STEP 5 - PRAGMATICS.

STUDENT:

EDINSON SCARPETA MENESES

TUTOR:

CRISTIAN FELIPE CANON

CODE: 518017

GROUP: 75

NATIONAL OPEN AND DISTANCE UNIVERSITY (UNAD)

SCHOOL OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES (ECEDU)

BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES WITH AN EMPHASIS IN

ENGLISH

CEAD: FLORENCIA

SOUTH ZONE

MAY-2020
 2. What are the differences, if any, between sentence and utterance?

The difference between sentence and utterance are very important for both semantics and
pragmatics.
We must keep in mind that a sentence is a string of words well-formed together according
to the grammatical rules of a language and an utterance is the use of a particular language, be it a
word, a phrase, a sentence, or a sequence of sentences, by a particular speaker on a particular
occasion.
Next, I will announce the differences:
 The study of the meaning of sentences belongs to semantics, while utterance is the use of
a particular language.
 a sentence is always italicized and an utterance is placed in double quotation marks.
 The utterance is a collection of words used in order to have a meaning and the sentence is
the set of words that have complete meaning and syntactic autonomy, which, although imprecise,
tries to reflect the fact that it is the smallest fragment of the discourse that communicates a
complete idea and has independence, that is, it could be taken out of the context and continue
communicating, referring only to grammatical aspects.

3. What is context? Why is it so important to pragmatics?

Context is one of those notions which is used very widely in the linguistics literature, but
to which it is difficult to give a precise definition. From a relatively theory-neutral point of view,
however, context may in a broader sense be defined as referring to any relevant features of the
dynamic setting or environment in which a linguistic unit is systematically used. Furthermore,
context can be seen as composed of three different sources-a view known as the ‘geographic’
division of context (Ariel 1990).

 In the first place, there is the physical context, which refers to the physical setting of the
utterance.
 The second type is the linguistic context, which refers to the surrounding utterances in the
same discourse.
 Thirdly and finally, we have the general knowledge context.
 The context is very important for pragmatics, because in traditional linguistics the context
was not too important, but within pragmatics it takes on special relevance, since thanks to it we
can understand the infinity of statements that would otherwise be incomprehensible.

4. Imagine the following situation: a lady friend comes from a beauty parlor; she has a
new haircut. Once you see her you say: “you just had your hair cut!”.
Cleary, you are not saying anything unknown, you friend knows perfectly that she
just had her hair cut… then, what is the function and purpose of your utterance? Explain
(Taken from: Escandell.2011)
According the grammar-focused technical point of view, we have two types of Politeness
conventions, Positive Politeness, which seeks to make statements that are conventionally polite,
flattering and cooperative and a negative Politeness, which seeks to avoid saying inappropriate
things, avoid intrusions, interruptions or excessive curiosities; Using appropriate body language,
where the function and purpose of this statement is that it attempts to say that the friend became
aware of the new cut and approves it using a positive Politeness convention. If the friend would
have not commented, it is possible that the new cut will be interpreted in a negative way using a
Negative Politeness conventions.

5. The concept ‘Linguistic under determinacy’ it is explained as “a huge gap between

the meaning of a sentence and the messages actually conveyed by the uttering of that
sentence. In other words, the linguistically encoded meaning of a sentence radically
underdetermines the proposition the speaker expresses when he or she utters that sentence”
Huang (2017:5), this concept is pivotal at understanding how pragmatics meaning work;
how do you understand it, give one example.

Example:

You and you, but not you, catch up on homework!

The three uses of the pronoun you, is an expression called deictic, can only be properly
interpreted by direct supervision, moment by moment, of the physical aspects of the speech event
in which the sentence is pronounced. In other words, the deictic parameter can be corrected only
if the deictic expressions are accompanied by some kind of physical behavior (such as a gesture
of selection or eye contact), which requires an extra linguistic physical context.
 6. At a daily basis, in teaching and translating areas, linguistics is used even without
being realized; do an inquiry and explain how this disciplined is implemented in any task at
teaching or translating. Your writing will emphasize in any of the classical linguistic levels:
grammar, speech sounds, semantic or pragmatic level. In your explanation be clear and
concise, avoid fuzzy ideas.

In recent decades, grammar has been implemented in our classrooms incorporating

theories of linguistics, more specifically in structuralism and generative schools. This has begun
to condition the study of language, whose theoretical formalization is very advanced, thanks to
authors as relevant in linguistics as: Bloomfield, Hjemslev and Chomsky, among others.
Language teachers teach students to describe, analyze the phonological, morph syntactic and
semantic aspects of the language, without an expressive or exhaustive practical purpose of the
object of study that the language itself must be. This has made students, despite having received
grammar, sometimes intense and continuous, throughout their schooling, have real difficulties to
express themselves adequately, correctly and even coherently in their language, both oral and
written. In other words, explanations of theoretical and formal concepts, almost exclusively, have
not contributed to improving the use of language and the expressive linguistic resources of
students in recent years. These topics have been raised insistently in numerous bibliographic
works, meetings, seminars, etc., where numerous approaches to language teaching are debated
and new methodological models are proposed, to improve the quality of language learning at
different educational levels. Therefore, being coherent with the new perspective, the teaching of
grammar should focus not only on the characteristics of the language called structural and
functional, but also on the analysis of the uses and the communicative purpose.

Also grammar in teaching must be a coherent theory that studies and examines the lexical
units of a language and the rules that combine them, analyzing their structures and relationships,
explaining them appropriately. Grammar as a science that completes language as an object of
material and formal study, teachers must be able to analyze and systematize all linguistic, oral
and written facts, to apply them to speakers, despite the inconveniences that we must take as a
reference. for the correct language, so that it is part of the teaching of grammar in the country's
schools.
 According to the recently developed arguments, we can say that the existence of school
grammar must be consistent every day and that it is adjusted to the needs of teaching and learning
the language, providing an essential didactic objective at all levels of teaching in students. learn a
new language, so that the student can learn an adequate and well-structured grammar through the
exercise of his intellectual capacities, perfecting the quality of the language he is learning in
school, university or college, obtaining a clear, exact metalanguage and precise, acquired in the
grammatical teaching proposed by the teachers.
 REFERENCIAS.

Huang, Y. (2007). Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP Oxford. Retrieved from:

http://bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1640096&lang=es&site=eds-live&scope=site

Ramirez, B., & Zaragoza F. (1998). The grammar´s teaching in the compulsory secondary
education. University of Malaga. Retrieved from: file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/Dialnet-
LaEnsenanzaDeLaGramaticaEnLaEnsenanzaSecundariaObl-117968.pdf