Lec an 3 Sem2 Vilceanu

TITELA VÎLCEANU

INTRODUCTION TO PRAGMATICS. THE SCIENCEOF/FOR LANGUAGE USERS

2

CONTENTS

Foreword…………………………………………………………………………4

Course description……………………………………………………………….5

Thematic areas…………………………………………………………………...5

Unit One – The cooperative principle and conversational implicature. Speechact theory…………………………………………………………………………6Objectives…………………………………………………………………………6Timing…………………………………………………………………………….6A. The hybrid nature of pragmatics…………………………………..……….….7

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………11Evaluation……………………………………………………………………12B. Speech act theory…………………………………………………………14

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………18Evaluation……………………………………………………………………19C. Co-operation and conversational implicature…………………………….22

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………29Evaluation……………………………………………………………………30

Unit Two - Presupposition triggers and characteristics. Presupposition vs

implicature………………………………………………...…………………….35

Objectives………………………………………………………………………..35Timing……………………………………………………………………………35

Bibliography………….......………………………………………………41Evaluation……………………………………………………………......42

Unit Three - Strategies of politeness. The face management

view........................................................................................................................45

Objectives………………………………………………………………………..45

Timing……………………………………………………………………………45Bibliography…………………………………………………………………52Evaluation……………………………………………………………………53

3

Unit Four - Deixis – person, empathetic, space, time, discourse, social

deixis.…………………………………………………………………………….55

Objectives………………………………………………………………………..55Timing……………………………………………………………………………55 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………64 Evaluation……………………………………………………………………65

General bibliography…………………………………………………………..69

4

FOREWORD

Introduction to Pragmatics. The Science of/for Language Users isintended to cover both theoretical aspects (key concepts) and to operationalisethe key notions in various contexts of oral and written production.

As the title rightfully indicates, pragmatics is not placed in a socialvacuum; on the contrary, it is embedded in the socio-cultural context thatencapsulates, shapes and refines linguistic meaning.

The book is organized into four themed sections, dealing with broad topics- The cooperative principle and conversational implicature. Speech acttheory; Presupposition triggers and characteristics. Presupposition vsimplicature; Strategies of politeness. The face management view; Deixis –person, empathetic, space, time, discourse, social deixis. The understandingand internalization of the theoretical load is supported and enhanced by arange of activities, releasing potential so as to gain viable insights.

The book is also an invitation addressed to students, junior academics andother language users to further explore the interconnectedness betweendifferent areas of this multidisciplinary field as well as between pragmaticsand other disciplines of theoretical and empirical concerns.

Craiova, 2011 Titela Vîlceanu,

University of Craiova

5

Universitatea din Craiova

Facultatea de Litere

Catedra de Studii Anglo-Americane

PROGRAMA ANALITICĂ

INTRODUCTION TO PRAGMATICS. THE SCIENCE OF/FOR

LANGUAGE USERSCurs fundamental

Specializarea: Română-Engleză, ID, an III, sem. II

Anul III, sem II, 2 ore curs, 1 oră seminar/ săptămână, 4 credite

Titular de curs: Conf. univ. dr. TITELA VÎLCEANU

Descrierea cursului

Cursul este focalizat pe abordările �i metodele de referin�ă �i de

actualitate din domeniul pragmaticii. Partea teoretică este complementată de

activită�i cu caracter aplicativ, urmărindu-se asimilarea �i opera�ionalizarea

unor no�iuni pragmatice fundamentale, precum �i con�tientizarea

interconnectivită�ii pragmaticii cu alte discipline lingvistice. Cursul profilează

atât caracterul interdisciplinar al domeniului cât �i specificitatea acestuia.

Tematică generală

1. The cooperative principle and conversational implicature. Speech acts

theory.

2. Presupposition triggers and characteristics. Presupposition vs implicature.

3. Strategies of politeness. The face management view.

4. Deixis – person, emphatetic, space, time, discourse, social deixis.

6

UNITATEA DE ÎNVĂŢARE I

THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE AND CONVERSATIONAL

IMPLICATURE. SPEECH ACTS THEORY.

Obiective

• Conştientizarea aspectelor complexe legate circumscrierea domeniului

pragmaticii;

• Familiarizarea studenţilor cu aspectele descriptive şi normative ale înţelegerii

şi aplicării no�iunilor pragmatice fundamentale de implicatură, analiză a

actelor de limbaj, presupoziție, strategii de politețe �i deixis;

• Dobândirea de strategii rezolutive în gestionarea factorilor pragmatici

implica�i în comunicarea intra �i interculturală.

Timp alocat: 6 ore

7

A. INVESTIGATING THE NATURE OF PRAGMATICS

Any attempt to investigate the nature and scope of pragmatics – an all-

inclusive term for all kinds of research focused on language and its use in

context - should start from the following programmatic statements:

We distinguish three fields of investigation of languages. If in an

investigation explicit reference is made to the speaker, or, to put it in more

general terms, to the user of a language, then we assign it to the field of

pragmatics. (Carnap, 1942:9)

In the third stage (of its evolution), semantics merges with what one would

nowadays call “pragmatics”: word-meaning is now seen as an epiphenomenon of

sentence-meaning and speaker-meaning. (Nerlich, [1956],1992: 3)

One of the three major divisions of semiotics (along with SEMANTICS and

SYNTACTICS). In LINGUISTICS, the term has come to be applied to the study of

LANGUAGE from the point of view of the user, especially of the choices he

makes, the CONSTRAINTS he encounters in using language in social interaction,

and the effects his use of language has on the other participants in an act of

communication. (Crystal and Davy, 1985:278-9)

[…] if our starting point is to be situated at Morris’s level of generality,

pragmatics cannot be viewed as another layer on top of the phonology-

morphology-syntax-semantics hierarchy, another COMPONENT of a theory of

language with its own well-defined object…Nor does it fit into the contrast set

containing sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, psycholinguistics,

neurolinguistics, etc. Rather, pragmatics, is a PERSPECTIVE on any aspect of

language, at any level of structure…One could say that, in general, the

PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE centers around the ADAPTABILITY OF

LANGUAGE, the fundamental property of language which enables us to engage

in the activity of talking which consists in the constant making of choices, at every

level of linguistic structure, in harmony with the requirements of people, their

8

beliefs, desires and intentions, and the real-world circumstances in which they

interact. (Verschueren, 1987:5)

the study of meaning of linguistic utterances for their users and interpreters

a minimal way of distinguishing semantics from pragmatics is to say that

semantics has to do with meaning as a dyadic relation between a form and its

meaning: “x means y” (e.g. “I’m feeling somewhat ensurient” means “I’m

hungry”; whereas pragmatics has to do with meaning as a triadic relation

between speaker, meaning and form/utterance: “s means y by x” (e.g. The

speaker, in uttering the words “I’m hungry”, is requesting something to eat).

However, once the speaker is introduced into the formula, it is difficult to exclude

the addressee, since the utterance has meaning by virtue of the speaker’s

intention to produce some effect in the addressee. […]

Moreover, the speaker’s meaning […] cannot exclude reference to the

context of knowledge, both general and specific, shared by the interactants.

(Leech and Thomas, 1990:173; 185)

[…] pragmatics places its focus on the language users and their conditions

of language use. This implies that it is not sufficient to consider the language user

as being in possession of certain facilities (either innate, as some have postulated,

or acquired, as others believe them to be, or a combination of both) which have to

be developed through a process of individual growth and evolution, but that there

are specific societal factors (such the institution of the family, the school, the peer

group and so on) which influence the development and use of language, both in

the acquisition stage and in usage itself. (Mey, 1996:287)

[…] the study of meaning in interaction

(Thomas, 1995:22)

Closely related to semantics, which is primarily concerned with the study of

word and sentence meaning, pragmatics concerns itself with the meaning of

utterances in specific contexts of use. (Jaworski & Coupland, 1999:14)

As seen from these definitions, pragmatics takes into consideration the

need for training language awareness, for structuring meaning potential. It is an

9

outward-looking discipline, investigating the relevance of language to ordinary

people in various situations, searching for motivation (a sort of forensic

activity), for individually- and collectively-regulated language behaviour.

Language and society interrelate in the conscious use of language which ceases to

be a neutral medium for the transmission and receiving of information. Language

in use performs several functions simultaneously - for example, the informative

function is coupled with the phatic (relational) and with the aesthetic functions.

Furthermore, pragmatics deals with the subtleties of implied meaning and with

inference mechanisms. Meaning is negotiated, constructed, deconstructed and re-

constructed inter-subjectively when the speaker and the hearer take turns in the

process of communication. There is not only exchange of information, but also

cross-fertilization of ideas and speakers and hearers establish a common ground

(social togetherness) which guarantees that failure in communication is unlikely to

occur. Pragmatics is committedly quality- oriented to linguistic and social

understanding. Metaphorically, we can speak of arenas of language use where

users display a wide range of strategies which are in fact the rules of the game.

Besides, the context in which the interaction takes place is dynamic, proactive

and meaning is continually coordinated due to the particular cluster of the

contextual factors.

According to Cutting (2002: 5), participants in the communicative event

construct and derive meaning based on their background knowledge (what they

know and believe that the others know), comprising either cultural general

knowledge “that most people carry with them in their minds, about areas of life”

or interpersonal knowledge, made up of “specific and possibly private”

information about their interlocutors. The author further considers such

knowledge culture-bound and varying intraculturally from group to group (p.109).

In fact she equates such knowledge to folk taxonomy, since it is “either

scientifically unwarranted or very superficial” (p. 109), being limited to

“abstractions based on certain kinds of experiences which apparently typify some

kind of general behaviour” (p. 109) as “measures of agreement”

The distinction sentence – utterance is of paramount importance at this

point. The sentence, the minimal unit of analysis in semantics, is to be defined

as an abstract theoretical entity to which truth conditions are assigned, whereas

the utterance is a sentence analogue in context. Hence, pragmatics deals with

implicature, presupposition, illocutionary force, deixis etc. In other words,

10

pragmatics actualizes both linguistic and extra-linguistic (encyclopaedic)

knowledge.

We shall therefore postulate that pragmatics is a hybrid science, an

integrated approach, an interdisciplinary project, a linguistic, cultural and social

affair. This holistic view is an indicator of the fact that we dissociate from any

approach to pragmatics as a science that can be divided into several distinct

branches.

11

Bibliografie minimală:

Butler, C.S. et al. (eds.). 2005. The Dynamics of language Use.

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishung Company

Cruse, A. 2000. Meaning in Language. An Introduction to Semantics and

Pragmatics, Oxford: OUP

Cutting, J. 2002. Pragmatics and Discourse. A Resource Book for Students.

London and New York: Routledge

Grundy, P. 2000. Doing Pragmatics. London: Arnold

Kecskes, I., Horn, L. 2007. Explorations in Pragmatics. Linguistics, Cognitive

and Intercultural Aspects. Berlin/New York: Mouton Gruyter

Levinson, S.C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP

Vilceanu, T., 2005. Pragmatics. The Raising and Training of Language

Awareness, Craiova: Universitaria

Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP

12

EVALUARE

Enlarge upon pragmatic competence components starting from the following

statements:

a) The (linguistic) habitus is, indeed, linked to its conditions of acquisition sand

its conditions of use. This means that competence, which is acquired in a social context

and through practice, is inseparable from the practical mastery of situations in which this

usage of language is socially acceptable.

The language token is not a thing with a form and a function. It is a form which functions

in context. It has no meaning, but is used to mean. (Monaghan, 1979: 186)

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

b) Having a language is like having access to a very large canvas and to

hundreds and even thousands of colors. But the canvas and the colors come from the

past. They are hand-me-downs. As we learn to use them, we find out that those around us

have strong ideas about what can be drawn, in which proportions, in what combinations,

and for what purposes. As an artist knows, there is an ethics of drawing and colouring as

well as a market that will react sometimes capriciously, but many times quite predictably

to any individual attempts to place a mark in the history or representation or simply re-

adjust the proportions of certain spaces at the margins. Just like art-works, our linguistic

products are constantly evaluated, recycled or discarded . (Duranti, 1997:334)

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

c) Rapid growth in communications media, such as satellite and digital television

and radio, desktop publishing, telecommunications (mobile phone networks, video-

conferencing), e-mail, internet-mediated sales and services, information provision and

entertainment, has created new media for language use. It is not surprising that language

13

is being more and more closely scrutinized (e.g. within school curricula and by self-styled

experts and guardians of so-called “linguistic standards”), while simultaneously being

shaped and honed (e.g. by advertisers, journalists and broadcasters) in a drive to

generate ever-more attention and persuasive impact. Under these circumstances,

language itself becomes marketable and a sort f commodity and its purveyors can market

themselves through their skills of linguistic and textual manipulation.(Jaworski &

Coupland, 1999:5)

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………

14

B. SPEECH ACT THEORY

Even if almost 50 years older, Speech Act Theory is worth investigating in

depth as speech acts are identifiable in many of the utterances of routine verbal

exchanges (besides formulaic language).

It is Austin (1962) who distinguishes between constative and performative

utterances. He defines the former as statements that “record or impart

straightforward information about the facts” (“The earth is flat”, “It is

pouring”), whereas the latter category utterances “do not describe or report or

constate anything at all, are not true and false, and the uttering of the sentence is,

or part of it, the doing of an action”.

E.g. 1. I do (take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife).

2. I name this ship Queen Elizabeth.

3. I give and bequeath my watch to my brother.

We are dealing in fact with the uttering of the words of the performative

or speech act under particular circumstances (in the course of a marriage

ceremony, when smashing a bottle against the stem, when drawing a will). Speech

act theory analyses the role of utterances in relation to the behaviour of speaker

and hearer in interpersonal communication. A speech act is not an act of speech in

the sense of parole (in Saussure’s terminology) or performance (if we adopt

Chomsky’s distinction between language competence or knowledge about the

language and performance or the actual use of language); it is a

communicative activity (locutionary act) connected to the intention of the

speakers (illocutionary force) and to the effect(s) they achieve on the hearers

(perlocutionary effect). Speech acts bring about a change in the current state of

affairs (in the first example, the two persons involved become husband and wife,

they have a different marital status now).

15

Austin further discusses the question of appropriate circumstances since

the speaker and other participants should also perform some other actions,

whether physical or mental. The author postulates “the doctrine of the things that

can be and go wrong, i.e. the doctrine of the infelicities” and proposes the

following scheme of the felicity conditions to be met for the “smooth or happy

functioning of a performative”:

A.1. There must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain

conventional effect, that procedure to include the uttering of certain words

by certain persons in certain circumstances and further,

A.2. the particular persons and circumstances in a given case must be

appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure invoked.

B.1. The procedure must be executed by all participants both correctly and

B.2. completely.

C.1. Where, as often, the procedure is designed for use by persons having

certain thoughts and feelings, or for the inauguration of certain

consequential conduct on the part of any participant, then a person

participating in and so invoking the procedure must in fact have those

thoughts and feelings, and the participants must intend so to conduct

themselves, and further

C.2. must actually so conduct themselves subsequently.

If rules A-B are violated, the act is not achieved while in the C case, the

act is performed, but it is insincere, it is an abuse of the procedure. The infelicities

related to A-B are called misfires and those related to C are termed abuses. When

dealing with a misfire, we say that the act is purported (or perhaps an attempt),

16

void or without effect and the procedure is misinvoked. As far as the abuse is

concerned, it implies a professed or hollow act, which is not consummated.

Performatives fall into two categories: explicit (which include some

unambiguous expression also used in naming the act – such as “I bequeath”, “I

bet”) and implicit ones.

Yet, we normally utter “Go!” instead of “I order you to go!” to achieve the

same effect. The explicit performative utterances are assigned a particular

formula:

- they have a first-person subject;

- the have a performative (illocutionary) verb in the present simple tense,

the affirmative form;

- they contain a second person pronoun which may be preceded by a

preposition;

- they embed a clause expressing the propositional content of the utterance.

E.g. I hereby declare this bridge to be opened.

I (hereby) promise you to be there in time.

Moreover, in face-to-face interactions we do not utter “I hereby declare to

love you” as a performative indicating device, but this does not mean that

performativity is denied. Instead, we are dealing with a performativity

continuum ranging from the conventional speech acts to the non-conventional

ones.

E.g. You are fired.

Thank you for your support.

There is a further distinction made by Austin with respect to the kind of

action associated to an utterance: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary

17

action. Locutionary action is equated to the mere act of uttering a sentence and

meaning what you say (the literal meaning of a sentence). The illocutionary

action, i.e. speech act has force (the intended meaning which is to be inferred by

the hearer; the extra-meaning which is conventionally associated to the sentence).

Perlocutionary action or effect is what you produce on the hearer by saying what

you say (at this point language plays a persuasive role and the hearer is

manipulated to act in the way intended by the speaker). Consider the following

utterance:

It’s so hot in here.

Locutionary act: It is so hot in here. (Although it is hard to believe that the

speaker imparts information to the hearer or that the utterance simply counts as a

constative).

Illocutionary act: Will you open the window, please? (the utterance really

counts as a request).

Perlocutionary act: The hearer complies with the request and opens the

window.

18








Grice, H.P. 1975. “Logic and conversation” in Cole P., Morgan, J.L. (eds.).

Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. New York




Leech, J. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics, London: Longman


Levinson, S.C. 2000. Presumptive Meanings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Searle, J. 1969. Speech Acts. Cambridge: CUP




19

EVALUARE

1. Identify the locutionary act, the illocutionary act (force) and the

perlocutionary effect of the following utterances:

a) In an art gallery, Official: Would the lady like to leave the bag here?

Woman: No, thank you. It’s not heavy.

Locutionary act:……………………………………………………………………………..

Illocutionary force:…………………………………………………………………………

Perlocutionary effect:………………………………………………………………………

b) Billy, what do big boys when they enter into a room?

Locutionary act:……………………………………………………………………………..



c) Would users please refrain from spitting.

Locutionary act:……………………………………………………………………………..



2. Comment on the following performatives and their felicity

conditions:

a) I withdraw my complaint.

Performative type:……………………………………………………………………….....

Condition A1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition A2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C2..……………………………………………………………………………….

20

I plead not guilty.


Condition A1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition A2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C2..……………………………………………………………………………….

Thank you for your attention.


Condition A1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition A2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C2..……………………………………………………………………………….

I absolve you from your sins.


Condition A1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition A2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C2..……………………………………………………………………………….

b) Will you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?

Absolutely.


Condition A1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition A2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B2……………………………………………………………………………….

21

Condition C1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C2..……………………………………………………………………………….

c) I challenge you to pistols at dawn.

I decline to take up the challenge.


Condition A1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition A2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C2..……………………………………………………………………………….

d) The court finds the accused not guilty.


Condition A1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition A2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C2..……………………………………………………………………………….

e) Your employment is hereby terminated with immediate effect.


Condition A1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition A2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition B2……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C1……………………………………………………………………………….

Condition C2..……………………………………………………………………………….

22

C. CO-OPERATION AND CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE

Literature distinguishes between sense (literal meaning/ logical form)

and force (intended meaning), between what is actually said /expressed

meaning and the additional implied/intended meaning. H.P. Grice, who

developed the pragmatic theory of implicature, worked with Austin at Oxford in

the 1940s and 1950s and delivered the William James Lectures at Harvard

University in 1957.

The speaker implies or conveys some meaning indirectly, while the

hearer infers or deduces something from evidence. Etymologically, to imply

means “to fold something into something else”. The term implicature is used in

order to contrast it with logical implication which refers to inferences derived

from logical or semantic content. The logical implication relation is: if p, then q.

Logically, non-p does not imply non-q.

E.g. p: you scratch my back

q: I’ll scratch yours

p → q: If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

Instead, implicature is based on the content of what has been said and on

the assumptions about the cooperative nature of verbal exchanges.

Grice identifies two types of implicature: conventional implicature and

conversational implicature; in the former case, the same implicature arises

regardless of the context of utterance, whereas in the latter case, the implicature

is generated by the context of utterance.

E.g. The woman was in her forties, but still attractive.

23

The link word “but” directs us to something that runs counter to the previous

statement; this implicature is encoded linguistically. Furthermore, there is the

implicature is that a woman in her forties is no longer attractive.

E.g. Would you like a drink?

No, thanks. I’m driving.

The implicature is that a person who is driving should not drink and such

implicature is workable out by both the speaker and the hearer, calculated or

processed due to the context of utterance.

Furthermore, conversational implicature falls into generalized and

particularized implicature. Generalized implicature underpins “the use of a

certain form of words in an utterance would normally (in the absence of special

circumstances) carry such-and-such an implicature or type of implicature” (Grice

1975: 37).

E.g. He burnt a finger.

Generalized implicature: his finger.

On the other hand, particularized implicature is that ‘in which an implicature is

carried by saying that p on a particular occasion in virtue of special features of the

context, cases in which there is no room for the idea that an implicature of this

sort is normally carried by saying that p’ (Grice 1975: 37).

E.g. He goes there every week.

In different specific contexts this could implicate ‘He goes there to visit somebody

who is ill’, ‘His girl friend is there”, “He goes there on business”, etc.

In this climate of opinion, Recanati (1993: 245 ff) emphasizes the

psychological layer of ‘what is said’. In other words, we develop awareness of

this level, and this distinguishes it from linguistic meaning, which we cannot have

access to via such conscious act. We have only tacit, sub-doxastic (unconscious)

knowledge of linguistic meaning, as we do of many other language aspects

24

(phonological, morphological, syntactic). Admittedly, ‘we have distinct conscious

representations for “what is said” and for “what is implicated” by a given

utterance: both are consciously accessible, and are consciously accessible as

distinct’ (Recanati 1993: 245).

The author postulates the Availability Principle, which reads:

In deciding whether a pragmatically determined aspect of utterance

meaning is part of what is said, that is, in making a decision concerning what is

said, we should always try to preserve our pre-theoretic intuitions on the matter.

(Recanati 1993: 248)

The ongoing discussion allows us to state that communication is a

successful process because the participants try to make a fair contribution,

because the verbal exchange is governed by the willingness to take part in the

process and because speaker and hearer alike try to optimally fit the information

they provide to the context, to the direction in which the exchange takes place. In

other words, the whole interaction is based on the Principle of Relevance as

highlighted by Grice (1975) and further developed by Sperber and Wilson (1986).

Let us remember at this stage that the context is a dynamic entity and does

not consist of a pre-determined set of assumptions. There are, of course,

assumptions that are part of the speaker’s and hearer’s background knowledge and

these assumptions establish the common ground (shared assumptions) which

secures the success of the ongoing exchange(s).

In his famous book “Logic and Conversation” (1975), Grice puts forward

The Cooperative Principle (CP) to explain the mechanisms by which people

unfold conversational implicature, and to account for the relation between sense

and force, between explicit and implicit meaning. Grice’s theory explains how

there can arise interesting discrepancies between speaker meaning and sentence

meaning.

The CP runs as follows:

25

Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs,

by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are

engaged.

The four conversational maxims are:

1. The maxim of Quantity: Make your contribution as

informative as required (for the

current purpose of exchange).

Do not make your contribution more

informative than is required.

2. The maxim of Quality1: Do not say what you believe to be

false.

Do not say that for which you lack

adequate evidence.

3. The maxim of Relation: Be relevant.

4. The maxim of Manner: Avoid obscurity of expression.

Avoid ambiguity.

Be brief (avoid unnecessary

prolixity).

Be orderly.

Grice identifies a number of characteristic traits of implicatures

(contextual effects) which arise from non-observance (whether deliberate or not)

of one or several maxims:

1. they are cancellable or defeasible, i.e. by adding some further information

it is possible to cancel them, i.e. explicitely denied).

1 Harnish (1976:362) favours the combination of the first two maxims, arguing that the amount ofinformation that the speaker gives depends on the speaker’s wish to avoid telling something that isnot true. He proposes the Maxim of Quantity-Quality: “Make the strongest relevant claimjustifiable by your evidence”

26

E.g. A: Would you like some wine?

B: No, thanks. I’ve been on whisky all day.

A: All right. (The hearer infers that the speaker doesn’t feel like a

drink).

B: I mean, I’ll stick to whisky. (Thus, the implicature is cancelled

or proved to be false by this further specification).

2. they are standardly non-detachable (apart from those derived from the

Maxim of Manner that are related to the form of the utterance), i.e. they are

attached to the semantic content of what is said, not to the linguistic form. The

replacement of a word or phrase by its synonym will trigger a different

implicature.

E.g. John is a genius.

John is a mental prodigy.

John is an exceptionally clever human being.

John has an enormous intellect.

John has a big brain.

(Levinson, 1983:116-7)

There will be ironic reading of the utterances that re-state the first one.

3. they are calculable, i.e. it can be shown that the hearer can derive the

inference in question starting from the literal meaning of the utterance and

from the co-operative principle and the maxims of conversation.

4. they are non-conventional, i.e. they are not part of the conventional

meaning of the linguistic expressions that are used (they are not to be found in

dictionaries).

E.g. Father: Where are the car keys?

Mother: Billy is dating Sue tonight.

Mother implies that Billy has taken the car.

5. the same linguistic expression can give rise to different implicatures on

27

different occasions (in different contexts of utterance). Therefore, we can speak

of a certain degree of indeterminacy; utterances seem to be of a protean nature,

multifaceted:

E.g. She is a cat.

According to context, the utterance can be interpreted as “a mean unpleasant

woman”, “very nervous or anxious”, “she likes currying favour with people” etc.

• Non-observance of the maxims

There are five distinct cases of failing to observe a maxim:

- flouting a maxim

- violating a maxim

- infringing a maxim

- opting out of a maxim

- suspending a maxim

-

1. Flouting a maxim – the speaker blatantly fails to observe a maxim, not

with the intention of deceiving/misleading. There is an additional meaning i.e. a

conversational implicature deliberately achieved.

2. Violating a maxim – Grice defines it as the unostentatious non-observance

of a maxim. If a speaker violates a maxim he/she “will be liable to mislead”

(1975:49).

3. Infringing a maxim – it occurs when a speaker who, with no intention of

deceiving, fails to observe a maxim. The non-observance stems from imperfect

linguistic performance (imperfect command of language, nervousness,

drunkenness, excitement) rather than from a deliberate choice.

4. Opting out of a maxim – by indicating unwillingness to co-operate in the

way the maxim requires. It is very frequent in public life when the speaker

cannot, for legal or ethical reasons, reply in the way normally expected.

5. Suspending a maxim – sometimes there are certain events in which there is

28

no expectation on the part of any participants. Suspension of the maxims can’t

be culture-specific or specific to particular events.

29

Bibliografie minimală







Grice, H.P. 1975. “Logic and conversation” in Cole P., Morgan, J.L. (eds.).

Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. New York







Recanati, F. 1993. Direct Reference: From Language to Thought. Oxford:

Blackwell





30

EVALUARE

1. Show the steps to be followed in calculating the implicature of the

utterance below:

I saw Mary carrying a piece of heavy luggage at the station.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Work out implicature in the following cases:

A: Would you like a cup of coffee?

B: It would keep me awake.

………………………………………………………………………………………

Would you like tea or coffee?

………………………………………………………………………………………

Have you seen your daughter’s haircut?

………………………………………………………………………………………

Are you with me?

………………………………………………………………………………………

Do you sell apples by the pound?

………………………………………………………………………………………

I am hungry.

………………………………………………………………………………………

A: Come here! We’ve got work to do.

B: I’ve got a terrible headache.

………………………………………………………………………………………

31

The last bus leaves in 10 minutes.

………………………………………………………………………………………

He told me about your intentions.

………………………………………………………………………………………

The bell is ringing.

………………………………………………………………………………………

Now, can I ask you a serious question?

………………………………………………………………………………………

Also available at weekends.

………………………………………………………………………………………

I am a man. (Grundy, 2000: 7)

………………………………………………………………………………………

Who cares? (Grundy, 2000: 59)

………………………………………………………………………………………

3. State whether the following examples are cases of observance of the

conversational maxims or not. Identify each type.

They have finished.

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

She is too short.

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

How old are you, by the way?

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

32

Sit down with care

Legs can come off

(Grundy, 2000: 14)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

New York murder – local man arrested

(Grundy, 2000: 40)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

BA better connected person (British Airways advertisement)

(Grundy, 2000: 77)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

Money doesn’t grow on trees but it blossoms at our branches (Lloyd Bank’s

advertisement)

(Grundy, 2000: 76)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

First and fourmost (Land Rover Advertisement)

(Grundy, 2000: 77)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

You just can’t help yourself (McCain pizzas advertisement)

(Grundy, 2000: 77)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

It was dead funny – if you see what I mean

(Grundy, 2000: 79)

33

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

A: Where are you off to?

B: I was thinking of going out to get some funny white stuff for everybody.

A: OK. But don’t be long, dinner’s nearly ready.

(Cutting, 2002: 39)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

A: Does your dog bite?

B: No.

A (Bends down to stroke the dog and it gets bitten) Ow! You said your dog

doesn’t bite!

B: That isn’t my dog.

(Cutting, 2002: 40)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

Husband: How much did that new dress cost, darling?

Wife: Less than the last one.

(Cutting, 2002: 40)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

Bush, himself a former director of the CIA, said Gates would not routinely attend

Cabinet meetings but would take part in sessions where intelligence was

necessary for making decisions.

(Cutting, 2002: 41)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

A: Well, there’s a shuttle service sixty pounds one way. When do you want to go?

B: At the weekend.

A: What weekend?

B: Next weekend. How does that work? You just turn up for the shuttle service?

34

A: That might be cheaper. Than that’s fifty.

(Grundy, 2000 in Cutting, 2002: 43)

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

35

UNITATEA DE ÎNVĂŢARE II

PRESUPPOSITION TRIGGERS AND CHARACTERISTICS.

PRESUPPOSITION VS IMPLICATURE

Obiective

• Conştientizarea aspectelor complexe legate de presupozi�ia logică �i

presupozi�ia pragmatică;

• Familiarizarea studenţilor cu aspectele descriptive şi normative ale

identificării şi utilizării presupozi�iei �i a mecanismelor lingvistice ce o

generează;


implica�i în comunicarea intraculturală �i interculturală.

Timp alocat: 6 ore

36

PRESUPPOSITION TRIGGERS AND CHARACTERISTICS.

PRESUPPOSITION VS IMPLICATURE

Presupposition may be rightly considered as one of the most controversial

concepts in pragmatics. Originally, the term was restricted to reference, but it

soon expanded its scope. Presupposition is another type of implicature; unlike

conversational implicature which is situated, presupposition is dependent, to a

higher degree, on the linguistic form of the utterance.

Levinson (1983: 167-8) draws our attention to the two distinct uses of the

term presupposition: as an ordinary term and as a technical one. The former is

attached any kind of background assumption against which the utterance makes

sense or is rational, whereas the latter is restricted to “certain pragmatic

inferences or assumptions that seem at least to be built into linguistic

expressions and which can be isolated using specific linguistic tests (constancy

under negation)”. As seen from the definition, Levinson is cautious in

identifying the nature of pragmatic presupposition.

Presuppositions refer and remain constant if the sentences are negated

(they survive the negation test). Survival of the negation test distinguishes

presupposition from entailment. Let us now focus on more complex sentences:

Sue denies that she saw Mary yesterday.

Its negation reads:

Sue does not deny that she saw Mary yesterday.

The presuppositions that hold true under negation are:

- There are two identifiable persons Sue and Mary (proper names),

respectively;

37

- Sue saw Mary yesterday.

and they are triggered by the verb to deny. Therefore, the question arises: What are

the linguistic expressions that engender presupposition?

Levinson (1983:181-4) discusses Karttunen’s (1973) collection of 31

presupposition triggers and claims that they pertain to “the core of phenomena that

are generally considered presuppositional”. In fact, Levinson pleads for a loose

definition of presupposition, i.e. presupposition which is not characterised by

behaviour under negation alone. In what follows, we shall cater this useful checklist

(although in a simplified version):

1. Definite descriptions (Strawson, 1950, 1952):

John saw / didn’t see the man with two heads → there exists a man with two

heads.

2. Factive verbs (Kiparsky and Kiparsky, 1971):

to be aware that, to be glad that, to be proud that, to be sad that, to be sorry

that, it is odd, to know, to realize, regret

3. Implicative verbs (Karttunen, 1971b):

to be expected to, forget, to happen to, manage, ought to

4. Change of state verbs (Sellars, 1954, Karttunen, 1973):

5.

cease, stop, finish, begin, start, continue, carry on, take, leave, enter, come,

go, arrive

38

6. Iteratives:

to come again, to come back, to return, to restore, to repeat, anymore, another

time, before, for the nth time

7. Verbs of judging (Fillmore, 1971a):

accuse, criticize

8. Temporal clauses (Frege, 1892) introduced by:

before, after, while, since, after, during, whenever, as

8. Cleft sentences (Atlas and Levinson, 1981):

9. Implicit clefts with stressed constituents (Chomsky, 1972, Sperber and

Wilson, 1979):

Linguistics was/wasn’t invented by Chomsky!

9. Comparisons and contrasts (Lakoff, 1971):

She called him a liar and insulted him →To call him a liar is to insult him.

Mark is nicer than Tom → Tom is nice.

11. Non-restrictive clauses

The president’s daughter, who studies law, is 22.

12. Counterfactual conditions (Type 3)

39

If he had been there, he would have helped her.

13. Questions (Lyons, 1977): alternative questions and WH-questions:

Are there students interested in pragmatics?

Who is interested in pragmatics?

In all the above mentioned cases, constancy or survival under negation

is the acid test of presupposition. But there also the projection problem

(presupposition behaviour in complex sentences) and the question of

defeasibility (presupposition cancellation in certain contexts).

Presuppositions are determined compositionally (as a function of their

sub-expressions) by virtue of the principle that the global meaning is the sum of

the meanings of the component parts. The projection problem is doublefold: on

the one hand, presuppositions survive in contexts where entailments do not. On

the other hand, they disappear in contexts where they are expected to survive.

The boy kicked the ball

There is a boy

The boy kicked the ball.

If we negate the sentence, we have: The boy did not kick the ball and The

boy kicked the ball does not survive whereas There is a boy survives.

Pragmatic presupposition becomes a question of appropriate usage, of

some background assumption and common ground against which the utterance

makes sense (set of propositions constituting the current context; therefore,

pragmatic presuppositions are context-embedded). This common ground account

(Stalnaker, 1973) or context selection account (Heim, 1983) of presupposition

envisages presupposition as pre-conditions of situations in which a sentence can

be uttered. We should rather speak of common ground dynamics as it can be

modified in the course of interaction – utterances are interpreted as context

change potentials. They are functions that map an input context (common ground

40

before the utterance is accepted by the hearer) to an output context (common

ground after the utterance is accepted by the hearer). Presuppositions define for

an utterance whether or not an input context is admissible.

It is part of the concept of presupposition that a speaker assumes or

pretends that the hearers presuppose everything that s/he presupposes (ideally). If

context perceived to be defective, the speaker will try to eliminate

discrepancies among the presuppositions (for communicative efficiency). This

is the second view endorsed by Stalnaker, namely the dispositional definition of

pragmatic presupposition.

In fact, during the communicative exchange, clues are dropped about

what is presupposed. Lewis (1979) labels this process accommodation since it

rescues an utterance from inappropriateness by providing a required

presupposition. The principle of accommodation is best summed up in

Thomason’s words:

Adjust the conversational record to eliminate obstacles to the detected

plans of your interlocutor.(Thomason, 1990:344)

41

















42

EVALUARE

1. Discuss presupposition-related aspects in the following examples:

a. Husband: How much is the dress, darling?

Wife: Less than you expect.

Presupposition trigger:……………………………………………………………

Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

b. It was Mary who called the ambulance.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

c. Were you married to Mike when you left the country?.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

d. Thank you for your support.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

e. At least we won’t have to give up studying.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

f. If music be the food of love, play on (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night)


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

43

g. I enjoy English lessons when we have no home assignment.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

h. Marion praised them for storing old wine bottles.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

i. He went to college. / He went to a college. / He went to the college.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

j. It’s him again.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

k. I am enjoying life in the countryside more than ever.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

l. Even Presidents have private lives (Bill Clinton’s TV address, 18 August 1998)


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

m. Sorry for the delay.


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

44

n. I began jogging after a visit to the doctor. (Grundy, 2000: 123)


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

o. My friend didn’t bother to open a bank account until she stated earning money.

(Grundy, 2000: 123)


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

p. Do you have any dogs going cheap? (Grundy, 2000: 126)


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

r. It was the Scots who invented whisky. (Grundy, 2000: 136)


Presupposition:……………………………………………………………………

45

UNITATEA DE ÎNVĂŢARE III

STRATEGIES OF POLITENESS. THE FACE MANAGEMENT

VIEW

Obiective

• Conştientizarea aspectelor complexe legate de strategiile de polite�e pozitivă

�i negativă;


identificării şi utilizării no�iunilor de face �i face threatining act în cadrul

teoriei face management view;



Timp alocat: 6 ore

46

STRATEGIES OF POLITENESS. THE FACE MANAGEMENT

VIEW

The Basics of the Theory of Politeness

Politeness as well as co-operation is fundamental to interpersonal

communication. As a linguistic phenomenon, politeness has drawn considerable

attention from linguists, sociologists and language philosophers over the last 40

years: Lakoff (1973, 1977), Leech (1983), Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), Hill

et al. (1986), Ide(1989), Fraser (1990) and Gu (1990). Despite the efforts of these

practitioners, however, there was little consensus on the nature of politeness and

cross-cultural implications. Politeness refers, separately but also jointly, to the

following aspects: promotion of harmonious relations, deference, register,

politeness as a surface level phenomenon - locutionary act, and politeness as a

deep level phenomenon - illocutionary act.

Pragmatic approaches to politeness fall into four categories:

• The face management view (Brown and Levinson);

• The conversational maxim view (Leech);

• The conversational contract view (Fraser);

• The pragmatic scales view (Spencer-Oatey).

The face management view

Of the various models of politeness which have been advanced, Brown and

Levinson’s (1987) claims its pancultural validity. The present unit attempts an

elaboration of the concept of positive and negative politeness considering these

universal phenomena.

At the very foundation of Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory lies

the assumption that speakers in any given language do not just convey

information through their language; they use the language to do things. Brown

and Levinson suggest that speakers, in face-to-face interactions, actually build

relationships. Communication is negotiation of meaning, even if it is not

47

necessarily a conscious act. In fact Brown and Levinson propose that an abstract

underlying social principle guides and constrains our choice of language in

everyday discourse. Hence we may infer that the term politeness is not used in its

conventional sense of having and showing good manners, displaying courtesy and

correct social behaviour, but rather it is intended to cover all aspects of language

usage which serve to establish, maintain or modify interpersonal

relationships.

Brown and Levinson theory rests on the assumption that all competent

language users have the capacity of reasoning and have what is commonly known

as face. Face is defined as:

Something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained or

enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction. (Brown and

Levinson, 1978:66)

the public self-image that everyone lays claim to, consisting of two related

aspects:

- negative face: the basic claim to freedom of action and freedom from imposition

- positive face: positive consistent self-image or ”personality” (crucially including

the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by

interactants. (Brown and Levinson, 1987:61)

Brown and Levinson’s notion of face follows on from Goffman (1967

[1955]) in using it to denote the desire which everybody has that their self-

image will be taken into account in interaction with others (face is linked to the

notions of being embarrassed, humiliated or losing face). Brown and Levinson

then develop this concept by relating it to Durkeim’s “positive and negative rites”

, i.e. co-operation vs. distancing as two basic sides of politeness.

…everyone has face and everyone’s face depends on everyone else’s face

being maintained, and since people can be expected to defend their face if

threatened, and if defending their own to threaten other’s faces, it is in general in

every participants’ best interest to maintain each other’s face. (Brown and

Levinson, 1978: 66)

48

And, since “aspects of face [are] basic wants (ibid: 62) these definitions

may be glossed as “the desire to be unimpeded in one’s actions (negative face)

and the desire to be approved of (positive face)” (Brown and Levinson,

1987:13). The authors go further and say that these two kinds of face-want give

rise to two corresponding types of interactive behaviour. These are positive

politeness strategies and negative politeness strategies. The concept of positive

and negative face as universal human attributes and the consequent concept of

positive and negative politeness as characteristic of human interaction are also

referred to as face dualism.

Brown and Levinson construct their interactional model around a model

person (MP), one who, from the outset, in addition to demonstrating a command

of the language and a rational capability for determining the means needed to

accomplish end goals, possesses two basic, somewhat conflicting face-wants

(1987:60). The first is to have one’s individual rights, possessions, and

territories uninfringed upon (negative face-wants) and the second is the want to

be respected and liked by other people (positive face-wants). Since the

satisfaction of MP’s wants is, to a large extent, dependent on the actions of the

others’, it is in the MP’s best interest to develop linguistic strategies that

acknowledge and recognize the face wants of the other participants.

Conflict can be understood as a potential ingredient of any interaction

simply because social interaction by its very nature presupposes an intrusion into

another person’s domain, a person who does not often share the same goals,

attitudes, interests, beliefs, or values of the speaker. There are acts that we, as

speakers, must do and that threaten the wants of another individual.

E.g. orders, requests, and threatens threaten the hearer’s negative face

acts of criticism, disapproval, and disagreement threaten the

hearer’s positive face

Speakers can also perform self-threatening acts

E.g. the expression of thanks or the acceptance of an offer are acts that

impinge on the speaker’s negative face as they impel future

obligation

49

Apologies, admissions of guilt, confessions, among other self-

humiliating acts, reduce the positive self-image of the speaker.

These acts which are inherently threatening to the speaker or hearer

become face-threatening acts-FTAs. They are “acts that by their very nature run

contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or the speaker” (1987:65). Figure

1 depicts the types of FTA:

When the speaker intends to perform an act that threatens the positive or

negative wants of H, S considers strategic balancing options and may choose a

redressive one, one that reveals to H that S is attempting to minimize the threat

of the act. S may choose the following strategic options demonstrating the highest

risk (face loss) or the least risk (face saving).

Strategic options in order of increasing face-threat:

Do not carry out the FTA at all.

E.g. failing to congratulate somebody or to express condolences, etc.

Do carry the FTA, but off record, i.e. allowing for a certain ambiguity of

intention. Brown and Levinson draw up a list of strategies for performing off-

record politeness: give hints, association clues, presuppose, understate,

overstate, be ironic, be ambiguous, be vague, use ellipsis etc.

E.g. The soup is a bit bland.

FTA

Speaker Face Hearer Face

Negative

excuse

thanking

Positive

apology

crying

Negative

request

compliment

Positive

complaint

boasting

50

I’ve got that terrible headache again.

Boys will be boys.

Husbands sometimes help to wash up.

Do the FTA on record with redressive action - negative politeness. This will

involve reassuring the H he/she is being respected by expressions of deference

and formality, by hedging, maintaining distance, etc. Brown and Levinson

identify several strategies: be conventionally indirect, question / hedge, be

pessimistic, give deference, minimize the size of imposition, apologize,

impersonalize the speaker and the hearer, nominalize, etc.

E.g. I wonder if you know the truth.

You must be very busy, but I need your help.

Excuse me, but it is not your turn.

The letter must be typed immediately.

Passengers will please refrain from flushing toilets on the train.

I’d be eternally grateful if you did that for me.

We look forward to dining with you.

Do the FTA on record with redressive action – positive politeness. This will

involve paying attention to the H’s positive face by, e.g., expressing

agreement, sympathy or approval.

E.g. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him before.

We are favourably impressed by your performance.

I must tell you that I like your dress very much.

5. Do the FTA on –record, without redressive action, baldly. This strategic

choice is likely to appear in the following situations: emergency cases, task-

oriented situations (instructions), the FTA is in the hearer’s best interest,

power differential is great, the speaker decides to be maximally offensive etc.

E.g. Mind the step!

Yes, you may use the dictionary.

Give me your pen.

51

Take care!

Have a cake.

Politeness strategies have not only verbal realization, but also non-verbal e.g.

giving a gift, stumbling, etc

Harris (1984) suggests that the disfunction between the institutional status-

based requirements of face and the more individual side of face involved in the

notion of kindness correlates with on-record vs. off-record strategies of politeness.

Three factors are involved /calculated to determine the weight of the FTA: the

social distance between H and S, H’s power over S, and the rank of imposition.

Positive politeness strategies are addressed to H’s positive face wants and are

described as expressions of solidarity, informality and familiarity.

E.g. exaggerate interest in H, sympathize with H, avoid disagreement

Negative strategies conversely are addressed to H’s negative face and are

characterized as expressions of restraint, formality and distancing.

E.g. be conventionally indirect, give deference, apologize

We are thus confronted with politeness strategies and markers of different

status: behaviour strategies (e.g. give deference) are mixed with linguistic

strategies (e.g. nominalize) (see Ide, 1989). Some are countable (e.g. intensifiers),

some gradable (e.g. nominalization), some can transform a negative into a positive

strategy (e.g. contraction and ellipsis).

Brown and Levinson interestingly state, however, that ”politeness is

implicated by the semantic structure of the whole utterance, not

communicated by “markers” or “mitigators” in a simple signaling fashion which

may be quantified” (1987:22).

52




Brown, P., Levinson, S.C. 1978. Universals in Language Usage. Politeness

Phenomena. Cambridge: CUP

Cottom, D., 1998. Text and Culture. The politics of Interpretation. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota






Jaworski, A., Coupland, N. 1999. The Discourse Reader, London & New York:

Routledge






Watts, R.J., Ide, S., Ehlich, K. (eds). 1992. Politeness in Language. Studies in Its

History. Theory. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter

53

EVALUARE

Comment on the following sentences in terms of face wants and FTAs:

a) A: We’ll all miss George and Caroline, won’t we?

B: Well, we’ll all miss George.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

b) P: Someone’s eating the icing off the cake.

C: It wasn’t me.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

c) - I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.

- Could you spare me a cup of coffee?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

d) A: Her performance was outstanding!

B: Yes, wasn’t it?

A: Your performance was outstanding!

B: Yes, wasn’t it?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

e) A: Do you like these apricots?

B: I’ve tasted better.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

54

f) Please accept this large gift as a token of our esteem.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

g) I’m terribly sorry to hear that your cat died.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

h) This is a draft of chapter 4. Please read it and comment on.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

i) Basil’s wife is in hospital:

You just lie there with your feet up and I’ll go and carry you up another

hundredweight of lime creams…

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

j) In a very expensive gourmet restaurant, a notice reads: If you want to

enjoy the full flavour of your food and drink you will, naturally, not smoke

during this meal. However, if you did smoke you would also be impairing

the enjoyment of other guests.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

55

UNITATEA DE ÎNVĂŢARE IV

DEIXIS – PERSON, EMPATHETIC, SPACE, TIME,

DISCOURSE, SOCIAL DEIXIS

Obiective

• Conştientizarea aspectelor complexe legate de deixis;


identificării şi utilizării no�iunilor referitoare la deixis personal, empatic,

spa�ial, temporal, discursiv �i social;



Timp alocat: 6 ore

56

DEIXIS – PERSON, EMPATHETIC, SPACE, TIME,

DISCOURSE, SOCIAL DEIXIS

Deixis, from the Greek word deiknyai – to display, to show, is one of the

most obvious ways of indicating how the contribution of the context of

utterance is actually managed by the speaker. As a pragmatic phenomenon, it is

concerned with the linguistic encoding of the context of utterance (speech event).

Deixis is often equated to indexicality. In fact, all deictic expressions are

indexical - they pick out referents in the real world / extra-linguistic context,

but not all indices are deictic. Therefore, indexicality has a broader scope, i.e. it

covers all phenomena of context sensitivity whereas deixis has a narrower scope,

dealing with the linguistically relevant aspects of indexicality.

Deixis can be further divided into six types: person deixis, empathetic

deixis, place deixis, time deixis, discourse deixis and social deixis.

• Person deixis

It is about deictic reference to the participant role of a referent: speaker,

addressee2, bystanders – ratified participants which are neither the speaker nor

the addressee. Person deixis is instantiated in the system of personal pronouns

(first, second and third person). The first person pronouns – I, we – represents the

grammatical encoding of the reference to the speaker(s), the second person

pronoun – you- represents grammaticalization of reference to the addressee(s)

and the third person pronouns – he, she, they – are the grammatical encoding of

reference to bystanders.

2 A. Bell (1984) coined the phrase audience design which he defines as the extent to which thespeakers accommodate to their addressees. He makes a useful distinction between addressees(ratified participants directly addressed) – auditors (ratified participants, not directly addressed) –overhearers (neither ratified participants nor directly addressed) – eavesdroppers (the speaker isnot aware of their presence, so accommodation does not apply to this case)

57

Furthermore, we distinguish between the inclusive-of-addressee and the

exclusive-of-addressee use of the first person plural pronoun we:

E.g. United we stand. (President George Bush’s speech on the 11

September events; inclusive we)

We shall leave in two hours’ time. (exclusive we)

As far as the second person pronoun is concerned, there is the unique form

you, which is unmarked for the second person singular and marked for the

second person plural. You optionally allows for gestural use:

E.g. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. (symbolical)

You have to go there at once. (optionally gestural)

Customarily, the third person referring expressions are regarded as

semantically deficient or residual, i.e. their descriptive content does not suffice to

identify a referent. In this respect, we can draw a cline of deficiency on which

indefinite and personal pronouns are ranked as deficient to the highest degree:

E.g. someone, she – the woman – the beautiful woman – Anne

In the course of the interaction, participant roles undergo shifts – e.g. turn-

taking in conversations, taking the floor at conferences etc. – and the deictic

centre (or origo if we feel indebted to Bühler) shifts with them. The deictic centre

is organized around the speaker at the place and time of speaking (Coding

Time in Fillmore’s terms). Yet, many deictic expressions can be transposed or

relativized to some other deictic centre.

Reference to the person involved in the speech event also becomes

manifest in the use of possessive pronouns and adjectives, and verb

conjugation (e.g. English verbs add –s in the 3rd person singular, present simple

tense; the verb “to be” displays different forms for different persons; In Romance

58

languages there are different endings attached to verbs when conjugated – e.g.

Romanian present tense: eu lucrez, tu lucrezi, el/ea lucrează, noi lucrăm, voi

lucraţi, ei-ele lucrează etc).

• Empathetic deixis

It refers to the metaphorical use of deictic forms to indicate attitude, i.e.

emotional or psychological distance between the speaker and the referent.

Broadly speaking, the demonstrative pronoun this is invested with empathy or

solidarity while that indicates emotional distance. However, there are numerous

instances when the distinction is neutralized:

E.g. This is what I like. But also I like that. (empathy)

That man! (distance)

• Place deixis

It can be defined as deictic reference to a location relative to the

location of a participant in the speech event, typically the speaker. The

grammatical realizations of place deixis are adverbs of place, demonstrative

pronouns, spatial prepositions and motion verbs.

Denny (1978) proposes the term boundedness to refer to the presence /

absence of meaning indicative of a border at the location; expressions such as in

there, in here, out there belong to bounded deixis while here and there pertain to

unbounded deixis (lack of a defined border).

Authors (notably Levinson) identify several frames3 of spatial reference:

- intrinsic or pure place-deictic words: the adverbs here and there, the

demonstrative pronouns this and there (proximity vs. non-proximity);

3 Goffmann (1967) sees frame as individual conceptualization of the structure within whichparticipants are interacting

59

- absolute: east, west, north, south, upstream, downstream, across river

etc;

- relative: to the right/left of, behind, in front of, away from, next to etc

Levinson (1983: 79 ff.) distinguishes between gestural (as a way of

securing the addressee’s attitude to a feature of the extra-linguistic world; pointing

at something constitutes an ostensive definition) and symbolical usages of place

deictic words. Used symbolically, here indicates “the pragmatically given unit of

space that includes the location of the speaker at CT (coding time; see the ongoing

discussion)” and gesturally it refers to “the pragmatically given space, proximal to

the speaker’s location at CT, that includes the point of location gesturally

indicated”.

E.g. I’m in Madrid and I love it here. (symbolical)

Bring it here. (gestural)

Sometimes, there, which is typically distal from the speaker’s location at

CT, can serve to indicate proximity to the speaker’s location at CT (e.g. on the

phone) or RT (receiving time; e.g. when receiving a letter).

Spatial prepositions have deictic and non-deictic values. They are

deictic when there is reference to the speaker location:

E.g. Billy is behind the tree. (non-deictic)

Billy is behind the tree, hiding from me. (deictic)

Verbs of motion or come-and-go verbs indicate direction relative to the

location of participants, typically the speaker. The verbs belonging to the go

class serve to show movement away from the speaker’s location at CT whereas

the verbs of the come type gloss as movement towards the speaker’s location at

CT. Levinson draws our attention towards the fact that some other time can be

involved when performing the movement and he cautiously suggests to use the

broader term reference time.

60

E.g. Come to me! (reference time coincides with CT)

Go there! (reference time coincides with CT)

You can come to see me when I return from England. (reference time does

not coincide with CT)

Some other verbs of the above mentioned type are: bring, fetch, take etc.

The verb come can also indicate not the speaker’s current location but his/her

home-base:

E.g. I came at 10 o’clock, but you were not at home.

Special mention needs to be made of the fact that place deixis always

incorporates a time-deictic element (CT) while the converse does not hold true.

• Time deixis

It refers to time relative to a temporal reference point. Typically this is

the moment of utterance – what Fillmore (1975, 1997) calls Coding Time (CT) or

temporal ground zero as different from the Receiving Time (RT) when there is

no temporal deictic simultaneity or there is deviation from the canonical situation

of utterance.

Time deixis is encoded in adverbs of time, tenses and other deictic

expressions (greetings). The basic distinction concerns the use of now – “the

time at which the speaker is producing the utterance” or broadly “the

pragmatically given span including CT “ (Levinson, 1983: 73-74) – and then as

marking departure from the moment when the utterance is produced (anteriority

or posteriority).

E.g. Do it now!

I’m now reading an interesting article on traditions.

61

I was very young then.

Then, you’ll have to repeat the procedure.

Before discussing the deictic use of the adverbs of time (today, yesterday,

tomorrow, Sunday, May, this afternoon, this year, next month etc), it is useful to

remember that time is measured in days, months, seasons, years – these temporal

divisions are measured against a fixed point of reference (including the deictic

centre), being non-calendrical in use or they are used calendrically to locate

events in absolute time (non-relationally). For instance, the deictic use of the time

adverb today serves to indicate the diurnal span in which the speech event takes

place, while calendrically the adverb refers to the span of time running from

midnight to midnight. Some other examples include:

E.g. I’ll go there this week. – the utterance allows for both a calendrical

and non-calendrical interpretation, i.e. it guarantees achievement within

the calendar unit beginning on Sunday and including utterance time (CT)

or within 7 days from the utterance time.

I wrote this yesterday and wanted you to receive it today. – CT and

RT are distinct. Starting from this example we can state that today

systematically varies reference (the reference of today will be different

tomorrow etc).

I’ll be back in an hour. (notice on the office door) – the exact time

when the person comes back is hard to be guessed as there is no indication

of CT and RT are not identical.

Tenses are a mixture of deictic temporal distinctions and aspect. Seen in

this light, the present tense represents the time span including CT, the past tense is

the relevant time span before CT and the future tense is the time span following

CT. Tenses are classified into absolute and relative (perfect tenses indicate

anteriority to a specified moment of time).

62

Last but not least, greetings function as time-deictic elements since they

are time-restricted: Good morning is used in the morning, Good afternoon is used

in the afternoon etc. It is worth mentioning that Good morning, Good afternoon

and Good evening are uttered only when meeting the addressee whereas Good

night is used only as a parting formula.

• Discourse deixis

It concerns deictic references to a portion of the unfolding discourse

relative to the speaker’s current location in the discourse (e.g. this chapter, the

previous chapter, the next chapter, as mentioned before). This and that are

discourse deixis elements (we can speak of a re-categorization of these place-

deictic elements which become multifunctional). This refers to the forthcoming

portion of the discourse and that:

E.g. This is what I’ll tell you.

That was the only word she could say in Chinese.

Levinson claims that the phenomenon of anaphora should be kept distinct

from discourse deixis, although the two are not mutually exclusive. Anaphoric

elements refer outside the discourse to other entities by connecting to prior

referring expressions:

E.g. The British Prime Minister delivered a speech yesterday. Tony

Blair / He pointed to the importance of the event. - The British Prime

Minister , Tony Blair / He are co-referential expressions (they pick out the

same referent in the external world.

Pronouns are prototypical exemplars as far as anaphora is concerned.

For the sake of distinction, let us mention that cataphora connects to referring

expressions that are present later in the discourse:

63

E.g. In front of her, Jane noticed a girl playing with a doll.

Discourse markers (anyway, but, therefore, nevertheless, moreover,

actually etc) relate a current contribution to the prior portions of discourse (we

have already discussed these terms as giving rise to conventional implicature).

E.g. She acknowledged his presence but pretended not to. – contrast is

thus established between the two portions of the utterance.

• Social deixis

It is concerned with direct or oblique reference to the social status and

role of the participants in the speech event. Linguistic encodings of social deixis

include honorifics, kinship terms (mother, mum) terms of endearment (My

dear, darling, Billy), insults etc. Social deixis falls into two categories: absolute

(reference to some social characteristics of a referent apart from any relative

ranking of referents e.g. royal we, editorial we for authorized speakers and Your

Honour, Your Majesty, Mr. President, The Honourable Member for authorized

recipients – see Fillmore, 1975) and relational social deixis (reference to the

social relationship between the speaker and the addressee).

64










Routledge






65

EVALUARE

Identify deictic elements in the following utterances and discuss their

nature:

1. Monday morning feeling

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Empathetic deixis:…………………………………………………………………

Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………

Discourse deixis:……………………………………………………………………

Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

2. This is a non parking area

.Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

3. I’m visiting my parents next week and tell them the news.

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

66

4. How do you like it?.

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

5. I love you, mummy.

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

6. You are not supposed to say that to an old lady.

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

7. Just along the corridor on the right.

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

67

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

8. I am coming to your office.

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

9. This book was published two years ago.

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

10. Are we all here? (Grundy, 2000: 4)

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

68

11. You’ll be fine tomorrow.

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

12. Lay your hands off her!

Person deixis:………………………………………………………………………


Space deixis:………………………………………………………………………

Time deixis:…………………………………………………………………………


Social deixis:..............................................................................................................

69

Bibliografie generală

Ariel, M., 2008. Pragmatics and Grammar. Cambridge: CUP

Aronoff, M., Rees-Miller, A. J. 2002. The Handbook of Linguistics, Oxford:

Blackwell Publishing

Brown, P., Levinson, S.C. 1978. Universals in Language Usage. Politeness

Phenomena. Cambridge: CUP

Bussmann, H., 1996. Dictionary of Language and Linguistics. London: Routledge


Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Byram, M. 2000. Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning,

London: Routledge

Carston, R., 2002. Thoughts and Utterances. The Pragmatics of Explicit

Communication, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

Cottom, D., 1998. Text and Culture. The Politics of Interpretation. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota



Cummings, L. (ed.) 2010. The Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and

New York: Routledge


London and New York: Routledge Davies, A., Elder, C. (eds). 2004. The

Handbook of Applied Linguistics, Oxford:


Davies, A. 2005. A Glossary of Applied Linguistics, Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press.

Davies, A. 2007 (2nd ed.). An Introduction to Applied Linguistics, Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press.

Fitch, K.L., Sanders, R.E. (eds.). 2005. Handbook of Language and Social

Interaction. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates


Holtgraves, T. H. 2002. Language as Social Action, London: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates

Hornberger, N. H. 2008 (2nd ed.). Encyclopedia of Language and Education,

Springer Science

70


Routledge

Johnson, K. Johnson, H. 1999. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied linguistics: a

handbook for language teaching, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

Kaplan, R. B. (ed). 2002. The Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics, Oxford:

OUP






Matthews, P.H. 2007 (2nd ed.). Concise Dictionary of Linguistics, Oxford: OUP.

Pennycook, A. 2001. Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction,. New

Jersey: Lawrel Erlbaum Associates

Recanati, F. 1993. Direct Reference: From Language to Thought. Oxford:


Richards, J. C., Schmidt, R. (eds.). 2002 (3rd ed.). Longman Dictionary of Applied

Linguistics and Teaching. London: Pearson Education Limited

Rose,K. R., Kasper, G. (eds). 2001. Pragmatics in Language Teaching,

Cambridge: CUP


Trappes-Lomax, H. 2000. Change and Continuity in Applied Linguistics, London:

Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Trask, R.L. 1999. Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics, London and New

York: Routledge

Vega Moreno, R, E., 2007. Creativity and Convention. The Pragmatics of

Everyday Figurative Speech, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Publishing Company

Watts, R.J., Ide, S., Ehlich, K. (eds). 1992. Politeness in Language. Studies in Its

History. Theory. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter


Documents

Lec an 3 Sem2 Vilceanu