Language As Action: James Pustejovsky
Language As Action: James Pustejovsky
Language As Action: James Pustejovsky
James Pustejovsky
USEM 40a
Spring 2006
What is “discourse”?
Discourse is:
language above the sentence or above the clause
a continuous stretch of spoken language larger than a
sentence, often constituting a coherent unit
a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful unified,
and purposive; language in use
(viewed) as social practice determined by social
structures
Structural and functional
definitions of discourse
Structural or textual definition of discourse:
Discourse is a particular unit of language (above
the sentence).
Functional definition of discourse:
Discourse is a particular focus of language use.
Structural approach to discourse
Find the constituents that have particular relationships
with each other and that can occur in a restricted number
of arrangements;
Problems: units in which people speak do not always
look like sentences, or grammatically correct sentences.
Example 1
(From “The Colour Purple”, Alice Wharton)
Jack is tall and kind and don't hardly say anything. Love children.
Respect his wife, Odessa, and all Odessa Amazon sisters (Celie’s
Diary)
Structural approach to discourse
Examples, like Colourless green ideas sleep furiously
(Chomsky);
Solving the problem: adopt Lyons’s distinction between
system-sentences and text – sentences. System
sentences are well-formed abstract theoretical
sentences generated according to the existing grammar
rules; text-sentences are context-dependent utterances
or parts of utterances which occur in everyday life.
The discourse analysis will be concerned with text-
sentences.
Functional approach to discourse
Roman Jakobson: language performs six
functions:
Addressor(emotive);
Context (referential)
Addressee (conative);
Contact (phatic);
Message (poetic);
Code (metalinguistic).
Functional approach to discourse
for repair”
What Makes Discourse
Different?
Property #3: Implicature
Interpretation of an utterance relies on more
than just the literal meanings
Grice (1975, 1978)
Theory of Conversational Implicature
Proposed that what enables listeners to draw
Example 3
(From "Sense and Sensibility")
Maxim of Quality:
Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say
something if you lack adequate evidence.
Pragmatics
Maxim of Relation:
Be relative.
Maxim of Manner:
Be perspicuous (or express your ideas clearly)
Avoid obscurity of expressions (= do not use expressions which
are not clear or easy to understand);
Avoid ambiguity (= presence of more than one meaning);
Be brief (avoid unnecessary usage of too many words);
Be orderly.
Pragmatics
The contribution of Gricean pragmatics to
DA is a set of principles that constrains
speakers’ sequential choices in a text and
allows hearers to recognize speaker’s
intentions.