AREAS OF ENQUIRY: Semantics and Pragmatics

Nombre de las alumnas: Oriana Acosta, Micaela Moreno y Yoselyne Urbieta

Nombre de la profesora: Laura Gabetta

Asignatura: Linguistics I.

Carrera: Profesorado de inglés

Curso: 3er año

Villa María

2020
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MARÍA LUCRECIA BERRONE

2.4. SEMANTICS

Activity 1

Read the following passage from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.

Underline all the instances of the word mean.

"(...) that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get

unbirthday presents."

"Certainly," said Alice.

"And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!" “I don't know

what

you mean by 'glory,” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course

you

don't - till I tell you. I mean 'there's a nice knockdown argument for you.'"

“But glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knockdown argument,'” Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone," it means what I
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choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

“The question is," said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different

things." “The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that's all."

1. What is the subject of the verb mean in each occurrence you have

underlined?

2. In what senses is the word “mean" used in this passage?

The word “mean” is used to talk about the definition of something (a word,

phrase, etc.)

3. A dictionary can be considered as a list of word meanings. Would it be

possible to make a list of what speakers mean?

It would be hardly easy to make a list of what speakers mean since each

person tends to interpret words or phrases differently from others.

Activity 2

Although it is hard to say what meaning is, it is fairly easy to show what knowledge

speakers have about meanings in their language and therefore what things must be

included in an account of semantics. The following activity is intended to

demonstrate some aspects of any speaker's semantic knowledge.

1. Can you tell which of the following are meaningful in English?

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a) Henry drew a picture. b) Henry laughed. c) The picture laughed. d) Picture a

Henry laughed

2. Which of the following sentences have essentially the same meaning?

a) Sally got home before Robert. b) Robert got home before Sally. c) Robert arrived

at home after Sally. d) Sally got home later than Robert.

3. In each sentence below one word is underlined. Following the sentence is a

group of words, one of which can replace the underlined word without

changing the meaning of the sentence.

a) Where did you purchase these tools?

use - buy- release - modify - take

b) At the end of the street we saw two enormous statues.

pink – smooth - nice – huge - original

4. The sentences below are all about the same person, but two of them are

related in such a way that if one is true the other must be false.

a) Paul is married. b) Paul is an engineer. c) Paul is no longer young. d) Paul is a

bachelor.
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5. Choose from the group of words following each of the sentences below the

word which means the opposite of the underlined word.

a) Betty cut a thick slice of cake.

bright - new - soft - thin - wet

b) The train departs at 12:25.

arrives - leaves - waits - swerves

6. In each of the following groups of words, all but one of the words have

something in common. Which is the word that doesn't belong?

a) street - lane - road - path - house - avenue

b) buy - take - use - steal - acquire - inherit

7. The following newspaper headlines are all ambiguous in that there are at

least two potential meanings for each one. Try to identify the word(s) that have

caused the problem.

a) RETIRED PRIEST MAY MARRY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

b) DEFENDANT'S SPEECH ENDS IN LONG SENTENCE

c) CROWDS RUSHING TO SEE POPE TRAMPLE 6 TO DEATH

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8. What is the relationship between the statements in each of the following

pairs?

a) There are tulips in the garden.

b) There are flowers in the garden.

a) The ladder is too short to reach the roof.

b) The ladder isn't long enough to reach the roof.

(Adapted from Berrone, M. (2008). A student's linguistics workbook (1st

ed., pp. 38 -39). Córdoba: Comunic-arte.)

PRAGMATICS: THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE USE

What do these children still need to learn about using language?

a) A little boy comes in the front door.

Mother: Wipe your feet, please.

He removes his muddy shoes and socks and carefully wipes his clean feet on the

doormat.

This kid needs to learn that his mother tried to ask him to clean his shoes and

not to remove his shoes and socks to clean his feet.

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b) A father is trying to get his 3-year-old daughter to stop lifting up her dress to

display her new underwear to the assembled guests.

Father: We don't do that. II.

Daughter: I KNOW, Daddy. You don't WEAR dresses.

The daughter needs to learn that her father was trying to teach her that their

family doesn't behave that way in front of guests.

(From J. S. Peccei Pragmatics, 1999)

Semantics and pragmatics are the two main areas of linguistic study that look at the

knowledge we use both to interpret meanings when we hear or read, and to

generate meanings when we speak or write. Within linguistics itself, the dividing line

between these two fields are still under considerable debate. However, generally

speaking, semantics concentrates on meaning that comes from purely linguistic

knowledge, while pragmatics focuses on those aspects of meaning that cannot be

predicted from linguistic knowledge alone and takes into account knowledge about

the physical and social world, as well as shared assumptions and beliefs. As you

work through the following exercises, you should be able to get a feel for some of the

main topics pragmatics has traditionally been concerned with.

4.2. PRESUPPOSITION
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Consider the following utterances:

(a) Tom stopped smoking:

(b) How long have you been selling drugs?

What is asserted in (a)? It means that Tom stopped smoking for an indefinite time,

but he probably will do it again.

What is the main claim of the message? That Tom quit smoking indefinitely.

What is taken for granted or assumed to be shared knowledge? That Tom has a

bad habit or addiction. Moreover, he used to smoke, but now he doesn’t.

What's the point of the question in (b)? The point is to know the period of time in

which he/she has been doing that action.

What is it that the speaker wants to know? The speaker wants to know how much

time it has been since that person started doing that action.

Activity 11

For each of the following utterances decide whether the accompanying

inference seems valid.

(a) Where did you leave the keys? You left the keys somewhere.' It is obvious that

you left the keys somewhere.

(b) Have you read this wonderful book? This book is wonderful.' In the question, that

the book is wonderful, is already said.

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(c) Tom is driving Sue's car. Sue has a car.' If Tom drives Sue’ car, Sue has a car.

(d) Stop complaining.“You are complaining.' If you tell someone to stop complaining,

you don’t need to repeat it twice.

(e) Lucy knows that George doesn't love her. George doesn't love her. -* In the first

statement, that George doesn’t love her, is already said.

The accompanying inferences of these utterances are not valid because they

are redundant and don't provide relevant information.

Now change did to didn't in (a): have to haven't in (b); is to isn't in (c); stop to don't

stop in (d); and knows to doesn't know in (e). Do the inferences still hold?

The inferences still hold, so that they continue being unvalid.

Activity 2

In each of the following advertisement extracts, what claim or claims are being made

by presupposition rather than directly asserted?

a) What's the secret of ENRON's success?:

It’s supposed to be a secret for Enron’s success.

b) If we can make great athletic shoes in America, why can't our competition NEW

BALANCE is/be the only company that makes a full line of athletic shoes here in

America.".
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It is assumed that NEW BALANCE is the only company that makes a full line of

athletic shoes in America at the moment.

c) These are just a few of the reasons why more people rely on VISA around

the world than on all other cards combined.

It is being assumed that the VISA card is more widely used around the world than

the other cards combined.

d) What makes this World Business class so special? Your own experience.

It is assumed that it is required the own experience to make the World Business

class so special.

KLM

(Adapted from Berrone, M. (2008). A student's linguistics workbook (1st

ed., pp. 59 -62). Córdoba: Comunic-arte.)

Pragmatics

1. Define the following terms: Reference, (illocutionary) force and

(perlocutionary) effect.

- Reference: It is the symbolic relationship that a linguistic expression has with

the concrete object or abstraction it represents.

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- Illocutionary force: It is the combination of the illocutionary point of an

utterance, and particular presuppositions and attitudes that must accompany

that point.

- Perlocutionary force: It is a speech act that produces an effect, intended or

not, achieved in an addressee by a speaker’s utterance.

2. Why do people engage in a conversation subscribe to a kind of contract?

What is the name given to this contract in Pragmatics?

When people seek to communicate, they enter into a kind of contract that they will

work towards some conversation of intention and interpretation, that is to say, they

subscribe to a cooperative principle, and from this one, people can express

disagreement or create conflictual situations.

3. Explain very briefly the terms: Turn-taking and adjacency pair.

- Turn-taking conventions: regulate the interaction itself. It is a type of

organization in conversation and discourse where participants speak one at a

time in alternating turns.

- Adjacency pair: is a unit of conversation that contains an exchange of one

turn each by two speakers. The turns are functionally related to each other in

such a fashion that the first turn requires a certain type or range of types of

second turn.
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Oriana, Micaela and Yoselyne: The activities have some

mistakes, but in general, they are well developed and

complete. I understand that it was a completely new topic for

you and you did your best, for future instances pay attention

to the feedback and take it into account. You made good use

of language and the lexical choice was appropriate. Well

done!!