Samira Bakeer

October, 2013

TextDiscourse analysis

Text Linguistics

Situation and context

Pragmatics

MeaningSemantics

Sentences, clauses, phrases and wordsGrammar (Morphology and Syntax)

Sounds and letterPhonology, Phonetics ,

Graphology

Morris (Carnap, and Peirce)

Wittgenstein

Austin

Searle

Grice

Charles Morris (1903 – 1979)• Was concerned with the study of the science of signs, which he called semiotic;• Distinguished 3 branches of semiotics: syntactics (or syntax),which studies the formal relation among different signs; semantics,the study of the relation between the signs and the objects they denote; and pragmatics, the study of the relation of signs to their interpreters, i.e. people.

The word pragmatics derives from

the Greek word ‘pragma’, which means 'matter', 'thing', but also'action'

( Linke, Nussbaumer & Portmann,1996).

When a diplomat says yes, he means ‘perhaps’;

When he says perhaps, he means ‘no’; When he says no, he is not a diplomat. When a lady says no, she means ‘perhaps’; When she says perhaps, she means ‘yes’; When she says yes, she is not a lady. Voltaire (Quoted, in Spanish, in Escandell 1993.)

• Pragmatics: the study of meaning, as communicated by a speaker and interpreted by the a writer• Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning

Syntax: Study of the relation between linguistic forms, how they are arranged in sequence, and which sequences are well-Formed

Semantics: Study of the relationship between linguistic forms and entries in the world

Pragmatic: Study of relationships between linguistic forms and the users of those forms

THE SEMANTIC MEANING THE PRAGMATIC MEANING

The speaker feels pangs of hunger

Request for lunch A complaint Request for a dessert Request…

Speaker meaning, rather than sentence meaning, can only begin to be understood when context is taken into consideration

Pragmatics also explores how listener and readers can make inferences about what is said or written in order to arrive at an interpretation of the user’s intended meaning

Cindy and Linnea Cindy: there is a bookstore over

there Linnea: no Cindy: why not Linnea: I‘m tired.

Cindy: there is a bookstore over there. Let‘s go inside.

Linnea: no, I don‘t want to go inside. Cindy: why do you not want to go inside? Linnea: I don‘t want to because I‘m tired.

Pragmatics is the study of invisible meaning ,that is how to recognize ,the underlined meanings which are not apparently said or written.

For example, an advertisement shows the following words:

HEATED ATTENDANT PARKING from the apparent meaning, different

interpretations can be assumed like

On the basis of apparent meanings , we would normally understand that you can park your car in this place, that is heated area and that there will be an attendant to look after the car.

We have inferred these meanings by taking into account the context and combination of the words used by the speaker or writer.

In fact Pragmatics , is the study of investigation of such assumptions and expectations which provide us with the insights into how more gets communicated than is said.

Thus , an important factor that should be taken into account is social distance

First, grammatical studies look for rules while pragmatic studies look for principles. Rules are black and white, i.e. you are either right or wrong. For

instance, you have to say “He studies linguistics”; the –s is required by a rule. Principles are not black and white; you can obey them to some extent and violate them to some extent. For example, one principle says we should tell the truth and another says we should be polite in our speech.

Secondly, in grammar studies, we end up with products while in pragmatics we always deal with processes. In other words, after we have analyzed a sentence grammatically, our job is done; in a pragmatic inquiry, we deal with an ever-unfolding process-as the discourse goes on and on, the extra meaning of some words become clearer and clearer.

In cross-culture communication, errors can be roughly classified into two kinds:• linguistic error: errors in pronunciation,

grammar, vocabulary, etc• pragmatic error (failure): errors in using the

language. • Both kinds of errors may lead to

miscommunication.

“Grammatical errors may be irritating and impede communication, but at least, as a rule, they are apparent in the surface structure, so that H is aware that an error has occurred. Once alerted to the fact that S is not fully grammatically competent, native speakers seem to have little difficulty in making allowances for it.

Pragmatic failure, on the other hand, is rarely recognized as such by non-linguists. If a non-native speaker appears to speak fluently, a native speaker is likely to attribute his/her apparent impoliteness or unfriendliness, not to any linguistic deficiency, but to boorishness or ill-will. While grammatical error may reveal a speaker to be a less than proficient language-user, pragmatic failure reflects badly on him/her as a person.”

In every society there are some things that are simply not said or asked about and others that are absolutely required in certain situations. It is often assumed that every well-brought-up person knows these rules of behaviour of his/her own culture. And furthermore, most people take their own behaviour pattern for granted and are unaware that pragmatic patterns are far from universal. Thus, pragmatic failure has serious consequences.

Why?Why?

Americans tend to give compliments more than most people of other nations. Sometimes it is necessary for Americans to give compliments but it may be totally inappropriate to give compliments in other cultures.

A particular interesting example of this came about when an American politician (Carter, J.) visiting France happened to compliment one of the members of the French government on the job he was doing. The French were very annoyed and articles appeared in the French press attributing all sorts of hidden implications to the act and condemning it as interference in French internal affairs. In reality, of course, the visiting American politician had done no more than the typical American would do when trying to be friendly to a stranger: give a compliment.

(Wolfson 1981:123)

A rich (Chinese) merchant went to London and was entertaining some very important European guests. He had the affair catered at a famous hotel. In the Chinese manner, he said that he was sorry that the food and drink were not very fine. Some hotel employees overheard these remarks and the management, feeling quite insulted, preceded to sue the merchant for defaming the character of the hotel.

Another example

Woman (student): excuse me, where can I make some Xerox copies?

Clerk: for? Woman: (silence) Clerk: are you an instructor? Woman: No, a student Clerk: we can only make Xerox copies for

instructores. Woman: well, I ….OK. But where can I find a

{pay} Xerox machine? (the original intention) Clerk: Oh, I see. Up the stairs, past the

bookstore

When we misjudge shared knowledge or the perceptions of the other participants in the interaction we might create an instance of miscommunication. This can happen among speakers of the same language

Pragmatics awareness is part of metapragmatic competence; it refers to the ability to analyze language use (Sharwood-Smith, 1981: 162-63).

Pragmatic awareness is the prerequisite for pragmatic acquisition, without which pragmatic competence can hardly acquired especially in FLL/SLL.

Understanding how people communicate is actually a process of interpreting not just what speakers say , but what they intend to mean.

Spend a few minutes reflecting on what we covered in this presentation

1.What, if anything, did you learn that you didn’t know before?

2.What is one ‘ah-ha’ you had?