TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC ĐỒNG THÁP

KHOA NGOẠI NGỮ

TIỂU LUẬN
HỌC PHẦN: NGỮ DỤNG HỌC

Họ và tên: Trần Thị Thùy Trang

Lớp: ĐHSANH21-L2-TN
MSSV: 4621440106
Giảng viên hướng dẫn:
NGUYỄN VĂN TÁM, Ths,GVC.
 TIỂU LUẬN – NGỮ DỤNG HỌC
LỚP: ĐHSANH21-L2-TÂY NINH

Full name: Trần Thị Thùy Trang Date of birth:10/06/1997

Class:ĐHSANH21-L2-TN Student ID number: 4621440106

Email address: vatc.thuytrang@gmail.com Phone number: 0838208497

1. Identify the speaker’s meaning of each the underline utterances( 1 point)
1 a.
A: Whoa, has your teacher gone angry?
B: Let’s go to get some coffee.
“B” implies that “This is not a suitable place to talk about this, I will tell you at a coffee
shop”
1 b.
A: Where is the salad dressing?
B: we have run out of olive oil.
“B” means B didn’t make the salad dressing

2. Give two statements of speech acts and identify the three levels (locutionary,
illocutionary and perlocutionary) of the act in each statement. (2 points)

Locutionary Illocutionary Perlocutionary

it is uttered by someone
It’s so dark in this the lighting of the shows a request to
while switching the
room room switch the light on
light on

the weight of the shows a request to lift it is uttered by someone

The box is heavy
box up the box while lifting up the box

3. Identify the presupposition in the following sentences. (2 points)

a. I am not able to go to Hanoi this weekend.

- The speaker is supposed to go to Hanoi this weekend

b. Did you return the book to the library?

- You / the hearer had borrowed a book from the library

c. I am going to spend my holiday in the country.

- There will be a holiday soon or the speaker hasn’t taken the holiday in the country

d. He bought a new English- Vietnamese dictionary yesterday.

- He has a dictionary, the dictionary exists.

4. For each of the following sentences , provide two situations so that one utterance
performs two different acts. Interpret the utterances and identify the acts performed in
the light of the situation you provide. (2 points)

a. We are running out of time.

SITUATION 1:

A:”How much time have we got for the project?”

B:” We’re running out of time.”

B states the facts that there is no time left. This is A REPRESENTATIVE

B gives a piece of information (to answer A’s question). This is A REPRESENTATIVE

SITUATION 2:

A: “Our oral presentation is not as well-prepared as it should be”

B: “We are running out of time”

B indirectly suggests that A should accept what they’ve done for the presentation. This is A
DIRECTIVE

b. The ice-cream is in the fridge.

SITUATION 1

A:”Where’s the dessert?”

B: “ The ice cream is in the fridge”

B directly informs A of what is prepared for dessert and where is it kept. This is A
PRESENTATIVE

SITUATION 2

A:” The ice cream is in the fridge”

B: “ No, thanks. I’m full.”

A indirectly invites B to have some ice cream. This is A DIRECTIVE

5. Find out and analyze 2 examples of conversational implicatures. (1 points)

A: Would you come to Anna’s party tonight?

B: I have an exam tomorrow morning.

-> At surface level it seems that B has not answered correctly like Yes or No, but the question
here is how is A able to identify the meaning that is not present in the literal meaning of a
sentence. It seems to depend on an assumption that B is relevant (Relation) and informative
(Quantity)

He will bring some friends to the party next week.

-> The speaker uses a word SOME that expresses a degree that automatically implicate the
thing the speaker is talking about isn’t of any higher degree. The word SOME is in the middle
of the scale meaning that he just had some but not all of his friends.

6. What is pragmatics? Why is pragmatic awareness important? Give examples to

distinguish a semantic meaning and a pragmatic meaning (2 points)

- Pragmatics is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the users of those
forms. Pragmatics is the study of: speaker meaning, contextual meaning, how more get
communicated than is said, the expression of relative distance.

- Pragmatic awareness is very important to a language teacher as me because of some reasons

below:

+It will help me explain some things to my students in a better and more efficient way

+It indicated that the knowledge of pragmatics of learners and native speakers are quite
different. Language learners need instruction for the understanding of how to use language
appropriately

+ When thinking about teaching English, it is definitely a good thing to have some
knowledge of pragmatics as we can employ it basically in every English lesson and thereby
make our students think about the English language from another point of view as well.

+ Pragmatic helps learners to understand how language is used in a specific context

+ Pragmatic knowledge gives learners a sense of ownership of the language and

membership within the speech community

Example: I’m so thirsty I could drink the entire ocean.

If we examine this utterance semantically, we’d only be concerned with the conceptual
meaning, grammar, vocabulary, and the literal meaning.

However, if we are to examine this utterance in pragmatics, we’d also examine the context and
what the speaker is trying to imply from this utterance. Is the speaker really going to drink the
entire ocean? Or is he trying to imply that he is extremely thirsty? Is the speaker making a
general comment? Or is he asking for drink by this comment? Then we’d understand that the
meaning of this sentence cannot be taken in a literal sense.