Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of how language is used to communicate. It

concern it self with how people use language within a context and they use
language in particular ways.
Context can be divided into four sub parts.
1. Psycal context, that is where the conversation take place what
objects are present, and actiors taking place.
2. Epistemic context, bacground knowledge shared by the
speakers and hearers.
3. a linguistic context, utterance previous to the utterance under
consideration
4. Sosial context, the sosial relation ship and setting of the
speakers and hearers.
Pragmatics is distinct from grammar, which the study on the internal
structure of language. Grammar is generally devided into a number of
particular areas of study, semantics syntax, morphology and phonology.
Keeping in mind this dintriction between pragmatics (language used) and
grammar (language structure).

3.1 Performatives
In 1955, the British philosopher John L. Austin deleveral the William
James Lectures at Harvard. (These lectures were published in 1962 A5
how to do things with words). Austin’s fundamental insight what than an
utterance can constitu and act. (Before austin, Philosophers held that
sentence I have four toes on my right foot. I’m simply saying something
about my foot. However uttering the sentence in (b) consitutes more than
just saying something. The constitudes doing something as well.
(61) I promise I’II be there on time.
(6b) I apologize for the way I acted.
(6c) I name this “The Good Ship Lollipop.”
(6d) I give and bequeath to John Lones all my earthly possessions.
(6e) I bet you $ 100 that it’ll rain before 6:00 p.m
(6f) I now pronounce you man and wife
 Not that, if said under the right circumstance, each of the sentence in
(6a-f) constitutes the perfomance of an act; (6a) constitute an act of
promising; (6b) an act of apologizing; (6c) an act of naming; (6d) an act of
giving; (6e) an act of betting ; and (6f) an act of marrying. Consequently,
the verb in such sentence are knowns as perfomatives. For example,
consider sentence (7a-c).
(7a) I promise that I won’t be late
(7b) I promise that I wouldn’t be late (past tense)
(7c) John promises that he won’t be late. (Third person subject).
Uttering (7a) constitutes perfoming an action (i.e making a promise).
On the other hand, uttering (7b) or (7c) constitutes saying something; (7b)
reports a past promise, and (7c) reports someone else’s promise. Therefore,
although (7a-c) all contain the same verb, only (7a) contains a perfomative.

3.2 Felicity Conditions

Austin further noted that a number of other conditions had to be met
if uttering a performative is to constitute a valid acet. These felicity
conditions fall into three categories.
The Persons and Circumstances Must Be Appropriate. For example,
an eight year old child cannot perfom a valid act of marrying by saying I
how pronounce you man and wife (even if the bride and groom are eligible
to be married). Like wise, no clergryman or ship’s captain can, two males,
or two children. Similarly, an umpire at a baseball game can cause a player
to be out by uttering you’re’; an excited fan in the bleachers, however,
cannot. In all of these, either the persons or circumstances are
inappropriate. Hence, the speech acts in question are infelicitous.
The Act Must Be Executed Completely and Corectly by All
Participants. For example, if a policeman says to a suspect I arrest you in
the name of the law, but fails to read the suspect his rights, then the act of
arresting is no valid.
The Participanst Must Have the Appropriate Intentions. For
example suppose that Smtih and Jones are competing for the same job and
Jones, however, secretly hopes that Smith will develop beri-beri and
unable to perform the job. in this case, the act of congratulating is not
valid.
 Here some fasility conditions on the acts of questioning and
requesting ( where “S” stands for the speaker, “H” for the hearer, “P” for
some state of affairs, and “A” for some actions).

3.3 Speech acts

Searle developed and extended Austins ideas by assuming that all not
just those containing formative verbs,conctitute acts. For example,consider
the utterances in.
a. I’m sorry for stepping on your toe.
b. Big Bob said he was sorry for stepping on your toe.
Searle claims that both utterance under apropriate circum standances
constitues an act of apologizing and constitutes an act of stating. Thus,
since under this theory every utterance of speech constitutes some sort of
act, we have inherited the term speech act.

3.4 Locutionary, Illucutionary and Perlocutionary Acts.

Locutionary Acts. This is the act of simply uttering a sentence from a
language; it is a description of what the speaker says. For instance, if I
say My Watch is broken, the refering expression is is broken.
IIIucutionary Acts. This is what the speaker intends to do by uttering
a sentence. Illucutionary acts would include stating, promising,
apologizing, threatening, predicting, ordering, and requesting. For example
if a mother says to her child Take your feet of the table, the illlucutionary
act is one of ordering.
Perlocutionary Act. This is the effect on the hearer of what the
speaker says. Perlocutionary acts would include such effect as persuading,
embrassing, intimidating, boring, irritating, or inspiring the hearer. For
example, if a husband says to his wife ten times in five minutes hurry up,
we’re going to be late for the party, the illucutionary act might be one of
urging but the perlocutionary act is likely to be one of irritating.
3.5 Direct and Indirect Speech Acts.
Direch Acts. In general, the syntactic form of an utterance reflects the
direct illocutionary act.
For example :
SYNTACTIC DIRECT
Utterance Form Illocutionary Act
9a The earth is round Declarative Stating
 9b What time is it ? Interrogative Asking
9c Get off my foot Imperative Ordering or requesting

In each of these examples, the syntactic form of utterance matches

the direct illocutionary act. In 9a a declarative form is used to make a
statement; in (9b) an interrogative form is used to ask a question; and in
(9c) an imperative form is used to give an order or make a request. Thus,
the direct speech act (or direct illocutionary act) is the one that matches the
syntactic form of the utterance.
Indirect Speech Acts. In general, the syntactic form of an utterance
does not reflect any any indirect illocutionary act is to respond to the direct
illocutionary act. If the respons seems inappropriate, then the utterance is
probably being used to perform an indirect illocutionary act. For example,
suppose you are in a dinner, sitting at the counter; the salt shaker is out of
reach, so you turn to a stranger sitting next to you ans say Can you past the
salt? He says Yes but, rather than passing the salt, turn back to his lunch.
So far, we have discussed direct speech acts which can be
perfomance by making a direct literal utterance. Direct speech acts can
also be performed by usng performative verb that names the speech act. In
to make indirect speech acts. Consider the following speech acts question
and request.
Questions
1. Direct
a. Did john marry Mary ?
b. I ask you whether or not John married Mary.
2. Indirect
a. I don’t know if John married Mary. (A.1)
b. I would like to know if John married Mary. (A.2)
c. Do you know if John married Mary. (A.2)
Requests
1. Direct
a. Please take out the garbage
b. I request you to make out the garbage.
2. Indirect
a. The garbage isn’t out yet. (B1)
b. Could you take out the garbage? (B.2)
c. Would you mind taking out the garbage? (B.3)
d. I would like for you to take out the garbage (B.4)
There is something up front about the C.1 question and the the D.1.
requests. Sentence C.1a. taken literally is a request for information about
John’ s marrying Mary. The same is true of C.1.b. Notice however, that
C.2.a taken literally is not a question at all. It is an assertion about the
speaker’s knowledge. C.2.b is also an asertion. C.2.c, in contrast, is a
question, but a question which literally asks whether the hearer knows
something. (We sometimes say things “it literally scared me to death”, but
this not, of course, a literal use of the word literal).
As the notes given in connection with the sentences C.2 and D.2
suggest, indirect speech acts enjoy a very close connection with the felicity
conditions on speech act indirectly. Indeed, it can be argued that to perfom
a particular speech act indirectly, one need only formulate a question,
assertion, or request or order that evokes a felicity conditions concerns if it
concerns the best interest if the hearer, an asserdon or request or order used
it. If it concerns the best interest of the hearer, a question is used. So
instead of assuming that felicity condition B.3. on request holds, the
speaker might ask if it does, as in “Would you mind taking me to work?”,
by way of making a polite request. This type of knowledge makes it easy
to create indirect speech acts. As has been stated toindtify an indirect
speech act, it helps to first consider whether an utterance is a direct speech
act since the direct ones are easier to recognize. If is not direct, then it must
be indirect. From there, we can consider the context in which such an
utterance would be made and the necessary felicity condition for that
utterance.

3.6 Literal and Nonliteral Speech Acts

For example, if I eat eight jelly donuts and then announce I feel just
awful, I mean exatcly what I say. Thus, this utterance constitutes a literal
apeech act. On the other hand, imagine a student in a physics class who
doest not know a photon from a firepling. As he begins the midterm exam,
he turns to his friend and says I just love taking physics rests. He does not
mean what he says. This utterance then, would constitute a nonliteral
speech act.
3.7 Interaction of Direct-Indirect and Literal-Nonliteral Speech Acts
We have seen that speech acts can very a long two dimensions;
directness and literalness. The fact that each of these dimensions has two
values means that we thatwe should be able to identify four different types
of speech acts: literal and direct, nonliteral and direct, literal and indirect,
and nonliteral and indirect.
Literal and Direct. Suppose you are haveng a physical examination
and the doctor says Stick out you tongue. It is literal because the doctor
means exactly what these wordssay(i.e., that doctor wants you stick out
your tongue). It is direct becauses an imperative structure is being used to
perfom a direct illocutionary act, namely making a request.
Nonliteral and Direct. Suppose Joe and Jack are leaving a four-hour
anatomy and physioloogy exam. Joe says to Jack That was the most
miserable test I’ve ever taken. Jack responds by saying You can say that
again. It is nonliteral because Jack does not mean exactly whathis word
say (i.e., he doest not want Joe to repeat his original statement). It is direct
because Jack is using a declartive structureto perfom a direct illocutionary
act namely making a statement (i.e,,. Something like I agree with you).

Literal and Indirect, imagine that you and a friend are seated at a
table in a restaurant. (i,,e. you would like some butter). It is indirect
because you are using a declarative structure to perfom a direct
illocutionary act of stating and a indirect illocutionary act of requesting.
Note that if your friend were to respond to the direct illocutionary force of
your utterance by simpply making a statement (e.g., and I’d like million
dollars). It would be inappropriate.
Nonliteral and Indirect. Suppose Mr. White is sitting in the waiting
room of a doctor’s office. A woman and her six year old daughter walk in
and sit down. After a few minutes the the little girl begins to run around the
waiting room, yelling at the top of her lungs. She then stops right in fron of
Mr. White and lets out her best war whoop. Mr. White says Why don’t you
yell a little louder? This is a nonliteral and indirect speech act.it is
nonliteral because Mr. White does not mean what his word say (i.e.. he
does not want her to yell louder). It is indirect because Mr. White is using
an interrogative structure to perform the indirect illocutionary act making a
request (i.e..that the little girl be quiet).
3.8 Implicature
In 1975 article entitled “logic and conversation” the philosopher Paul
Grice pointed out that an utterance can imply a proposition (i.e a statement
that is not part of the utterance and that does not follow as necessary
consequence of the utterance). Grice called such implied
statement implicatures. Consider the following example. John says ti his
wife Mary Uncle Chesteris coming over for dinner tonight, and Mary
responds with I quess I’d better lock up the liquor. An observer of this
interchange might draw the interence that Uncle Chester has a drinking
problem. Thus, in Grice’s term’s, we might say that Mary’s utterance raises
the implicature that Uncle Chester has a drinking problem.
It is important to make three points about this example of
implicature. First, the implicature (Uncle Chester has a drinking problem)
is noot part of Mary’s utterance. In entailment, if the first sentence is true
then the second one must be true, but not vice versa. Third, it is possible
for an utterance to raise more than one implicature, or to raise different
implictures if uttered in different contexts. For instanc, in the previous
example, Mary’s response quess I’d better lock up the liquor) might raise
the implicaturethat Uncle Chester is a teetorater and a prohibitionst. That
is, the mere sight of alcohol and its comsumption offends Uncle Chester,
so Mary is looking it up to keep it out of sight. Thus, in this respect,
implicatures are just like illocutionary acts; they both are heavily
dependent upon the context and the participants.
And other example of implicature John and Joe are friends of Bill,
but only passing acquaintances of each other bill moves away rather
suddenly. John later sees Joe on the street and says do you know where Bill
moved ? Joe responds with somewhere on the east coast. Joe’s respons
raises an implicature, namely that he doesn’t know the city or state that
Bill moved to.
Muffy says to Sissy How was your blind date late night? Sissy
responds with, well, he had on a nice pair of shoess. Sissy response raises
an implicature, nanely that the person she went out with was dull.
The dean says to the Chancellor Profesor Smith is sure he get
tenure. The Chancellor responds with. Yeah, and my pet turtle is sure it’LL
win the Kentucky Derby. The Chancellor’s response raises an implicature,
namely that Professor Smith is unlikely to get tenure.
Fach if these example illustrates the fact that utterances can imply
statements that are neither part of the utterances itself nor entailled by the
utterance; that is, utterances can raise implicatures. However we have not
yet constructed any hypotheses