社会语言学 语用学

1、Linguistic Pragmatics:Conversational ImplicatureContent What is Pragmatics?2.1 Definitions of Pragmatics2.2 Two Schools of Contemporary Pragmatics2.3 Branches of Pragmatics Background of Pragmatics Further Reading3.1 Text books3.2 Pragmatics Journals3.3 Pragmatics Websites1.1 Origin of Pragmatics 1.

2、1.1 Origin of the Term Pragmatics 1.1.2 Origin of the Principle Pragmatics1.2 Differences Between Semantics and Pragmatics1.3 Development of PragmaticsIs this your pen?A teacher said this to a student leaving the classroom after class.a reminder: Dont leave it behind.Someone said this to a stranger

3、beside in a post office.a request: May I use it?A mother said this to a child, especially if the pen is on the floor.a command: Pick it up!(Jiang Wangqi. Pragmatics Theories & Applications. Peking University Press, 2000) Background of Pragmatics A brief introduction: Pragmatics is a newly arisin

4、g discipline. Its English name was only invented in 1937 and its first major theory, Speech Act Theory, did not take shape until 50s. But it has been developing rapidly. By the early 80s, pragmatics had been generally accepted as one of the basic branches of linguistics together with phonetics, phon

5、ology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.Jiang Wangqi. Pragmatics Theories & Applications. Peking University Press, 2000 The term “pragmatics” may be used in three senses: First, it may refer to a discipline. (Pragmatics is a newly arising discipline.) Secondly, the term may refer to itself. Thi

6、rdly, “pragmatics” may refer to the phenomenon of language use, or that of the regularity in language use.1.1 Origin of PragmaticsJiang Wangqi. Pragmatics Theories & Applications. Peking University Press, 2000 Although pragmatics is a relatively new branch of linguistics, research on it can be d

7、ated back to ancient Greece and Rome where the term “pragmaticus” is found in late Latin and “pragmaticos” in Greek, both mean being practical.1.1.1 Origin of the Term “Pragmatics” The term “pragmatics” was first introduced into the literature by the American philosopher Charles William Morris in 19

8、37 in his Logical Positivism, Pragmatism and Scientific Empirism.C. Morris. Logical Positivism, Pragmatism and Scientific Empirism, 1937Syntax: the study of “the relations of signs to one another”.Semantics: the study of “the relations of signs to the object to which the signs are applicable”.Pragma

9、tics: the study of “the relation of signs to the users”.In its preface, he asserted that analysis revealed that linguistic signs sustain three types of relations which define three dimensions of meaning：Syntax: the four sentences are results of different transformation from the same underlying struc

10、ture.Semantics: the four sentences have the same meaning.Pragmatics: the four sentences are used differently.Example 1: (1) Peter bought a car. (2) It was Peter who bought a car. (3) It was a car that Peter bought. (4) What Peter bought was a car.句法学家会指出这是一个无主语的祈使句，由一个动词加一个代词组成。语义学家关心的是这句话的意思：向某人表示祝

11、贺。语用学家则将结合具体的语境，考虑说话人是谁，“你”又是谁，说话人在怎样的情况下向“你”道喜，他是真的道喜，还是挖苦嘲讽，甚至是泄愤？Example 2: 恭喜你！Structural Linguisticsin early 19th Cin early 20th Cin 1950sin 1960s-1970sin 1960s-1970s The history of linguisticsHistorical Comparative LinguisticsFormal LinguisticsSemanticsPragmatics Linguists at that time focused

12、 on the study of written language and dead language or ancient language, little attention was paid on oral language or modern language.Linguistics had been an independent discipline that studied the law of language development. Founder: Saussure Structural linguistics attaches great importance to th

13、e synchronic study of living languages. It regards language as a system and distinguishes langue from parole. Founder: Chomsky Formal Linguistics tries to establish a formalized grammar system, just like physical or chemical formulas; It aims at explaining human beings ability to generate language.

14、Linguistic semantics deals with the conventional meaning conveyed by the use of words and sentences of a language. It emphasizes on the objective and general, and avoids the subjective and local. For language in actual use, meaning is not abstract, but closely connected to a certain context. Without

15、 contextual factors such as time, place, occasion, participants and the purpose, we cant determine the specific meaning of language.It is clear that a semantic theory alone can give us only a proportion of a general account of language understanding.1.1.2 Origin of the Discipline Pragmatics in his e

16、arlier attempts, Chomsky made syntax into the main component of the grammar, completely divorced from the semantics, the meaning of the language, and postulated that sentences could be described perfectly well on the syntactic level without ever having to mean anything.E.g. Colorless green ideas sle

17、ep furiously. at that time, semantics was called the “waste-basket” of syntax. because of the convention feature of language, Saussure paid more attention on langue rather than parole.in China:Hu Zhuanglin published Pragmatics in Linguistics Abroad in 1980.Jacob L. Mey. Pragmatics: An Introduction.

18、Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2001The Shift from Semantics to Pragmatics The first efforts at establishing something like a pragmatic approach to linguistics dated back to the late sixties and early seventies. At that time, as the collapse of earlier theories and hypotheses, all one

19、could see was a growing number of unexplained observations, giving rise to numerous theoretical paradoxes. Many of these were first noticed, not by linguistics, but by philosophers working in the grey zone where philosophy and linguistics share a border. Semantics was an abstract science whose main

20、concern was the conditions under which a sentence could be true or false. One fundamental question for philosophers of language has been truth conditions.Example: Grass is green.The sentence is true if and only if grass is green.In order to determine if the sentence is true, we have to specify what

21、the property green means and determine the referent of the term grass.(Ralph Fasold. The Socialinguistics of Language, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000) Where negation, connectives, quantifiers, and conditionals are involved, we need rules of inference in order to determine true co

22、nditions.Example: (1) All men are mortal. (2) Socrates is a man. (3) Therefore Socrates is mortal.Ralph Fasold. The Socialinguistics of Language. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000) It might seem that if we had such a complete and accurate lexicon that we knew exactly what everything

23、 is called, and we had the right rules of inference, it would be possible to establish the truth of anything which might be expressed in the language that lexicon goes with, without regarding to who uttered the expression to whom under what conditions, or semantics could be established completely an

24、d independently of pragmatics. For better or worse, though, there are myriad problems with this idea.Ralph Fasold. The Socialinguistics of Language. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000) Semantics was unable to explain certain phenomena that transcended those conditions. For instance,

25、how to explain that certain parts of a sentence remain true, regardless of whether the entire sentence is true or false?Example: If I say: Fats regretted that he had to pay alimony（生活费）to Bessie.I presuppose that Fats indeed paid what he owed Bessie; but when I negate that same sentence:Fats did not

26、 regret that he had to pay alimony to Bessie.I presuppose likewise that Fats was not misbehaving, but actually paid his dues.生活费Jacob L. Mey. Pragmatics: An Introduction. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,2001 Considerations such as these led pragmaticians to the conviction that there wer

27、e more things happening between people than were dreamt of by the philosophers. The semantics basket being filled to the brim（满到边缘）, another waste-basket had to be created to catch the overflow. As time went by, the linguistics dropped more and more of their unresolved questions into this new, pragm

28、atic basket.SemanticsPragmaticsJacob L. Mey. Pragmatics: An Introduction. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2001 In contrast to semantics, for pragmaticians the truth value of a sentence, taken in its abstract form, is of little interest. People rarely utter something in order to be prov

29、en true or false. They want to know why people say something; whether what they say is true or false is only interesting in special surroundings, such as the philosophical debate or the courtroom. Instead, pragmatics rests on the cooperation between language users.Jacob L. Mey. Pragmatics: An Introd

30、uction. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2001 Utterance meaning Chunks of conversation Dynamic process in connection with contextsSemanticsPragmatics Sentence meaning Sentence Level Stable products in isolationSentence meaning: Abstract and context-independent meaning; The literal meani

31、ng of a sentence; Having a dyadic relation as in: What does X mean?（Leech,1983)Utterance meaning: Concrete and context-dependent meaning; The intended meaning of a speaker; Having a triadic relation as in: What did you mean by X?(Leech,1983)1.2 Differences Between Semantics and Pragmatics Example 1:

32、 Interpretation of “Today is Sunday.”Semantically, it means that today is the first day of the week.Pragmatically, you can mean a lot by saying this, all depending on the context and the intention of the speaker:There is a couple. The husband works hard everyday and the wife says this to him.Darling

33、, you should have a good rest today.Summer is coming. A girl has always been longing for new beautiful skirts, so she says this to her busy mother.Mum, Lets go downtown to buy new skirts today.Example 2: Interpretation of “The bag is heavy.”Sentence meaning：a bag being heavy.Pragmatically: an indire

34、ct, polite request, asking the hearer to help him carry the bag; The bag is heavy. (Can you help me to carry it?) the speaker is declining someones request for help. Can you help me to carry it? The bag is heavy. To sum up, the meaning of an utterance is based on the sentence meaning, and it is the

35、realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or simply in a context; Utterance meaning is richer than sentence meaning; it is identical with the purpose for which the speaker utters the sentence.1.3 Development of Pragmatics 1938 1983, a waste basket/rag-ba

36、g of linguistics (It deals with all the phenomena semantics or syntactics can not explain.) Since1983，pragmatics was accepted as one of the basic branches of linguistics together with phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Three events are generally regarded as marks of the pragmati

37、cs as a branch of linguistics:1. in 1977, Journal of Pragmatics was established in Denmark.2. in 1983, SCLevinson published Pragmatics3. in 1986, IPrA was established in Holland.http:/ipra.ua.ac.be/Jacob L. Mey. Pragmatics: An Introduction. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2001.Some Boo

38、sters in PragmaticsJohn Austin 1955 lectures at Harvard 1962 reprint as pamphlet How to Do Things with WordsJohn Searle 1969 Speech ActsH.P. Grice 1975 conversational implicatureHartmut Haberland &Jacob Mey 1977 Journal of Pragmatics Stephen Levinson 1983 PragmaticsGeoffrey Leech 1983 Principle

39、of PragmaticsSperber & Wilson 1986 Relevance: Cognition and CommunicationJef Verschueren 1987 Pragmatics as a Theory of Linguistic AdaptationBlackmore 1992 Understanding Utterances: An Introduction to PragmaticsJacob Mey 1993 Pragmatics: An IntroductionGeorge Yule 1993 PragmaticsJef Verschueran

40、2002 Understanding Pragmatics What is Pragmatics? Pragmatics is the study of the ability of language users to pair sentences with the contexts in which they would be appropriate. (Levinson,1983) Pragmatics, as a topic in linguistics, is the study of the use of context to make inferences about meanin

41、g. (Fasold, 1993)2.1 Defining Pragmatics Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning. (Yule,1996) Pragmatics is a general functional perspective on language, i.e. as an approach to language which takes into account the full complexity of its cognitive, social; and cultural functioning in the lives

42、 of human beings. (Verschueren,1995) Pragmatics can be usefully defined as the study of how utterance have meanings in situations. (Leech,1983) Pragmatics studies what basic factors (language, language users, contexts, etc.) and general principles are involved in language (production and comprehensi

43、on alike), and how they contribute to communication.context: constituted knowledgesshared by the speaker and the hearer, such as cultural background, situation(time, place,manner, etc.), the relationship between the speaker and the hearer.langue vs parole langue we can not really understand thenatur

44、e of language itself unless we understand pragmatics: how language is used in communication. (Leech,1983)grammatical studies look for grammatical rules while pragmaticstudies look for pragmatic principlesLanguage usersspeaker/writer; hearer/readeragesexstatuesroleideologyother factors2.2 Two Schools

45、 of Contemporary Pragmatics Two mainstreams appeared in the study of contemporary pragmatics: the traditional English and American school / Anglo-American school the European school / European Continental schoolAnglo-American school Representatives：Stephen Levinson Micro-pragmatics (narrow, restrict

46、ed), the basic, conventional topics of pragmatics; centers on some concrete topics such as deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech act and conversation structure, etc. It is based mainly on sentence structure and grammar, that is, the linguistic level.Leech. Principles of Pragmatics, 1983 Repres

47、entatives：Jacob L. Mey Macro-pragmatics(broad, all-inclusive), besides what is included above, it lays emphasis on the cultural, social and psychological aspects of language use, even including discourse analysis and conversational analysis, social linguistics, etc.European Continental schoolVerschueran. Understanding Pragmatics, 19992.3 Branches of Pragmatics Pragma-linguistics: to study the pragmatic problems of language itself, and i