Pragmatics

Introduction to English Linguistics

Dr. Jonas Freiwald

 Set reading

◼ McGregor (2009), chapter 7

→ Reader

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 Semantics (continued)

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 Structural semantics

◼ Why ‘structural’?
◼ Concepts of structural semantics
→ Sense relations
→ Semantic fields
→ Componential analysis (or: feature analysis, semantic
decomposition)

→ All of these concepts aim at describing and

explaining the systematic relationship between
lexemes (lexical words), thus their semantic structure

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 Semantic/lexical fields

◼ Words do not exist in isolation but cluster with other

words related in meaning
◼ The words inside the same semantic field share a
common semantic property
→ Example: Lexemes related to cooking: steam, boil, fry, bake
◼ Semantic space may be divided differently in
different languages
→ e.g. body parts in German & English

German English
Hals
neck
Nacken

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6
 Pragmatics

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 Spoken
Syntax
discourse
Seman- Text
tics

Morphol-
Linguistic ogy
Prag- units
matics Meaning in
language
and context

Phonetics
History Linguistics
of
English
Socio- Theoretical
linguistic Contras-
and cross-
perspectives tive
linguistic
linguistics
perspectives

Language
change Social
variation General
concepts
 Learning outcomes

◼ Understand the effect of context on the meaning of

language

◼ Get an idea of how language users ‘bend’ language

to achieve a certain effect in the hearer

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 Definition Pragmatics

“Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in

social interaction and the effects of our choice on others. In theory
we can say anything we like. In practice, we follow a large number of
social rules (most of them unconsciously) that constrain the way we
speak.” (Crystal 1997:120)

It is concerned with
➔ The relation between language and its users
➔ The relation between participants in communication
➔ The relation between utterances to their situational and
communicative context

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Semantics vs. Pragmatics

◼ Both semantics and pragmatics are concerned with

meaning
◼ Semantics is concerned with the meaning of words and
sentences based on their literal, de-contextualized sense
◼ Pragmatics is concerned with the meaning or rather use
of utterances

◼ Sentence vs. Utterance

→ A sentence is a string of words that is combined on the basis
of syntactic rules
→ A sentence is not tied to any particular person, time, event or
place, which is why it lacks context
→ An utterance is a speech event that takes place at a certain
time and place involving certain (groups of) people
→ The basis of the utterance is the sentence but only by it being
embedded in a particular context does it gain an actual
purpose/use
Sentence vs. Utterance

There’s a piece of fish on the table.

Complaint: Please clear the table.

Warning: Don’t let the cat in the kitchen.
Offer: Take some if you like.

◼ Semantic meaning of the sentence clear

◼ Meaning of the utterance unclear and only
identifiable by considering the context

→ Speech Acts
 Speech act theory

◼ Speech act theory, developed by John L. Austin,

analyses the role of utterances in relation to the
behaviour of speaker and hearer in interpersonal
communication

◼ Three aspects of a speech act

→ locutionary act: act of saying something (what is the literal,
semantic meaning of the sentence)
→ illocutionary act: act performed in saying something
(what is the function of the utterance)
→ perlocutionary act: act performed by saying something
(how does the hearer react)

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 Speech act theory: Example

There is a piece of fish on the table.

→ Locutionary Act: The speaker states that a piece of fish is

positioned on the table.
→ Illocutionary Act: Request that the waiter removes it.
→ Perlocutionary Act: The waiter takes it away/is
annoyed/ignores the guest.

◼ Illocutionary act is the most important aspect of a

speech act, which is why the terms speech act and
illocutionary act are often used synonymously

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Further development of speech act theory

◼ John Searle, Austin’s pupil, further elaborated the

concept of illocutionary act
→ Five types of illocutionary acts
→ Felicity conditions
Searle’s illocutionary acts 1

◼ Assertives: a statement (with truth claim) is made.

→ Today will be mostly dry and sunny. (in the weather report)
→ The capital of the USA is Washington. (in a geography book)

◼ Commissives: the speaker commits him / herself to future

action.
→ I’ll drive the children to school tomorrow. (father to mother)
→ I promise to pay you the money. (to a blackmailer)

◼ Directives: the speaker tries to tell the hearer to do something.

→ Passengers are kindly requested to proceed to Gate 15. (in an
airport)
→ I order you to blow up this bridge. (in the army)
Searle’s illocutionary acts 2

◼ Expressives: the speaker’s attitude towards a situation

(congratulating, condoling, thanking etc.) is expressed.
→ I love meatloaf. (at a dinner with friends)
→ Sorry for stepping on your toe. (on a crowded bus)

◼ Declarations: the state they describe (baptising, naming,

appointing etc.) is induced by the very act of making the
declaration.
→ I pass. (in a card game)
→ I now pronounce you husband and wife. (in a wedding ceremony)
 Pick the right speech act/illocutionary act

There is a piece of fish on the table.

◼ Locutionary Act: The speaker states that a piece of

fish is positioned on the table.
◼ Illocutionary Act: Request that the waiter removes it.
◼ Perlocutionary Act: The waiter takes it away/is
annoyed/ignores the guest.

→ Assertive
→ Commissive
→ Directive
→ Expressive
→ Declaration

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Felicity conditions

Conditions that a speech act needs to be successful (=

felicitous)

Example: A bet

In order for a bet to be successful (felicitous), certain

conditions need to be met first:

◼ Speaker and hearer need to be of different opinions

◼ Speaker and hearer need to be reasonably confident
that their opinion is correct
◼ They need to agree beforehand what the wager is
◼ etc.
 Indirect speech Acts

A: Could you tell me the time?

B: Yes, I could.
B: It’s 7:30. 

◼ Indirect speech acts are such speech acts where the

locutionary act does not match the conventional
structure of the intended illocutionary act
◼ A’s question looks like a yes-no question
→ That would be the direct speech act
→ However, it is highly conventionalised as an indirect speech
act politely inquiring about the time

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 Speaker’s maxims

◼ Grice (1975): Framework for describing rules of

communication in a given situation
◼ Basic idea: communication is cooperative →
cooperative principle

→ Make the “conversational contribution such as is required,

at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange.” (Grice 1975: 45)

◼ According to Grice we follow this principle by

adhering to so called conversational maxims

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Conversational maxims

◼ Quantity
→ Make your contribution as informative as is required for the
current purposes of the exchange.
→ Do not make your contribution more informative as
required.
◼ Quality
→ Make your contribution one that is true. Do not say what
you believe to be false.
→ Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
◼ Relation/relevance
→ Be relevant. Do not change the subject.
◼ Manner
→ Be perspicuous (=clear). Avoid obscurity of expression,
avoid ambiguity, be brief and orderly.
Conversational implicatures

◼ If a maxim is violated (‘flouted’), speakers search for additional

information to make sense of the missing/wrong/irrelevant
information
→ They apply conversational implicatures

A: Can you tell me the time?

B: Well, the news are already over.

◼ Speakers bridge the gap by interpreting the answer as a

cooperative attempt
◼ Since A knows the time at which the news programme usually
starts, s/he will interpret B‘s answer accordingly
Scalar implicatures

◼ Generalised, or scalar, implicatures draw on general

knowledge
Many of the students got full points on the first
homework.
Many of the people at the party were men.

◼ Hearer assumes that the utterance is the strongest

possible statement in a given context
→ Given a scale of all > most > many > some > none
→ In both cases many refers to something between all and
none and is probably less than most and more than some
→ What percentage exactly depends entirely on the context
Expansion of Grice’s theory: The politeness
principle

Why do we use indirect speech acts so frequently and why do

we violate against Grice’s maxims?

◼ Geoffrey Leech (1983):

→ Politeness principle: “Be polite, make the addressee feel good”
→ Addition of six politeness maxims: tact, generosity,
approbation, modesty, agreement, and sympathy

◼ Politeness in linguistics doesn’t necessarily mean what we

usually refer to as polite in everyday conversations
◼ Being polite is a different way of saying behaving
appropriately in a given situation
 Leech’s politeness maxims

Maxim
Tact Minimise cost to other Maximise benefit to other
Generosity Minimise benefit to self Maximise cost to self
Approbation Minimise dispraise of others Maximise praise of other
Modesty Minimise praise of self Maximise dispraise of self
Agreement Minimise disagreement between Maximise agreement between
self and other self and other
Sympathy Minimise antipathy between self Maximise sympathy between self
and other and other
Combined tact and generosity maxims:
Cost-benefit Ratio

Tact Minimise cost to other Maximise benefit to other

Generosity Minimise benefit to self Maximise cost to self

1. Peel these potatoes. less

Cost
polite
2. Hand me the newspaper.
3. Sit down.
4. Look at that.
5. Enjoy your holiday.
6. Have another sandwich.
Benefit more
polite
 The concept of face according to Brown and
Levinson (1987)

◼ The image you have of yourself and the image you

want others to have of you
◼ Positive face
→ Our desire to be liked, to belong, to connect with others
→ Human desire for closeness
◼ Negative face
→ Our desire to be free, to be independent, to be left alone
→ Human desire for distance

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 Positive and negative politeness
◼ Negative politeness
→ increases the social distance
→ allows independence and freedom
→ often established through formal language
→ saves the negative face but may threaten the positive face
→ DOES NOT MEAN IMPOLITE!
» Excuse me, Ma’am, would you need any assistance today? (In a
formal department store)

◼ Positive politeness
→ lowers the social distance
→ shows solidarity
→ often established through informal language
→ saves the positive face but may threaten the negative face
» Hey, pal, how’s it going? Same as usual, brother? (In an informal
restaurant)

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 Face-threatening Acts: Personal experience

I. Threatening the positive face

Two young adults of almost the same age

“Excuse me, sir. Could you give me the directions to the camping
site, please?”

II. Threatening the negative face

An adult in their 40s and a young adult

“Yo, homie! What’s up?!”

◼ Whenever you address someone, you have to weigh up

whether the hearer wants you to create closeness
(positive politeness) or distance (negative politeness)
◼ If you misinterpret the situation, you run the risk of
threatening face
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Deixis

◼ Elements that lack lexical meaning and are

dependent on context to be meaningful

They went there yesterday.

◼ Impossible to replace the elements marked in red by

lexical items without knowledge of the concrete
situation
→ How many are “they”?
→ In which country is “there”?
→ When is “today” in relation to which there is a “yesterday”?
Deixis

Below, we will show how this works.

◼ Perspective from which the utterance is made is important

→ If there is a “below”, where is “here”?
→ “this” is near, but in relation to what?
→ Deictic centre: central point of reference for context-
dependent meaning
→ When you make a statement, you always make from your
point of reference
→ Example: When you say I, you refer to yourself because your
point of reference is you
→ Example: If you say over there, you refer to a place that is not
where you are, because your point of reference is where you
are standing
◼ As soon as the speaker changes, the deictic centre and
consequently the interpretation change as well
 Take home message

◼ Speakers exploit all kinds of possibilities to express

more meaning than what they actually say

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 Next session

◼ Textlinguistics

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