Pragmatics

							      Pragmatics

Reading between the lines…
               Pragmatics
• Semantics answered - “What do the words
  conventionally mean?”

• Pragmatics - “What does the speaker mean on
  this particular occasion?”

• “speaker meaning”
What is this sign telling us?
What is this sign telling us?
What is this sign telling us?
What is this sign telling us?
What is this sign telling us?
                  Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of the ‘invisible’ or implied
  meaning. Assumptions, expectations, and context
  play an important role.
Linguistic Context –Context of a word, phrase, or
  sentence that relies on the surrounding linguistic
  (grammatical) structure to infer meaning
Physical Context –place (signs), physically written
  text that corresponds with the thing it is
  identifying (i.e. SUPERMARKET on Publix’s sign,
  DICTIONARY on the book by Webster)
    What are these headlines telling us?



•   Grandmother of eight makes hole in one
•   Deaf mute gets new hearing in killing
•   Police begin campaign to run down jaywalkers
•   House passes gas tax onto senate
    What are these headlines telling us?

•   Milk drinkers are turning to powder
•   Iraqi head seeks arms
•   Prostitutes appeal to Pope
•   NJ judge to rule on nude beach
•   Blind woman gets new kidney from dad she
    hasn’t seen in years
               Speech act
An action performed by a speaker with an
  utterance


Speech acts carry out functions such as of
  ‘requesting’, ‘commanding’, ‘questioning’,
  ‘informing’, etc.
                  Speech acts
Direct Speech Acts        Indirect Speech Acts
  Are you hungry?         Can you pass the salt?

  Where does he live?     Could you open the door?

- information is needed   - request/ more polite
             Face/Politeness

• Face: your public image

• Politeness: showing awareness and
  consideration of another person's face
     Positive and Negative Face
• Don’t think of POSITIVE and NEGATIVE in the
  traditional sense here…

  – POSITIVE face is the need to be connected to a
    group.
  – NEGATIVE face is the need to be independent.
Face-saving and Face-threatening Acts
• Face-threatening: a speech act which
  represents a threat to a person’s self-image
  You need to…
  Give me….right now.
• Face-saving: a speech act that lessens the
  possible threat to a person’s face.
  Could you…
  May I…
               Okay, so…
Give me an example of face-threatening act that
  emphasizes a person’s negative face.

Give me an example of a face-saving act that
  emphasizes a person’s positive face.

Give me an example of a face-threatening act
  that emphasizes a person’s positive face.
       Group Grammar Activity
• Get in groups of 2-4 people
• Make a paragraph with as many grammatical
  errors (including spelling, punctuation, word
  form, or any other prescriptive rule violation).
• Write your group’s paragraph on the board.
  (You might want to have a key for the group.)
• Once finished, we will all correct the
  paragraphs together.