CHAPTER 3:

DISCOURSE & PRAGMATICS

 II. LANGUAGE, CONTEXT AND
DISCOURSE
(p.39)
- the situational context
- the background knowledge context
- the co-textual context
 III. SPEECH ACTS AND DISCOURSE
 Austin’s (1962) How to Do Things With Words and Searle’s
(1969) Speech Acts.
 Language is not always used to describe some state of
affairs.
 Language is used to ‘do things’ other than just refer to the
truth or falseness of particular statements.
 Speech acts: definition and examples?
 Propositional content: referring to a state of affairs.
 The utterance has both a literal meaning and an
illocutionary meaning.

Three kinds of acts which occur with everything we

say:
Locutionary act?
Illocutionary act?
Perlocutionary act?
(Austin)
 What is the locution, illocution and perlocution

of the utterance “SHOOT HER!”?

 What are some problems in identifying the

illocutionary meaning? Examples?
DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS
 What are Direct and Indirect speech act?
 Please pass the salt.
 Can you pass the salt?
 Can you reach the salt?
FELICITY CONDITIONS
What are felicity conditions? Examples?
What happens when the felicity conditions for a
speech act are not met?
 BASIC TYPES OF SPEECH ACT
(Searle, 1979)
 Representatives (or Assertives): informing H of a particular

proposition (asserting, announcing, claiming, informing, reporting, …)

 Directives: attempting to get s.o to do sth (including rogatives which

deal with requests for information) (requesting, suggesting, warning,

ordering,permitting, advising, …)
 Commissives: committing S to a future course of action (promising,

offering, inviting, threatening, …)

 Expressives: expressing a particular psychological state (thanking,

apologizing, welcoming, …)
 Declarations: bringing about an immediate change in a state of affairs

(declaring, christening, naming, …)

PRESUPPOSITION
 What is presupposition?
 What are some possible presupposition between speakers in
the following conversation?
 A: The reception is in the garden.
B: I’ll wear the brown jacket.
- How do these people follow/observe the conversational
maxims? Are they or are they NOT observing the maxim(s)?
What do they mean by doing so?

 Did you invite Bella and Cathy?

- I invited Bella.
 - So what do you think of Mark?
- His flatmate’s a wonderful cook.
 - A lot of people are depending on you.
- Thanks, that really takes the pressure off.
 - When are you coming home?
- I will codify that question to my superiors and respond at
such a time as an adequate answer is preparable.
 III. THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

 Paul Grice (1975)

 How do speaker meanings arise?

 There is a set of principles (rules for interaction)

that directs us to a particular interpretation of what
someone says, unless we receive some indication to
the contrary.
 1. THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE AND
CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS

The cooperative principle (Paul Grice, 1975):

Make your conversational contribution such as is required,

at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange.

Explain the principle and give examples to illustrate.

What are the four conversational maxims under the
Cooperative principle?

Why are they important in communicating?

Are the conversational maxims always followed/ observed?

What happens if people do not follow/observe these maxims?
3. CROSS-CULTURAL PRAGMATICS
- How speech acts are performed in different cultures?
 4. CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE

 Conversational implicature refers to the inference a hearer

makes about a speaker’s intended meaning.
 What is required in order to calculate an implicature?
 TYPES OF IMPLICATURE
1. Conventional implicature
2. Particularised conversational implicature
3. Scalar implicature