‫‪PRAGMATICS‬‬

‫‪EDUCATION AND LEARNING PRESENTATION‬‬

‫زهراء محمد حبيب ‪ -‬رقية مؤيد ‪ -‬هناء ميثم كاظم‬

‫مرحلة رابعة‬
‫شعبة ‪-C-‬‬
 WHAT IS
PRAGMATICS?

In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the

study of what speakers mean and how context
contributes to meaning.

Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called

pragmaticians.
 INVISIBLE MEANING:
It’s possible to say that, pragmatics is the study of
“invisible” meaning, or how we recognize what is meant
even when it isn’t actually said or written.

In order for that to happen, speakers (or writers) must be

able to depend on a lot of shared assumptions and
expectations when they try to communicate. The
investigation of those assumptions and expectations
provides us with some insights into how we understand
more than just the linguistic content of utterances. From
the perspective of pragmatics, more is always being
communicated than is said.

~THERE ARE LOTS OF ILLUSTRATIONS OF THIS PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLE~

 First example
01

Driving by a parking garage, you may see a large sign. You read the sign,
knowing what each of the words means and what the sign as a whole
means. However, you don’t normally think that the sign is advertising a
place where you can park your “heated attendant.” (You take an attendant,
you heat him/her up, and this is where you can park him/her.) Alternatively,
the sign may indicate a place where parking will be carried out by
attendants who have been heated. (Maybe they will be more cheerful.)
The words in the sign may allow these interpretations, but we would
normally understand that we can park a car in this place, that it’s a heated
area, and that there will be an attendant to look after the car. So, how do
we decide that the sign means this when the sign doesn't even have the
word car on it? We must use the meanings of the words, the context in
which they occur, and some pre-existing knowledge of what would be a
likely message as we work toward a reasonable interpretation of what the
producer of the sign intended it to convey. Our interpretation of the
"meaning" of the sign is not based solely on the words, but on what we
think the writer intended to communicate.
 Second example
02

We can illustrate a similar process with our second

example, that is taken from a newspaper
advertisement. If we only think about the meaning of
the phrase as a combination of the meanings of the
words, using Furniture Sale as an analogy, we might
arrive at an interpretation in which someone is
announcing the sale of some babies. Of course, we
resist this possible interpretation and recognize
instead that it is advertising a sale of clothes for
those young children. The word clothes doesn't
appear in the message, but we can bring that idea to
our interpretation of the message as we work out
what the advertiser intended us to understand. We
are actively involved in creating an interpretation of
what we read and hear.
In our discussion of the last two examples, we
emphasized the influence of context.
What is context in linguistic?

The parts of a discourse that surround a word

or passage and can throw light on its meaning.
 TYPES OF CONTEXT:

1 There are different kinds of context. There is

Physical context obviously the physical context, which can be the
location "out there" where we encounter words
and phrases (e.g. the word BANK on a wall of a
building is understood as a financial institution).
2
Linguistic context There is also the linguistic context, also known as
co-text. The co-text is the surrounding words, used
in the same phrase or sentence, that helps to
understand what is meant. If the word bank is
used with other words like steep or overgrown, we
have no problem deciding which type of bank is
meant.
 DEIXIS:
The term ”deixis” came from the greek word for “pointing” and “indicating”. It is a part of pragmatics which has a
simply meaning “pointing”.

There are some very common words in our language that can't be interpreted at all if we don't know the context.
These are words such as here and there, this or that, now or then, yesterday, today or tomorrow, as well as
pronouns such as you, me, she, him, it, them.

Some sentences of English are virtually impossible to understand if we don't know who is speaking, about whom,
where and when. For example: She will have to bring it back tomorrow because He isn't here today.
this sentence is really vague. It contains a large number of expressions (you, it, tomorrow, she, here, today) that
rely on knowledge of the local context for their interpretation

So, expressions such as (tomorrow) are known as deictic expressions.

We use deixis to point to people, places, and times. So, all of these deictic expressions have to be interpreted in
terms of which person, place or time the speaker has in mind.
 AS SHOWN IN THE TABLE
CLOSE TO THE NOT CLOSE TO
SPEAKER THE SPEAKER

me, us, him, them, that

Person deixis ours, this girl woman, those idiots

here, this bed, there, those hills,

Spatial deixis behind me over yonder

now, today, then, yesterday,

Temporal deixis
this morning last week, next year
 REFERENCE:
Is an act by which a speaker / writer uses a language
to enable a listener/reader to identify something or
someone. TO PERFORM AN ACT OF A REFERENCE, WE CAN
USE PROPER NOUNS ( JACK , CHOMSKY) ,OTHER
NOUNS IN PHRASES OR PRONOUNS ( HE ,SHE ) .

We can also refer to things when we are not sure

what to call them . We can use expressions such as
the blue thing and icky stuff and we can invent names
.

For instance, there was a man who always drove his

motorcycle fast and loud through my neighborhood
and was locally referred as Mr.Kawasaki . In this case ,
a brand name for a motorcycle is being used to refer
to a person.
 INFERENCE:
INFERENCE IS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION USED BY
THE LISTENER TO CREATE A CONNECTION BETWEEN
WHAT IS SAID AND WHAT MUST BE MEANT

It means that nouns are associated with things ( salad ) refer to people and
the use of names ( Chomsky, Calvin Klein ) to refer to things .

The same thing in we saw Picasso in the museum, we saw Shakespeare in London
, Mozart was playing in the background and The bride wore Giorgio Armani .
 ANAPHORA:
Anaphora can be defined as subsequent reference to
an already introduced entity. The first mention is called
antecedent . We use Anaphora in texts to maintain reference
The connection.
between an antecedent and an anaphoric expression is
created through a pronoun (it ) or a phrase with the plus
antecedent noun or another noun that is related to the
antecedent in some way as in the following example:
We saw a a funny home video about a boy
washing a puppy in a small bath . The puppy
started struggling and shaking and the boy got
really wet . When he let go , it jumped out of the
bath and ran away .
 antecedents and anaphoric

The connection between antecedents and

anaphoric expressions is based on
inference , as in the following example:

Example

We found a house to rent,But the kitchen was very smal.

In some cases the antecedent can be a verb , as in : the victim was shot twice , but the
gun was never recovered.
Here the inference is that any '' shooting'' event must involve a gun . We have used the
term ‘’inference'' to describe what the listener does .
 CATAPHORA:
Cataphora is similar to anaphora , but reversing the
antecedent -anaphora relationship, often beginning with a
pronoun and descriptive noun phrase later , as in the
following instance:

It suddenly appeared on the bath a little head of me ,

staring in my direction and sniffing the air .
An enormous grizzly bear was checking me out.

Antecedent: the first mention of someone or

something later referred to via anaphora.
PRESUPPOSITION :
Presupposition is a kind of inference that sentences of natural languages may have.

In a more general way, we design our linguistic message on the basis of large -scale assumptions about what
our listeners already know.

For example , if someone tells you hey , your brother is looking for you , there is an obvious presupposition that
you have a brother.
If you are asked When did you stop smoking?, there are at least two presuppositions involved: you used to
smoke and you no longer do .

There is a test for presuppositions that involves comparing a sentence with its negative version and identifying
which presuppositions remain true in both. This is called “constancy under negation ". Whether you say my car is
a wreck or my car is not a wreck , there is an underlying presupposition ( l have a car ) that remains true .
 PRAGMATIC MARKERS:
Pragmatic markers can be defined as different ways of indicating how speakers' utterances are to be
interpreted . They can include short forms like well , l mean , l don’t know which are optional and
loosely attached to the utterances. These pragmatic markers and can be used to mark speaker's
attitude to the listener or what is being said . Speakers can us you know to indicate knowledge is being
treated as shared .
The had reading something by Charles wright , you know , the famous poet and well , l mean , he is
famous in America at least , but didn’t really understand it . After making astatement about the poet,
the speaker uses well to mark a shift from conveying information to commenting on it , with l mean
introducing a clarification.

Recently “l don’t know” has turned into a pragmatic marker that indicates lack of knowledge.

Lee : l'm not very fond of Edinburgh it’s Jen : oh , l don’t know , l really enjoying
so drab and it's always cold there . going to the festival there last year .
 POLITENESS:

THE FEATURE OF LANGUAGE USE THAT MOST CLEARLY REVEALS THE NATURE OF HUMAN
SOCIALITY AS EXPRESSED IN SPEECH.
POLITENESS IS SHOWING AWARENESS AND CONSIDERATION OF ANOTHER PERSON’S PUBLIC
SELF IMAGE.

1 Face-threatening act: means saying something that represents a threat to another person’s self image.
For example, if you use a direct command to get someone to do something (Give me that paper!), you are
behaving as if you have more social power than the other person.

2 Face-saving act: means saying something that lessens the possible threat to another’s face. For example,
if you ask (could you pass me that paper?), as if you remove the assumption of social power. you are only
asking if it’s possible.
 Negative and positive face:

Positive face: Negative face:

is the need to be connected, to belong, to
be a member of the group, in contrast to
the negative face.
e.g. ( The same thing happened to me ...;
Let’s do this together...).
is the need to be independent and free from
imposition, in
contrast to the positive face
e.g. ( I’m sorry to bother you ...; I know you’r
busy, but...)
 SPEECH ACTS:
An action performed by a speaker with an utterance,
either as a direct speech act or an indirect speech act.

SPEECH ACT TERM IS USED TO DESCRIBE AN ACTION THAT INVOLVE

LANGUAGE SUCH AS: APOLOGY, GREETING, REQUEST, COMPLAINT,
QUESTION, COMMAND, INVITATION, COMPLIMENT, OR REFUSAL.

A speech act might contain just one word, as in "Sorry!" to

perform an apology, or several words or sentences like:

-I’m sorry I forgot your birthday.

you are not just uttering a sentence, you seem to be
performing the speech act of “apology”.

The same thing for these examples:

-I'll be there at six. (to perform a promising)
-Eat the dish. (to perform a command)
 AS SHOWN IN THE TABLE
STRUCTURE FUNCTION

Did you eat the pizza? Interrogative Question

Eat the pizza

Imperative Command
(please)!

you ate the pizza.

Declarative Statement
DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS:
Apart from distinguishing speech acts according to their general function, they can also be distinguished with
regard to their structure. Thus, we can perform a speech act directly or indirectly, by way of performing another
speech act.

For example, we can make a request or give permission by way of making a statement for example:
-It doesn't matter to me.
And we can make a statement or give an order by way of asking a question for example:
Will the sun rise tomorrow? or Can you clean up your room?
You see, whenever there is a direct relationship between the function of a speech act and its structural form, we
have a direct speech act.

When there is no direct relationship between a structure and a form but rather an indirect one, the speech act is
considered indirect for example:
-Is ice old?
-Can you pass the salt?
In this second example, we are not really asking a question about someone's ability. We are using an
interrogative structure to make a request.
‫‪LINGUISTICS‬‬

‫‪THANK YOU‬‬

‫زهراء محمد حبيب ‪ -‬رقية مؤيد ‪ -‬هناء ميثم كاظم‬