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distinguish grammatical meaning from pragmatic meaning

distinguish a sentence from an utterance,

speech act theory - theory that formalizes the idea that what people actually intend their
utterances to mean is often not clearly said in the words that they speak or write

Gramm. vs. prag. meaning

Stanley Fish ( American literary theorist, author)is distinguishing meaning at two levels.

Example: Why don’t we go to the movies?

1st level: semantics: how words have individual meaning how it refers to the external world

how we interpret the sentence is determined by the meaning of the individual words that it
contains
To make sense of this sentence, we need to know, what words such as go and movies mean;
that we refers outside the text to the speaker and listener; that the indicates that a specific
movie that we are thinking of,etc.

Semantics is one component of grammar, and is also part of our linguistic competence.

Fish observed it correctly, however, interpretation of a sentence goes beyond nderstanding

its meaning at the level of grammar.
We should understand the entire social context in which a sentence was meant, a different
level of interpretation that is studied within pragmatics,which explores the role that context
plays in the interpretation of what people say.

Many linguists agree others believe that the boundary is not this discrete - Fillmore
The problem with making a clear divide between grammar and pragmatics, is that this view
ignores the role that acceptation plays in language i.e. that our interpretation of a sentence
such as „Could you please pass the salt?” as a polite request is as much a matter of the social
context in which this sentence is uttered as the fact that in English, yes/no questions with
verbs such as can or could have been accepted as markers of polite requests (e.g. Could you
help me with my homework?).

Noam Chomsky, do not study pragmatics mainly because they see the study of grammar as
the primary focus of linguistic analysis
Others see the study of pragmatics is crucial to understand human language since the study of
linguistic competence is no more important than the study of communicative competence.

Dell Hyme: human communication involves not just knowledge of how to form linguistic
structures but knowledge of how to use these structures in specific communicative contexts.

Sentence vs. utterance

This chapter will focus on both spoken and written language, it is important to define the
basic unit of structure – the utterance – that will serve as the basis of discussion.
People mistakenly think that complete sentences are the norm in both speech and
writing.
However, as Carter and Cornbleet: “We do not set out to speak in sentences – in fact, in
informal speech we rarely do that – rather, we set out to achieve a purpose which may or may
not require full, accurate sentences.”

Speaker A: Lots of people are roller skating lots of people do rollerblade

Speaker B: Just running around the city
Speaker A: Uh mainly in Golden Gate Park

1,contains two grammatical sentences: constructions consisting of a subject (lots of people in both sentences)
and a finiteverb (are and do)
2,do not contain a sentence a construction centered around the verbal element running
3,do not contain a sentence

Speech act theory

The speech act theory examines the relationship between speaking and acting. The basics
of this theory were worked out by a British philosopher of language,J. L. Austin, in the early
1960s. According to Austin, when we speak or write we perform different acts. These are
locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.
For example, when we say ‘Leave’, the locutionary level of this is that this is an imperative
sentence; the verb form implies the person as ‘you’, and it has a meaning as well, to go
away, departetc. So locutionary act is basically the fact of creating a grammatically correct
sentence and recognise its mood or form.
In addition, when I say ‘Leave’ I have some kind of intention; I want to make someone do
something. This is the illocutionary act, the aim, the intention of the sentence.
Also, if I tell someone ‘Leave’ it will have an impact on the person, too. The result is that he
leaves and maybe become upset etc. This is perlocutionary act.
These were three general types of acts. However, examining speaker intentions or as the
above mentioned illocutionary acts various types of speech acts can be proposed.
Here are five described by John Searle:
Assertives/Representatives:Utterances reporting statements of fact verifiable as true or false
(e.g. I am old enough to vote; Columbus discovered Americain 1492; Water freezes at zero
degrees centigrade)
Directives:Utterances intended to get someone to do something (e.g. Stop shouting; Take
out the garbage)
Commissives:Utterances committing one to doing something (e.g. I promise to call you
later; I’ll write your letter of recommendation tomorrow)
Declarations:Utterances bringing about a change in the state of affairs
(e.g. I now pronounce you husband and wife; I hereby sentence you to ten years in jail)
Expressives:Utterances expressing speaker attitudes (e.g. That’s a beautiful dress; I’m
sorry for being so late)
A speech act can be explicit or implicit, direct or indirect, and literal or
non-literal. If a speech act is explicit, it will contain a performative verb,
a verb that names the speech act.
e. g. : I apologise for being late.
I’m sorry that I was late.
These examples are expressives. The first example is an explicit speech act as the verb
‘apologise’ is the performative verb here, showing that it’s an apology. The second sentence
is an implicit speech act because the adjective sorry shows that this is an apology not the verb
‘am’.
Performative verbs:
Assertives/Representatives: state, affirm, declare
Directives: order, direct, recommend
Commissives: promise, pledge
Declarations: declare, absolve
Expressives: thank, congratulate
Of course, not all of them is used in a daily basis, furthermore they would be quite
inappropriate in other contexts.
Speech acts can also be either direct or indirect. A speech act is direct if
it clearly states the intention of the sentence.
e.g.: That’s enough go away - direct
I’m really uncomfortable with your being here now – indirect
In English indirect sentences are very often stated as yes or no questions:e.g.: Could you
give me a glass of water?
Would you open the front door for me please?
Or with the use of should and might wantto:
e.g.: You should go to sleep.
You might want to go to sleep.
And last but not least, we can talk about literal and non-literal speech acts.
e.g.: I’ll explain why in a minute.
Yes I know it’s taken me forever to write you.
These are not meant to be understood word by word, so the explanation is not precisely
coming after sixty seconds etc. And also literalness can be confusing sometimes because we
cannot know for sure whether the speaker is serious about what he says.
e.g.: So how are you? – greeting someone
Let’s get together one night. – saying goodbye

Felicity and appr.

(Fanni)
For a speech act to be successful, it needs to satisfy a series of conditions
referred to as either felicity or appropriateness conditions. Searle (1969)
proposes four such conditions: propositional content, preparatory, sincerity, and essential. To understand how these
conditions work, it is useful to see how they apply to a very common type of speech act, an apology.

propositional content: Any speech act has to have propositional content (speaker expresses regret
for a past act)
preparatory: Before making an apology, the speaker obviously has to believe that he/she has
done something requiring an apology
sincerity: A key component of any apology is that the speaker be sincerely sorry for what
he/she has done. (Speaker regrets act)
essential: Accepting the apology.If the listener thinks that the apology is not sincere, then the
speech act will ultimately fail. (Counts as an apology for act)

Although all speech acts must satisfy each condition to be successful,many speech acts are
distinguished by the different ways that they satisfy the individual conditions.

The cooperative principle

philosopher H. Paul Grice four maxims:

Quantity: Don’t say too much; don’t say too little (All communicants must strike a balance
between providing too much and too little information when they speak or write.
Quality: Be truthful (each communicant says or writes will be truthful.)
Relation: Stay on topic; Be relevant (In casual conversation, topic shifts are normal, since
there are no real pre-planned topics that people intend to discuss when they converse. In other
contexts, however, it is expected that speakers/writers stay on topic.)
Manner: Make sure what you say is clear and easy to understand

-Quantity: (Simple yes/no question was asked by a reporter)

The electors are going to elect George W. Bush to be the next president
of the United States, and I believe on January 20, not too many
steps from here, he’s going to be sworn in as the next president of the
United States. I don’t know how you can get more legitimate than
that.

-Quality: (B gives a true answer to A's question)

A: So who are you going out with tonight
B: Koosh and Laura

-Relation: (speaker B shifting the topic )

B: Are you um how’s your new job did you start
A: I just was painting and I do a little carpentry a little gutter work and
stuff
B: Uh huh
A: So I’ve been doing that
B: Someone called for you last night
A: Really
B: Yeah
A: Who was it
B: But I told him you were you weren’t working here anymore

-Manner: (the speaker tells her audience clearly what she's going to talk about)
"But what I’d like to talk to you about uh this afternoon just uh briefly
because we only have forty-five minutes is uh studying climate change
from space. And my talk will split into four uhm sections. I’ll spend a
few minutes talking about the climate system and uh then having
sort of looked at that we’ll ask the question and hopefully answer it uh why observe from
space."

Problems with the cooperative principle

It’s hard to determine whether a person has violated these maxims-it is a matter of interpritation.
In other situations, it is not clear whether one or more maxims have been violated.
Different people will have different conclusions from the same utterance.
Example :
In an interview the person who was asked doesn’t give a direct and clear answer to the question,instead of it he comments on
something else---- Because his answer was incomplete, he violated the maxim of quantity,and made the conversation
confused
Politeness (Eszter)
One of the more detailed and comprehensive treatments of politeness is the work of Brown
and Levinson’s. Theypropose three most important considerations: the power relationships
existing between speakers, their social distance, and the level of impolitenessthat the FTA
/face threatening act/ would create.
In any social group, there will be differing power relationships among
people. Whether individuals are disparates or equals will affect how they communicate. (e.g.:
classroom, teacher is a superordinate, students are subordinates but most often equals among
each other)
Students use honorifics (expressions that show deference and respect) such as Professoror
Doctor to address their teachers as a way of explicitly marking the disparate power
relationship that exists between a student and a teacher. These can be used by referring to
them directly or indirectly.
e.g.: Another witness Mrs Angela Higgins said she saw the defendants shouting and
behaving stupidly. – referred to in third person
Dr Vernon, is this the way to make depressed people happy? – referred to directly
In contrast, students may use their first names to address one another as a way of indicating
that they are equals.

Further titles and honorifics:

e.g. Miss, Ms, Sir, Madam – face-to-face conversations to express high deference,
salutation of formal letters, or customers in a restaurant
General, Colonel, President, Prime Minister, and Officer,your hono(u)r (proper address of
a judge)
honey, my little-one, sweetheart, my dear, darling – to express close relationship,
intimateness, personal topics, family problems, illness etc.
Interesting to know that Englishis one of the few languages which lack in an informal and
formal second person pronoun, though, according to Blake, earlier in English history
difference was made between thou, thee(intimacy and contempt) and ye, you (neutral and
polite).

Levels of impoliteness, face-threatening acts, and tact (Eszter )

An equally important consideration is the extent to which a speaker is willing to commit an
FTA.Geoffrey Leech’s politeness principle was created in six maxims. One is the tact
maxim. Tact, according to Leech, has two polarities:
Negative: Minimize the cost to h [hearer]
Positive: Maximize the benefit to h
So basically Leech describes a cost-benefit scale.
e.g.:Peel these potatoes - negative
Have another sandwich - positive
but
What should I do next, it would be perfectly appropriate for the
other person to reply Peel the potatoeswithout appearing to be too direct
and impolite.
There are also expressions that can be used to mitigate or soften diractives:
please, thank you, thanks in advance, excuse me
modals like: would, could
adverbials: possibly, perhaps
indirect statements: e.g.: It’s cold there. – I want you to close the window.
Are you finished with your coffee? – It’s time to help me. etc.
use of the word expected: avoid directly ordering members
e.g.: Attendance is expected from all swimmers.
phrases like: We are going to need…
I wouldn’t mind…
The more indirect the utterance, the greater the likelihood the hearer will not infer its correct
meaning.

Speaker variables (Eszter)

Finally, after we’ve discussed the contexts of speech we should talk a few words about the
speakers themselves as well. As a matter of fact, while the form Could you please pass the
salt is more polite than Pass the salt, it is also the case that studies have shown that females
tend to use polite linguistic forms morefrequently than males. Gender is thus one of a number
of speaker variables:particular characteristics of speakers that affect how they use language.
Such as: geographic mobility, age, social class, ethnicity, education, and social
networks.These are circumstances and influences that very much contribute to a speaker’s
way of speaking. That’s why accents and different dialects exist.