Linguistics for Teachers

Language and Society

In Today’s Class…
Discourse Analysis
• pragmatics and discourse
analysis
• speech acts
• the cooperative principle
• politeness and face
• discourse markers
• conversation analysis
Sociolinguistics
• language variation and
sociolinguistics
• dialects
• standard and non-
standard dialects
• pidgins and creoles
• speech style
Discourse Analysis
 Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis
Which sentences define pragmatics and which sentences
define discourse analysis?

“the study of meaning in context and of language use”

“the study of language in text and conversation”

“the systematic study of connected text, or units of language above the

level of the sentence, and the utterances of which they are composed”

“the study of how language is used to communicate within its situational

context”
Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

Direct Speech Act Please don’t leave.

Indirect Speech Act Do you have the time?

What is the difference between these two types?

Practice - Identify the speech act

Decide whether the sentence is a direct or indirect speech

act:

1. Give me the mustard.

2. Can you give me the mustard?
3. I promise to take you to the zoo.
4. I haven’t seen your assignment yet.
5. Where is the gas station?
6. I would like to know how to get to Berwick.
7. Tell me where John is!
8. I’d like 2 pounds of pastrami.
(Language Files, 2004, p.248)
Locutionary, Illocutionary,
Perlocutionary Acts
→ It’s cold in here. This is a/an ______________
act.

Why?

→ (Could you close that window.) This is a/an _______________

act.

Why?

→ Oh, here, let me close that window. This is a/an _______________

act.

Why?
Practice - Speech Acts
Describe the locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary
acts involved here:

1. “Do you know when the final exam is?”

2. “Is Carol home?” (on the phone)
3. “You don’t have ten dollars?”
4. “I can’t put on these cufflinks.”
5. “I need two pounds of salami.” (standing in front of the deli counter
at the supermarket)

(adapted from Curzan & Adams, 2006, pp.274-5)

What kind of speech act is Michael using here?
Performative Speech Acts

I request that you scratch my nose.

I order you to stand still.

I advise you not to do that.

**What do these types of sentences have in

common?
Practice - Performative Acts
Explain why each of the performative verbs in the following
utterances is not being used in its performative sense:

1. I warned you not to open that door.

2. Promise her anything, but giver her Arpege. (advertisement for
perfume)
3. I won’t insist that you leave.
4. Mr. Jones insists that you work late tonight.
5. Apologize to your Aunt Martha immediately.

(Parker & Riley, 2005, p.18)

Discussion
Explain what circumstances would need to apply for these
utterances to be direct speech acts:

a. Justin and his family are all sitting at dinner. Justin sees the
ketchup at the far end of the table and asks his dad, “Can you pass
me the ketchup?”

b. Jessica and Paul are sitting on a park bench chatting. Jessica

suddenly pinches Paul hard on the arm and says, “You asked for it.”

(Curzan &Adams, 2006, p.275 )

The Cooperative Principle

Ricky: (in passing) Hey, how’ s it goin.

Peter: Well, you wouldn’t believe the morning I’ve just had.
First my car wouldn’t start. Then I got stuck behind
this logging truck. Then when I finally got here there
were no parking spaces left. Then when I got to
class the door was already closed and… (at this
point, Ricky is looking impatiently at his watch)

** How is Peter not fulfilling to the cooperative principle?

Maxims of Conversation
quantity
→ don’t say too much; don’t say too little
quality
→ don’t lie; don’t claim what you can’t prove
relevance
→ offer relevant information
manner
→ don’t be obscure or ambiguous; be brief and orderly
Discussion Maxims of Conversation (1)

Advertisements for over-the-counter-drugs often

make claims like “contains the most effective
ingredient” or “contains the ingredient that
doctors recommend most.” These claims imply
that the drugs are effective. What maxim is
involved here? Is the maxim being violated or
not? Why?

(Language Files, 2004, p.256)

Discussion Maxims of Conversation (2)

Fire department operator:

Where is the phone that you’re calling from?
Chris:
On the wall.

a) Which conversational maxim does Chris’s answer seem

to violate? Why?

b) Was Chris’s answer true? Justify your response.

(Language Files, 2004, p.256)

Discussion: Maxims of Conversation (3)

I come home last night, and there’s a car in the dining

room. I said to my wife, “How did you get the car in the
dining room?” She said, “It was easy. I made a left turn
when I came out of the kitchen.”

a) What linguistic knowledge are we accessing when we

find this type of joke amusing?

b) Which rule of conversation is being violated here?

(Language Files, 204, p.256)

 Hedges, Implicature,
Background Knowledge
How has Heidi preserved the maxim of
quality?

Heidi: Don’t quote me on this, but Angie

might be leaving us next month.

Heidi has used hedges here.

 Has Garfield violated the maxim of
relevance?

*At first, it seems he is responding with an irrelevant

question. However, Garfield uses implicature to get his
meaning across.
Why might this be difficult to understand?

“One afternoon last fall I found myself unable to leave

my car when I arrived at the grocery store. On “All
Things Considered” there was an excerpt from a series
called “Breakdown and Back,” the story of a mental
breakdown as experienced by one woman, Annie.”

(Green, 1989)

*This speaker is assuming the listener has the background

knowledge to understand these references.
Unfortunately, we probably don’t have this knowledge.
Politeness and Face
 Politeness and Face
positive face → the desire to be liked or part
of a group

negative face → the desire to be

independent and
unimpeded
face-saving act → speaking in a way that
preserves one’s face
speaking in a way that does
face-threatening act → not preserve one’s face
Politeness

Hey, you look very nice today. positive politeness

Sorry to bother you, but can I ask you

negative politeness
something.

Could you pass me that pencil? face-saving act

Pass me that pencil. face-threatening act

Calculating the degree of politeness

distance (how far the listener is from the speaker)

+
power (the status of authority the hearer has over
the speaker)
+
imposition (the “threatening” nature of the utterance)
=
degree of politeness (how much politeness you need
to use to lower the risk of ‘face loss’)
Practice - Using degrees of politeness

Provide 3 “more polite’” ways to make this request:

“Give me a double latte, extra foam.”

Now, answer these questions:

a) Did you calculate the degree of politeness before writing

your responses?
b) How many of your questions are indirect speech acts?
c) Are there circumstances in which you can imagine any of
these five being “too polite” or “oddly polite”?
Discussion
…apparently it is a Welsh characteristic not to want to
‘disappoint’ anyone you are talking to, so a Welsh
person might say ‘the train to London has not gone’,
even if it had. The general attitude is that it is better not
to hurt the listener’s feelings. If they said that the train
had gone you might have been disappointed, but if they
said the train had not gone then you could forestall being
upset, until later after you ran to catch it and found it had
left!! (Dashwood, 2003, p.5.5)

Is this a face-saving act? If so, what type of face is being

preserved here - positive or negative face?
Discourse Markers
Discourse Markers
 so, however, then
→ adverbs
→ showing logical sequence
 oh, man, geez
→ interjections
→ prefacing a disagreement,
new idea
 say, listen, look
→ verbs
→ prefacing a new idea
 and, but, or
→ conjunctions
→ showing continuity, contrast
 tell me, you know, I mean
→ lexical clauses
→ seeking clarification,
signaling an adjustment,
showing solidarity
Practice - discourse markers
Go to this practice on your Linguistics page.
Conversation Analysis
Turn-taking
 silence →we stop talking to allow another speaker to jump
in

 questions →we question another person to invite them into

the conversation

 gestures →gestures may slow down or stop to indicate

another person may take the floor

→we make direct eye contact with another to invite

 eye contact
him/her to talk

 intonation →as we leave our turn, our intonation typically goes

down
Violations
• overlap →one person begins to speak just
as the other person is finishing

• interruption →one person begins to speak in

the middle of another person’s
utterance

→the listener inserts ‘oh yeah’

• back-channeling and ‘uh-huh’ and so on to offer
verbal support while the other
person is speaking
Practice - Conversation Analysis

Go to this practice on your Linguistics page.

 Sociolinguistics

Language is a city to the building of

which every human being brought a
stone.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims

Language Variation
Which aspects of language are involved in
language variation?

-phonology
-grammar
-vocabulary
-social use
Sociolinguistics

“The field of sociolinguistics encompasses

all subfields of ___________ that examine
language use in social contexts and in
______ ________, including conversation
analysis and other types of ______
________” (Curzan & Adams, p.364)
What are Speech Communities?

• groups of people

• sharing linguistic features

• sharing geographic, socioeconomic, and

ethnic features
Accents, Dialects, Idiolects

.

…I can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue. I can place

any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London.
Sometimes within two streets.
George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

Angie says backpack and her friend says satchel.

What is the difference between
language and dialect?
mutual intelligibility speakers of one variety can
understand speakers of
another variety

language a language variety that is

NOT mutually intelligible
between speakers
dialect
a language variety that IS
mutually intelligible
between speakers
Dialect, Accent or Idiolect?
speaker A is from New York, speaker B is from Alabama
(accent)

speaker A says pail and speaker B says bucket

(idiolect)

speaker A speaks English, speaker B speaks French

(dialect)

speaker A speaks Mandarin, speaker B speaks Cantonese

(dialect)
 Dialectology
-the study of regional dialects (or the mapping of geographic
variation within a language)

language varieties influenced by political,

regional dialect
geographical and cultural factors

boundaries between areas differing in ONE

linguistic feature isogloss

boundaries between areas differing in many dialect boundary

isoglosses
Standard vs. Non-standard Dialects

1. What is an example of a standard

dialect? Why is it called standard?

2. What is an example of a non-standard

dialect? Why is it called non-standard?
Practice - British English and American
English
British English → American English

-clothes peg -shop assistant

-braces -sweets
-lift -boot (of car)
-pram -bobby
-waistcoat -spanner
-queue -underground
-torch -lorry
-crisps -knock up (Fromkin & Rodman, 1998, p.445)
AAE and SAE
AAE SAE
(African American English) (Standard American English)

double negatives
He don’t know nothing. He doesn’t know anything.
I didn’t have no lunch. I didn’t have lunch.

deletion of ‘be’ verb

They mine. They are mine.
He nice. He is nice.

habitual ‘be’
He be late. He is late.
Sometimes she be angry. Sometimes she is angry.
The coffee always be cold. The coffee is always cold.

absence of 3rd person singular -s

He need to get a book. He needs to get a book
She want us to listen. She wants us to listen.
Discussion
Can dialect be perceived positively or
negatively in an ESL classroom? What
would be the context? Think of students
and teachers.
Lingua Franca
Pidgins and Creoles
a speech system that is developed
pidgin for communicative purposes among Tok Pisin
speakers with no common language

a pidgin’s primary word source

lexifer language English

a speech system that has become the

creole primary language of a speech Louisiana Creole
community
- the development of a pidgin to a -from an African
creolization creole language to
AAE
Practice
Look at the following forms from the pidgin Tok Pisin and
its English equivalents:
Tok Pisin English
gras grass
gras bilong fes beard
gras biling hed hair
gras bilong pisin feather
gras antap lon ai eyebrow
gras nogut weed

a) How does Tok Pisin show possession?

b) How do gras and grass differ in meaning? (Parker & Riley, 2005, p.149)
Practice
Below are 2 lines from The Gospel According to St. Mark
in Cameroon English Pidgin. See how much you are
able to understand before consulting the answers:

1. Di fos tok fo di gud nuus fo Jesus Christ yi

Pikin.

2. Di vos fo som man di krai fo bush: “Fix di ples

weh Papa God di go, mek yi rud tret.”
Speech Style
Speech Style
speech style
(formal and informal use of language)
style shifting
(the change from formal to informal based on context)

prestige
(the way individuals change their speech)
overt prestige
(using a standard variety as more positively valued)
covert prestige
(using a non-standard variety as more positively valued)
Speech Accommodation
1. C’mon Tony, gizzalook, gizzalook. Excuse me. Could I
have a look at your photos too, Mrs. Hall?
-this is an example of convergence

2. teenager: I can’t do it, sir.

teacher: Oh, come on. If I can do it, you can too.
teenager: Look, I cannae dae it so…
-this is an example of divergence
Practice - Speech Accommodation

How would you introduce your fiancé to the following

people:

1. your grandmother, at a family dinner

2. your best friend from high school
3. the university president
4. a group of 6-year-olds in a class you are teaching

**Explain your choices.

More on Speech Style
register →context specific language (i.e. language that we would
use in a church, in a linguistics classroom, related to an
occupation and so on)

→register that is comprised of technical words (i.e.

jargon technical language that we would use associated with a
specific line of work)

→‘colloquial speech’ that is not context specific or related

slang to an occupation - everyday terms - or ‘slangier’ versions
exclusive to specific groups
Discussion
1. When would the use of jargon be
appropriate? Inappropriate?

2. Why do we use slang? Who uses slang?

Practice - Slang

Which terms are new to you? Can you see how they may have
originated? Why do you think there are so many terms for these
activities?