HONG DUC UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Foreign
Languages
SECTION 1 –
DEFINITIONS & BACKGROUND
TABLE CONTENTS
1. Definitions & Background of Pragmatics
2. Syntax, Semantics & Pragmatics
3. Regularity
4. The Pragmatics Wastebasket
1. DEFINITIONS
&
BACKGROUND
Tạ Thị Phương Hoa
What is “Pragmatics”?
Pragmatics is the study of the
relationships between linguistic forms and the
users of those forms.
The study of speaker meaning
The study of contextual
The study meaning
area of
Pragmatics
is The study of how more gets
communicated than is said
The study of the expression of
relative distance
Pragmatics is: the study of speaker meaning.
Þ It is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated
by speaker and interpreted by listener.
Pragmatics is: the study of contextual meaning.
Þ It involves interpretation of what people mean in a
particular context and how the context influences
what is said.
Ex: Class starts at 7am. She just arrived at 8
am. She asked the teacher's permission to join the
class. The teacher said:
- Why do you go to school so early?
Pragmatics is: the study of how more gets
communicated than is said.
Þ This type of study explores how great deal of
what is unsaid is recognized as part of what is
communicated.
Ex: A guy holds his girlfriend's hand, look at her
eyes and says:
- When I'm with you, you make me think of a beautiful
house with kids.
Pragmatics is: the study of the expression of
relative distance.
Þ On the assumption of how close and distant the
listener is speakers determine how much needs to
be said.
Ex: When your teacher unfortunately gives the
wrong answer. A student ask the teacher:
- Excuse me, there are some things make me confused,
the answer in the book is slightly different from the
answer on the board.
2. SYNTAX,
SEMANTICS
&
PRAGMATICS
Nguyễn Thị Hà
SYNTAX:
- The study of Sentence structure.
- Relationship between: Linguistic forms.
SEMANTICS:
- The study of Meaning in sentence.
Relationship between:
Verbal description
Linguistics
and state of affairs
forms and
scription and state
entities
of affairs
PRAGMATICS:
- The study of Speaker meaning.
Relationship between:
Linguistics The users of those
forms forms
ADVANTAGE & DISADVANTAGE
* Advantages:
- People’s intended meanings.
- assumption, purpose or goal....
* Disadvantage: difficult to analyze.
For example:
A: So – Did you ?
B: Hey – Who wouldn’t ?
Pragmatics is
appealing
Distinguish Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics
- Theoretically, Syntax analysis determines whether or not
an instance of the language is “well-formed” and analyzes its
grammatical structure.
- Semantic analysis its meaning and whether or not it
“make sense”.
- Basically, Syntax analysis may depend on the type of
words, but not their meaning. In this three part distinction, only
Pragmatics allows humans into the analysis.
In summary:
- Syntax is about grammatical
structure and rules.
- Semantics is about meaning.
- Pragmatics is about using
language in real contexts and social
interactions.
3. REGULARITY
Nguyễn Thu Phương
Luckily, people tend to behave in fairly regular
ways when it comes to using language. Some of that
regularity derives from the fact that people are
members of social groups and follow general pattern
of behavior expected with in group.
Within a familiar social group, we normally
find it easy to be polite and say appropriate things.
18
In a new, unfamiliar social setting, we are
often unsure about what to say worry that we might
say the wrong thing.
Ex: In Saudi Arabia questions about one's
health should not be answered with details, instead a
phrase "Praise a God" is pragmatically appropriate.
19
Another source of regularity in language
use derives from the fact that most people
within a linguistic community have similar
basic experiences of the world and share a lot of
non-linguistic knowledge.
Ex1: I found an old bicycle lying on the
ground. The chain was rusted and the tires were
flat.
There is no need to ask why chain and tires are
mentioned. (Knowledge about “bicycle”).
21
Ex2: I found an old bicycle. A bicycle has a
chain. The chain was rusted. A bicycle also has tires.
The tires were flat.
You would perhaps think that more was being
communicated than was being said and that you
were being treated as someone with no basic
knowledge. Once again, nothing in the use of the
linguistic forms is inaccurate, but getting the
pragmatics wrong might be offensive.
22
The types of regularities just described
are extremely simple examples of language in use
which are largely ignored by most linguistic
analyses. To understand why it has become the
province of pragmatics to investigate these, and
many other, aspects of ordinary language in use, we
need to take a brief historical look at how things got
to be the way they are.
23
4. THE
PRAGMATICS
WASTEBASKET
Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai
- For a long period of time, there has been a very
strong interest in formal system of language analysis
based on logic and mathematics.
- The emphasis has been on discovering some of
the abstract principles that lie at the very core of
language.
- Universal features of language was in focus.
25
- Linguists tended to push any notes they had on
everyday language use to the edges.
- Many of those notes ended up in the
wastebasket.
- That overflowing wastebasket has become the
source of much of what is discussed in Pragmatics.
26
- The contents of that wastebasket were not
originally organized under a single category.
- They were defined as the stuff that wasn't easily
handled within the formal analysis.
27
Ex1: (1)The duck ran up to Mary and licked her.
- A syntactic approach to this sentence would be
concerned with the rules that determine the correct
structure and exclude any incorrect structure.
- From the syntactic point of view such a
sentence is grammatically correct.
28
- The duck ran up to Mary and licked her.
- The bottle of ketchup ran up to Mary.
- Both sentences are grammatically correct.
- Semantically, the first sentence is okay as the word
“duck” is an animate while “a bottle of ketchup” is
non-animate and the verb “ran up to” requires an
animate subject.
29
- Semantics is also concerned with the truth -
conditions of propositions expressed in sentences.
+ “The duck ran up to Mary” is p.
+ “The duck licked Mary” is q.
“The duck ran up to Mary and licked her.” is p and
q = r.
- If p is true & q is true, then p & q is true.
- If either p or q is not true, then p & q is false.
30
(2) The duck licked Mary and ran up to her.
- In the everyday world of language use, this state
of affairs described in (2) is not identical to the original
situation described in (1).
- There is a sequence of two events being
described and we expect that sequence, in terms of
occurrence, to be reflected in the order of mention.
31
- If p involves some action and q involves another
action, we have an overwhelming tendency to interpret
the conjunction “and”, not as logical “and”, but as the
sequential expression “and then”.
32
Interpret order of mention as a reflection of order
of occurrence.
- It is a pragmatic principle which we frequently use to
make sense of what we hear and read, but which we can
ignore if it doesn't apply in some situations.
33
Thanks for
your attention!
34
