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PRAGMATICS

- Is the study of what speakers mean, or ‘speakers meaning’.

INVISIBLE MEANING

- The interpreter needs to use the meaning of the words, the context in which they occur, pre-
existing knowledge of what a likely message would be and what we think the writer would like to
communicate, to interpret the message. We are always active participants in what we interpret
communicated messages as.

- Assuming everything is normal and that a business has not started selling young children, one
would interpret correctly that the sign saying “Sale, Baby & Toddler” (with pictures of clothed
babies), is indicating that there is a sale on baby’s garments going on.

CONTEXT

- Linguistic context is one of the different types of context. Also referred to as co-text, it relies on the
words around the word to be interpreted to understand its meaning. Bank is a homonym. A single
word with more than one meaning. However, by the co-text in the sentence “I’m going to the bank
to get some cash,” we can clearly interpret that what is meant is the bank as a financial institution.

- One other type of context is physical context. One will more likely assume that one is standing in
front of a bank if it is a building in a city with the word BANK written on it. The place or group of
people where we encounter a word or sentence heavily influences how we interpret it. Different
professions and different social groups have different vocabularies.

DEIXIS

- There are some words/sentences that are impossible to understand if one is not physically there to
see who is speaking. An example: “She isn’t here today, she has that thing going on once a week,
come back tomorrow.” These expressions, only capable of being understood if one knows the
speakers meaning, are called deictic expressions from the Greek word deixis.

- There are three types of deixis: Personal deixis (pointing towards things or people(it, this, these
boxes, him, them, those idiots)); Spatial deixis (pointing to a location(here, there, near that));
Temporal deixis (pointing towards a time(now, then, last week)).

- It all depends quite naturally on the personal coordinates of the speaker. The difference between
when one would say “go to bed”, versus “come to bed”

REFERANCE

- Words do not actually refer to anything. It is the speaker or writer who does this. (It, she, he,
Jennifer, my friend, that cat) can be applied to any number of Jennifers or cats. It is the speaker still
who references. We can also reference things without knowing the proper names. Such as, “that
blue thing over there.”

INFERENCE

- is additional information used by the listener to understand the message. For example, two waiters
talking. “The spinach salad is sitting by the door.” One’s understanding of a sentence does not as
much depend on one’s vocabulary, but on one’s ability to understand what is meant from the indices
at hand.

ANAPHORA

- We usually make a distinction between introducing new referents and referring back to them. “This
is my puppy Josh (antecedent), isn’t he (anaphora) cute?” The first mention is called the antecedent
while the second is called the anaphora. Anaphora can be defined as a subsequent reference to a
previously introduced entity.

- Instead of only using pronouns such as (it, he) to refer back to the antecedent, we can also use
other nouns that are related to it by inference. “I was waiting for the bus, but the driver simply drove
past me.” A bus needs a driver, therefore we can infer that by saying that the drive drove past us, so
did the bus.

PRESUPPOSITION

- We design our linguistics messages based on large-scale assumptions of what the listeners already
know. These are called presuppositions. E.G if someone tells you that your brother is waiting outside,
there is an obvious presupposition that you have a brother. A test to check for a presupposition
involves negating the sentence. Your brother is/isn’t waiting outside. The presupposition that one has
a brother remains the same. This is called the ‘constancy under negation’ test.

- This is one way of formulating trick questions. “How fast were you going when you ran the red
light?” If one answers the how fast part only, the assumption is that one ran the red light. Journalists
and lawyers.

SPEECH ACTS

- Generally speaking, the speaker knows how to convey what he wants to say. We use the term
speech act to describe actions such as ‘requesting’, “commanding”, ‘questioning’, or ‘informing’

DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

Structures Functions

Did you eat the pizza? Interrogative Question

Eat the pizza, (please)! Imperative Command (Request)

You ate the pizza. Declarative Statement

When an interrogative structure (Did you…?) is used to pose a question, it is described as a direct
speech act.
Compare that utterance with Can you pass the salt? We don’t normally use this structure to actually
ask a question about someone’s personal ability, we use it make a request. We are using a syntactic
structure associated with the function of a question, but using it with the function of a request. This
is an indirect speech act. Another example is the declarative structure you left the door open, if it’s
cold outside, this is meant as a request (to close the door). Failure to recognize indirect speech acts
can lead to some bizarre interaction. The main reason why me use indirect speech acts to make
requests is because it is seen as more polite and gentle.

POLITENESS

- Your face in pragmatics is your public self-image. Politeness can be defined as showing
consideration and awareness towards another’s face. If you use direct speech to get someone to do
something “Give me the salt!”, you are implying that you hold power over them. This is a face-
threatening act. If you had used the indirect version, it would have been a face-saving act.

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE FACE

- Face can be divided into two subcategories: Negative face is the need to be independent and free
from imposition. Positive face is the need to be connected, to be a member of a group. The content
of a face-saving act therefore differs depending on what face one is trying to save. If it is the negative
face one will show concern about imposition (I’m sorry to bother you) and if it’s the positive face,
one will emphasize solidarity and draw attention to a common goal (You and I have the same
problem)

STUDY QUESTIONS

1: The upper-case letters are deictic expressions: I’M busy, NOW so YOU can’t stay HERE. Come back
LATER.

2: The upper-case letters are anaphoric expressions: Dr. Foster gave Andy some medicine after HE
told HER about HIS headaches and SHE advised HIM to take THE PILLS three times a day until THE
PAIN went away

3: What kind of inference is involved in interpreting the following sentence: The ham sandwich left
without paying. The inference here is that the ham sandwich is a customer.

4: What is the presupposition: Your clock isn’t working. (I HAVE A CLOCK?)

5: Someone is standing in front of the TV: Direct speech acts: Move; Please get out of the way.

Indirect speech acts; You’re in the way; Could you please sit down?

RESEARCH TASKS
A: I think that the statement “context is a psychological construct” is true. I mean, basically speaking,
context does not exist physically. It is something that we as interpreters of the world around us
assign to things. We share certain contexts with other people depending on where we grew up,
where we went to school, what we’re doing in the moment etc. Technically speaking context is
simply a mass delusion which we use to categorize things and assign meaning for ease of
communication.

B. Why is the concept of ‘deictic projection’ (speakers projecting themselves into other places, times
or shift person perspective) necessary for the analysis of the following deictic expressions?

1. On a map/directory: YOU ARE HERE (Because otherwise we wouldn’t know where we are, and
therefore in what relation we currently stand to the place we want to get to.)

2. On a telephone answering machine: I am not here now (To inform people that on is not currently
not at the place where the phone is)

3. Watching a horse race: Oh no, I’m in last place (The better is identifying himself with the rider he
bet on who is in last place.)

4. In a car that won’t start: Maybe I’m out of gas (The speaker is not a car; his car is out of gas. He just
associates with it)

5. Pointing to an empty chair in class: Where is she today? (The girl who usually sits in the chair, not
the chair.)

C. Which of these utterances contain ‘performative verbs’ (a word that conveys the action
performed; when you say these verbs, you actually are doing the action they convey) and how did
you decide.

1. I apologize (performative verb, speech act; apology)

2. He said he was sorry (he said, not apologized)

3. I bet you 20 (he said he would bet and he did)

4. She won the bet (one does not win by saying one is winning, one does so by winning)

5. I drive a Mercedes (one does not drive by saying one is driving)

6. You must have a lot of money (one does not have a lot of money by etc.)