Pragmatics

by abdo Wed Apr 06, 2011 2:27 pm

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a
subfield of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics
encompasses [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] theory,
conversational [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and other approaches to
language behavior in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} It
studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the linguistic
knowledge (e.g. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] etc.) of the speaker
and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, knowledge about the
status of those involved, the inferred [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] of the
speaker, and so on.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} In
this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to overcome
apparent [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], since
meaning relies on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic
competence. So an utterance describing pragmatic function is described as [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
Pragmatic awareness is regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of
language learning, and comes only through [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].^{[[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]]}

Structural ambiguity

The sentence "You have a
green light" is ambiguous. Without knowing the context, the identity of
the speaker, and their intent, it is not possible to infer the meaning with
confidence. For example:

It
could mean you have green ambient lighting.
Or
that you have a green light to drive your car.
Or
it could be indicating that you can go ahead with the project.
Or
that your body has a green glow.

Similarly, the sentence
"Sherlock saw the man with binoculars" could mean that Sherlock
observed the man by using binoculars; or it could mean that Sherlock observed a
man who was holding binoculars.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]} The
meaning of the sentence depends on an understanding of the context and the
speaker's intent. As defined in linguistics, a sentence is an abstract entity —
a string of words divorced from non-linguistic context — as opposed to an [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], which is a
concrete example of a speech act in a specific context. The closer conscious
subjects stick to common words, idioms, phrasings, and topics, the more easily
others can surmise their meaning; the further they stray from common
expressions and topics, the wider the variations in interpretations. This
suggests that sentences do not have meaning intrinsically; there is not a
meaning associated with a sentence or word, they can only symbolically
represent an idea. The cat sat on the mat is a sentence of English; if
you say to your sister on Tuesday afternoon: "The cat sat on the
mat", this is an example of an utterance. Thus, there is no such thing as
a sentence, term, expression or word symbolically representing a single true
meaning; it is underspecified (which cat sat on which mat?) and potentially
ambiguous. The meaning of an utterance, on the other hand, is inferred based on
linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the non-linguistic context of the
utterance (which may or may not be sufficient to resolve ambiguity). In
mathematics with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] there arose a systematic ambiguity
with the word "definable". The ambiguity with words shows that the
descriptive power of any human language is limited.

Origins

Pragmatics was a reaction to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
linguistics as outlined by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
In many cases, it expanded upon his idea that language has an analyzable
structure, composed of parts that can be defined in relation to others.
Pragmatics first engaged only in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] study, as opposed to
examining the historical development of language. However, it rejected the
notion that all meaning comes from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] existing purely in the abstract space of langue.
Meanwhile, historical
pragmatics has also come into being.

Areas of interest

The
study of the speaker's meaning, not focusing on the phonetic or
grammatical form of an utterance, but instead on what the speaker's
intentions and beliefs are.

The
study of the meaning in context, and the influence that a given context
can have on the message. It requires knowledge of the speaker's
identities, and the place and time of the utterance.

The
study of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], i.e. the things that are communicated
even though they are not explicitly expressed.

The
study of relative distance, both social and physical, between speakers in
order to understand what determines the choice of what is said and what is
not said.

The
study of what is not meant, as opposed to the intended meaning, i.e. that
which is unsaid and unintended, or unintentional.

Information
Structure, the study of how utterances are marked in order to
efficiently manage the common ground of referred entities between speaker
and hearer

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], the study of those
aspects of meaning and use, for which context of use is an important
factor, by using the methods and goals of formal semantics.

Referential uses of language

This
section does not [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] any [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
Please help [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] by adding
citations to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Unsourced material may be [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
(April 2009)

When we speak of the
referential uses of language we are talking about how we use [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to refer to certain items. Below is an
explanation of, first, what a sign is, second, how meanings are accomplished
through its usage.

A sign is the link or relationship between a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] as defined by Saussure
and Huguenin. The signified is some entity or concept in the world. The
signifier represents the signified. An example would be:
Signified: the concept cat
Signifier: the word "cat"
The relationship between the two gives the sign meaning. This relationship can
be further explained by considering what we mean by "meaning." In
pragmatics, there are two different types of meaning to consider: semantico-referential
meaning and indexical meaning. Semantico-referential meaning refers
to the aspect of meaning, which describes events in the world that are
independent of the circumstance they are uttered in. An example would be
propositions such as:

"Santa Claus eats cookies."

In this case, the proposition
is describing that Santa Claus eats cookies. The meaning of this proposition
does not rely on whether or not Santa Claus is eating cookies at the time of
its utterance. Santa Claus could be eating cookies at any time and the meaning
of the proposition would remain the same. The meaning is simply describing
something that is the case in the world. In contrast, the proposition,
"Santa Claus is eating a cookie right now," describes events that are
happening at the time the proposition is uttered.

Semantico-referential meaning
is also present in meta-semantical statements such as:

Tiger: omnivorous, a mammal

If someone were to say that a tiger is an omnivorous animal in one context and
a mammal in another, the definition of tiger would still be the same. The
meaning of the sign tiger is describing some animal in the world, which does
not change in either circumstance.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
meaning, on the other hand, is dependent on the context of the utterance and
has rules of use. By rules of use, it is meant that indexicals can tell you
when they are used, but not what they actually mean.

Example: "I"

Whom "I" refers to
depends on the context and the person uttering it.

As mentioned, these meanings
are brought about through the relationship between the signified and the
signifier. One way to define the relationship is by placing signs in two
categories: referential indexical signs, also called "shifters,"
and pure indexical signs.

Referential indexical signs are signs where the meaning shifts depending on the
context hence the nickname "shifters." 'I' would be considered a
referential indexical sign. The referential aspect of its meaning would be '1st
person singular' while the indexical aspect would be the person who is speaking
(refer above for definitions of semantico-referential and indexical meaning).
Another example would be:

"This"
Referential: singular count
Indexical: Close by

A pure indexical sign does
not contribute to the meaning of the propositions at all. It is an example of a
""non-referential use of language.""

A second way to define the signified and signifier relationship is [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]'s Peircean Trichotomy.
The components of the trichotomy are the following:

1. Icon: the signified
resembles the signifier (signified: a dog's barking noise, signifier: bow-wow)
2. Index: the signified and signifier are linked by proximity or the
signifier has meaning only because it is pointing to the signified
3. Symbol: the signified and signifier are arbitrarily linked
(signified: a cat, signifier: the word cat)

These relationships allow us to use signs to convey what we want to say. If two
people were in a room and one of them wanted to refer to a characteristic of a
chair in the room he would say "this chair has four legs" instead of
"a chair has four legs." The former relies on context (indexical and
referential meaning) by referring to a chair specifically in the room at that
moment while the latter is independent of the context (semantico-referential
meaning), meaning the concept chair.

Non-referential uses of language

Silverstein's "pure" indexes

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
has argued that "nonreferential" or "pure" indexes do not
contribute to an utterance's referential meaning but instead "signal some
particular value of one or more contextual variables."^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
Although nonreferential indexes are devoid of semantico-referential meaning,
they do encode "pragmatic" meaning.

The sorts of contexts that
such indexes can mark are varied. Examples include:

Sex
indexes are affixes or inflections that index the sex of the speaker,
e.g. the verb forms of female [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] speakers take the suffix
"-s".
Deference
indexes are words that signal social differences (usually related to
status or age) between the speaker and the addressee. The most common
example of a deference index is the V form in a language with a T-V
distinction, the widespread phenomenon in which there are multiple
second-person pronouns that correspond to the addressee's relative status
or familiarity to the speaker. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
are another common form of deference index and demonstrate the speaker's
respect or esteem for the addressee via special forms of address and/or
self-humbling first-person pronouns.
An
Affinal taboo index is an example of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and produces and reinforces sociological distance, as seen in the
Aboriginal Dyirbal
language of Australia.
In this language and some others, there is a social taboo against the use
of the everyday lexicon in the presence of certain relatives
(mother-in-law, child-in-law, paternal aunt's child, and maternal uncle's
child). If any of those relatives are present, a Dyirbal speaker has to
switch to a completely separate lexicon reserved for that purpose.

In all of these cases, the
semantico-referential meaning of the utterances is unchanged from that of the
other possible (but often impermissible) forms, but the pragmatic meaning is
vastly different.

The performative

Main articles: Performative
utterance, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
introduced the concept of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], contrasted in his writing with
"constative" (i.e. descriptive) utterances. According to Austin's original
formulation, a performative is a type of utterance characterized by two
distinctive features:

It
is not [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (i.e. it is neither true nor
false)
Its
uttering performs an action rather than simply describing one

However, a performative
utterance must also conform to a set of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Examples:

"I
hereby pronounce you man and wife."
"I
accept your apology."
"This
meeting is now adjourned."

Jakobson's six functions of language

Main
article: Jakobson's
functions of language

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The
six factors of an effective verbal communication. To each one corresponds a
communication function (not displayed in this picture).^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
expanding on the work of Karl
Bühler, described six "constitutive factors" of a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
each of which represents the privileging of a corresponding function, and only
one of which is the referential (which corresponds to the context of the
speech event). The six constitutive factors and their corresponding functions
are diagrammed below.

The six constitutive
factors of a speech event

Context

Message

Addresser---------------------Addressee

Contact

Code

The six functions of language

Referential

Poetic

Emotive-----------------------Conative

Phatic

Metalingual

The
Referential Function corresponds to the factor of Context and describes a
situation, object or mental state. The descriptive statements of the
referential function can consist of both definite descriptions and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] words,
e.g. "The autumn leaves have all fallen now."
The
Expressive (alternatively called "emotive" or
"affective") Function relates to the Addresser and is best
exemplified by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and other sound changes that do not
alter the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] of an utterance but do add
information about the Addresser's (speaker's) internal state, e.g.
"Wow, what a view!"
The
Conative Function engages the Addressee directly and is best illustrated
by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], e.g. "Tom! Come inside and
eat!"
The
Poetic Function focuses on "the message for its own sake"^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}
and is the operative function in poetry as well as slogans.
The
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Function is
language for the sake of interaction and is therefore associated with the
Contact factor. The Phatic Function can be observed in greetings and
casual discussions of the weather, particularly with strangers.
The
Metalingual (alternatively called "metalinguistic" or
"reflexive") Function is the use of language (what Jakobson
calls "Code") to discuss or describe itself.

Related fields

There is considerable overlap
between pragmatics and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
since both share an interest in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] as determined by usage in a
speech community. However, sociolinguists tend to be more interested in
variations in language within such communities.

Pragmatics helps
anthropologists relate elements of language to broader social phenomena; it
thus pervades the field of linguistic
anthropology. Because pragmatics describes generally the forces in play for
a given utterance, it includes the study of power, gender, race, identity, and
their interactions with individual speech acts. For example, the study of code
switching directly relates to pragmatics, since a switch in code effects a
shift in pragmatic force.^{[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]}

According to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
pragmatics tries to understand the relationship between signs and their users,
while [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] tends to
focus on the actual objects or ideas to which a word refers, and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (or
"syntactics") examines relationships among signs or symbols.
Semantics is the literal meaning of an idea whereas pragmatics is the implied
meaning of the given idea.

Speech Act
Theory, pioneered by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and further developed by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], centers around
the idea of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], a type of utterance that performs the very
action it describes. Speech Act Theory's examination of Illocutionary
Acts has many of the same goals as pragmatics, as outlined [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Pragmatics in philosophy

Pragmatics (more
specifically, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] notion of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.])
underpins [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] theory of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].
In [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
she claims that gender and sex are not natural categories, but socially
constructed roles produced by "reiterative acting."

In [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] she extends her theory of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], arguing that
censorship necessarily strengthens any discourse it tries to suppress and therefore,
since the state has sole power to define hate speech legally, it is the state
that makes hate speech performative.

Jaques
Derrida remarked that some work done under Pragmatics aligned well with the
program he outlined in his book [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
argued that the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
"I" and "you" are fundamentally distinct from other
pronouns because of their role in creating the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
discuss linguistic pragmatics in the fourth chapter of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
("November 20, 1923--Postulates of Linguistics"). They draw three
conclusions from Austin:
(1) A performative
utterance does not communicate information about an act second-hand—it is
the act; (2) Every aspect of language ("semantics, syntactics, or even
phonematics") functionally interacts with pragmatics; (3) There is no
distinction between language and speech. This last conclusion attempts to
refute [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] division between langue
and parole and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] distinction between surface
structure and deep
structure simultaneous