A’s question. A might thus understand that B
does not want to hurt his/her feelings
Exercise: Quantity, Quality, Relevance,
Manner
▶ A. Are you free this evening? B: I have had so much
work lately! I had to finish a 20-pages paper, my dog
has been sick and I had to take him to the vet, and now
my mother says she’s coming to visit this weekend!
▶ B flouts the Maxim of Quantity/Manner – the answer is
more informative than required, and it is not brief. A
will probably get the picture that B is not free that
evening, and will probably not follow through with a
suggestion or invitation
Deixis
▶ words and phrases that cannot be fully understood
without additional contextual information
▶ Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but
their denotational meaning varies depending on time
and/or place.
▶ Words or phrases that require contextual information
to convey any meaning – e.g., English pronouns –
deictic
Deixis
Deixis: traditional categories
▶ Person
▶ Place
▶ Time
Person
▶ The center of the deictic system
Place
▶ The most salient English examples are the
adverbs“here” and “there” and the demonstratives
“this” and “that”, e.g.:
▶ I enjoy living in this city
▶ Here is where we will place the statue
▶ She was sitting over there
Time
▶ Time, or temporal, deixis concerns itself with the
various times involved in and referred to in an
utterance.
▶ This includes time adverbs, e.g. "now", "then", "soon",
etc. and also different tenses
▶ Example: tomorrow denotes the consecutive next day
after every day. The "tomorrow" of a day last year was
a different day from the "tomorrow" of a day next
week.
Deixis: other categories
▶ Discourse
▶ Social
Social deixis
▶ concerns the social information that is encoded within various
expressions, such as relative social status and familiarity.
▶ Two major forms of it are the so-called T–V distinctions and
honorifics.
▶ T–V distinctions, named for the Latin “tu” and “vos” - the name
given to the phenomenon when a language has two different
second-person pronouns.
▶ The varying usage of these pronouns indicates something about
formality, familiarity, and/or solidarity between the
interactants, e.g. the T form might be used when speaking to a
friend or social equal, whereas the V form would be used
speaking to a stranger or social superior - common in European
languages
Discourse
▶ Discourse deixis, also referred to as text deixis, refers
to the use of expressions within an utterance to refer
to parts of the discourse that contains the utterance —
including the utterance itself: e.g. This is a great story
Anaphora
▶ .
▶ An anaphoric reference refers to something within a text
that has been previously identified, e.g. "Susan dropped the
plate. It shattered loudly" the word "it" refers to the phrase
"the plate".
▶ A cataphoric reference refers to something within a text
that has not yet been identified, e.g. in "He was very cold.
David promptly put on his coat" the identity of the "he" is
unknown until the individual is also referred to as "David".
Anaphora
▶ A. Do you see that baby girl over there? She is cute.
▶ When a word or phrase picks up its meaning from some
other piece of language nearby, the relationship
between the two – anaphora
▶ A word which gets its meaning in this way – an
anaphor, and the piece of language which gives the
anaphor its meaning – its antecedent
Presupposition
▶ Presupposition - when a speaker’s choice of words
shows that he is taking sth for granted
▶ E.g.: John stopped crying at noon – makes sense if it is
assumed that John was crying just before noon.
Presupposition
▶ an implicit assumption about the world or background
belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for
granted, e.g.:
▶ Jane no longer writes fiction.
◦ Presupposition: Jane once wrote fiction.
▶ Have you stopped eating meat?
◦ Presupposition: you had once eaten meat.
▶ Have you talked to Hans?
◦ Presupposition: Hans exists.
Presupposition
▶ A presupposition must be mutually known or assumed
by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be
considered appropriate in context.
Presupposition
▶ Presuppositions – often understood in terms of the
notion of common ground
▶ The common ground – a set of propositions which the
participants in a conversation mutually assume
▶ The common ground - a major part of the context of
use, and helps us make explicit the role of
presupposition
Meaning and the intention to
communicate
▶ Indexicality and presupposition – aspects of
pragmatics which have to do with the relationship
between context of use and semantic meaning
Culture-specific implicature
▶ Cultural assumptions can be crucial in determining
speaker’s meaning
▶ Example: if two Chinese people are looking at the dessert
display in a French restaurant, and one says to the other,
“That tart is not too sweet”, she intends this comment as
praise of the tart. She might intend to implicate that her
dinner partner should order the tart. This meaning arises, in
part, from the fact that it is common knowledge among
Chinese people that most of them find western desserts
too sweet. Among some other groups, the same comment
could be interpreted as a criticism, rather than a
compliment
Culture-specific implicature
▶ The cultural specificity of the speaker’s meaning is not
a fact about the Chinese language
▶ The implicature could arise regardless of the language
they are speaking
Pragmatics summary
▶ Pragmatics – about how the context of use contributes
to meaning
▶ Core topics: indexicality, presupposition, implicature,
speech acts