Dr.

Manjet Kaur
Dr. Omer Mahfoodh
Meaning and discourse
1
We l e a d
Topics to be covered today
1. A standard definition of pragmatics
2. Discourse and pragmatics
3. Speech act theory
4. Politeness theory
2
We l e a d
Topic One
A standard definition of pragmatics
Cruse, D. Alan (2000). Meaning in language: An introduction to
semantics and pragmatics. Oxford: OUP.
3
We l e a d
Pragmatics can be taken to be concerned
with aspects of information (in the widest
sense) conveyed through language which
(a) are not encoded by generally accepted
convention in the linguistic form used, but
which (b) none the less arise naturally out
of and depend on the meanings
conventionally encoded in the linguistic
forms used, taken in conjunction with the
context in which the forms are used
(Cruse, 2000:16).
4
We l e a d
Based on this definition of pragmatics, the five important
words are
information,
encoded,
convention,
context and
used because each one of these words introduces into
this definition considerations that are properly
multidisciplinary in nature.

5
We l e a d
1. Information
Cruse intends this definition to be
inclusive of phenomena that have obvious
pragmatic component (e.g. reference) and
exclusive of phenomena that are
explained by some other, non-pragmatic
mechanism (e.g. Inferring from a
speakers slurred speech that he or she is
drunk).

6
We l e a d
2. Encoding
In linguistic encoding, a thought is converted into a
linguistic form that can then undergo communication.

This process of encoding only makes sense against a
wider communicative context in which there is a receiver
who can decode the communicated linguistic form.

Decoding itself is a complex process which is described
as a psycholinguistic activity that involves a number of
interrelated processes.
7
We l e a d
Some of these processes draw upon (to use someone or
something in some beneficial way) our knowledge of the
meanings of the words in order to obtain the semantic
meaning of the linguistic form.

It is often the case, that this semantic meaning is not the
meaning that the speaker intended to communicate
through producing a particular utterance.

Other processes that are inferential in nature are
required in order to obtain the intended meaning of the
speakers utterance.



8
We l e a d
3. Convention
Semantic meaning is a conventionalised form, as a part
of our learning of English we come to recognize the
words mean certain things by generally accepted
convention.

Semantic meaning can be contrasted with pragmatic
meaning, which is distinctly non-conventional in nature.

The implicature of utterance can only be obtained by
reasoning from the conjunction of an utterances
meaning and context.
9
We l e a d
4. Context
No definition of pragmatics would be complete in the
absence of some mention of context.
The notion of context extends beyond its obvious
manifestation as the physical setting within which an
utterance is produced to include linguistic, social and
epistemic factors.
How these various factors interrelate with language to
generate meaning is studied by range of disciplines.
Although the role of context in language meaning has
long been recognized, the contribution of contextual
factors to the process of argumentation has been
recently examined by pragmaticists.
10
We l e a d
5. Use
If ever there were a need to justify pragmatics as a
distinct branch of linguistic enquiry, no stronger
justification could be advanced than that provided by the
case of language disorder.
Clinical linguistic studies have repeatedly revealed
significant numbers of language-disordered patients for
whom structural levels of language are relatively intact
(impaired), but for whom a specific breakdown occurs in
the use of language.
The use of linguistic forms in a context should be
included in the standard definition of pragmatics.
11
We l e a d
To conclude our discussion of the standard definition of
pragmatics, the definition has been described as
standard on account of its inclusion of notions like
context and use, notions that are central to any
adequate definition of the subject.

What has emerged from the examination of this
definition is that it is virtually impossible to describe
what is involved in pragmatics without bringing
considerations of a multidisciplinary nature into that
definition.
12
We l e a d
13

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and
semiotics which studies the ways in which
context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics
encompasses speech act theory,
conversational implicature, talk in interaction
and other approaches to language behavior in
philosophy, sociology, linguistics and
anthropology.
We l e a d
Unlike semantics, which examines meaning
that is conventional or "coded" in a given
language, pragmatics studies how the
transmission of meaning depends not only on
structural and linguistic knowledge (e.g.,
grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and
listener, but also on the context of the
utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about
those involved, the inferred intent of the
speaker, and other factors.


14
We l e a d
In this respect, pragmatics explains how
language users are able to overcome apparent
ambiguity, since meaning relies on the
manner, place, time etc. of an utterance.
15
We l e a d
Topic Two
Pragmatics and discourse studies
16
We l e a d
Humans can communicate without using natural
language. Here, we are not talking about systems that
encode natural language, such as Morse code or sign
languages.

Rather we are talking about non-verbal communication
such as body language [kinematic or kinetic
communication] and dress code.

In body language, shrugging is stereotypically used in
Western culture to express dislikes, distain or indifference
and speaking with one's tongue in cheek is conventionally
used in Anglo-American culture to show insincerity or
mockery. 17
We l e a d
18
We l e a d
Another example is dress code. One can wear a tie to
honour another person's talk; one can wear a strong
perfume or aftershave to entice (attract) someone from
the opposite sex.

But such types of communication can be vague and are
subject to different and subjective interpretations.

Touching, for example, is perceived as a token of
friendship by some, at least by the initiator, but can be
taken as highly offending by some others.

19
We l e a d
Utterances in communication contain sentences whose
sentential meaning is, to varying degrees, always
underdetermined.
This can be understood in two senses: Sentential
meaning and the extra meaning conveyed
A: Sentential meaning does not provide enough
information for our proper understanding of the utterance.
There is always a gap between the meaning of the
sentence and the meaning of the utterance.
B: Even if we get the full-fledged sentential meaning, it is
still possible that an extra meaning is conveyed which
bears no relationship with the logical form of the original
sentence.
20
We l e a d
Communication is a joint activity, same as two people
rowing a boat towards a common goal or playing a duet on
the piano.

Joint activity involves joint actions. Joint actions involve
coordination. Communicators take different roles in the joint
activity of verbal communication.

But what is the law of coordination for communication?
Having no laws would mean chaos, which is certainly not
what we have observed.

A further question would be whether the laws, if any, are
consciously followed by their users (Clark, 1996). 21
We l e a d
Communication is always context-sensitive. There are many
ways in which the context of speech influences the
interpretation of language, and the semantic and pragmatic
mechanisms by which context-sensitive expressions get their
meaning.

Any utterance is produced in a particular context.

What is so complicated about communication is that
contextual meaning can be very different from sentential
meaning.

The ultimate concern in pragmatics is meaning in context, not
meaning in isolation.
22
We l e a d
Furthermore, communication is immediate, dynamic,
and evolving. In other words, participants in a
transaction of communication will not not halt the
communication to think and weigh up the various
meanings conveyed by the speaker's utterance.

They immediately get one meaning and believe that is
the intended meaning of the speaker.

Similarly, the speaker on the production side says what
he wants to say, immediately, without conscious
planning, most of the time.
23
We l e a d
People process utterances in context. They build up
common grounds and take each utterance as contributing
to the common grounds.

Gradually, the common ground gets larger, and each
speaks less but conveys more!

In the meantime, each one is busy updating his
knowledge base, sometimes also revising a little bit, and
erasing the older information at the same time, in an
unconscious way.

24
We l e a d
To understand meaning of utterances, we have to
consider the context.
For example:
She is a good wife.
It is cold here.
This man is helpful.
It is cold here =The temperature in this
room/country is too cold compared to what I am
used to.
25
The meaning in the context
We l e a d
Knowledge of the dynamics of utterance understanding,
more formally pragmatics, can help us distinguish the
layers of meaning in communication and the strategies in
conveying such meanings.

Language in use can have several meanings, sometimes
explicitly but more often implicitly.

An utterance can convey what the speaker says, what he
implies, and what his attitude is towards what he says. It
can express either the literal meaning or the
metaphorical meaning.



26
We l e a d
An utterance can
1. Convey what the speaker says, what he implies, and
what his attitude is towards what he says.
2. It can express either the literal meaning or the
metaphorical meaning
[e.g. You are the sunshine in my life].
3. It can carry one superficial meaning yet may convey
an exactly opposite meaning
[e.g. when saying "I hate you" actually means "I love
you", or when "No" means "Yes"].

27
We l e a d
Understanding verbal communication entails the
understanding of the underlying principles.

It also entails the understanding of the basic ingredients
of the context and the contributions of individual words
and phrases to the overall meaning of the utterance.

28
We l e a d
Pragmatics can contribute to the practical need of
communication. We may sometimes show appreciation
to very direct remarks. However, we feel the need to
convey meaning in a more covert (hidden) manner.

On many occasions, we can never be all explicit,
because meaning in language moves in such a
mysterious way that no sentence being used can be
completely transparent in meaning.

Many times, we are not even aware that some extra
meaning is being sent across as well as being received.
29
We l e a d
Some other times, we may consciously give out
utterances implicit meaning with the aim of creating
some special verbal effects.

Knowing the types of meaning and ways of its
expression and comprehension can teach us in what
sense an extra meaning can be created and
conveyed. Conscious knowledge of this type will make
us masters of the languages we use.

30
We l e a d
examples for discussion:
Please wash your hands immediately.
Now wash your hands.

Wife: Our son got the results for the examinations.
Husband: I know him. Same like last year. He is brilliant!

31
We l e a d
32
We l e a d
So the study of pragmatics has the first task of solving
the communication puzzles indicated above.

These communication puzzles may include
a) how come that so much can be communicated with so
little being actually uttered yet causing no troubles of
understanding?
b) What is the internal mechanism of utterance
understanding?

33
We l e a d
Investigation into this topic is basically an academic one.
That is to say, one does not need to know anything about
pragmatics to be a competent speaker and hearer in
communication.

But such investigations would not only serve to advance
human knowledge in general but will also have practical
applications.

34
We l e a d
To talk about the relationship between pragmatics and
discourse studies, we should contrast discourse to names
such as syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

Any stretch of meaningful linguistic units produced for
communication purposes is a piece of discourse.

Or, any stretch of meaningful linguistic units, when uttered, is
a piece of discourse.

Discourse includes conversation and text. Discourse can be
studied or analyzed from various perspectives, with different
commitments and purposes.
35
We l e a d
Syntax studies sentences; semantics studies
propositions. Pragmatics is the study of linguistic acts
and the contexts in which they are performed.

Pragmatics in general and thus discourse analysis in
particular has to deal with meaningful units:
meaningless objects can not be studied as conversations
or discourses.


36
We l e a d
In order to understand the mechanisms of some discourse,
its rhetorical organization, its hidden semiotic properties, or
the psychosocial activities that take place and, as some
say, are shaped by the interactive use of language, one
must take for input spans of meaningful utterances (or
fragments of utterances).

Meaning is the issue addressed by semantics and by
pragmatics in a narrower sense.

In this particular sense, pragmatics is the theory of
meaning in context (including implicit meaning), or,
equivalently, the theory of human natural language
understanding in context.
37
We l e a d
Katz (1977) draws the theoretical line between
semantic interpretation and pragmatic interpretation
by taking the semantic component to properly
represent only those aspects of the meaning of the
sentence that an ideal speaker-hearer of the
language would know in an anonymous letter
situation, ...[where there is] no clue whatever about
the motive, circumstances of transmission, or any
other factor relevant to understanding the sentence
on the basis of its context of utterance.
38
Semantic interpretation and pragmatic interpretation
We l e a d
Pragmatics is traditionally mentioned in contrast with
semantics, and primarily concerned with language in use.

In modern linguistics, pragmatics is applied to the study of
language from the point of view of users, especially of the
choice they make, the constraints they encounter in using
language in social interaction and effects their use of
language has on the other participants in an act of
communication.

Discourse Analysis is specifically about the understanding
and examination of spoken or written language in actual
communication.
Pragmatics is a fundamental tool to analyse discourse.
But discourse is something larger, it deals with the
concepts of text, textuality and genre. 39
We l e a d
Deixis & anaphora
Proposition
Presupposition
Speech acts
Politeness theory
40
Important concepts/terms in pragmatics
We l e a d
Topic Three
Speech act theory
41
We l e a d
We use language for many purposes. We tell others what
we know or think we know, we express our feelings, ask
questions, make requests, protest, criticize, insult,
apologize, promise, thank, say hello and goodbye.

Language seems to have as many different functions as
there are occasions for using language, but for all the
apparent diversity the basic uses of language are rather
limited.

In this course, we recognize seven different kinds of
utterances, or speech acts, classified according to their
general purposethough a single utterance may have
overlapping purposes.

42
We l e a d
The description here will apply to written discourse, and
therefore to writer and reader, as much as to spoken
discourse. Nevertheless, we use the term speaker to
include writer and the term addressee to include reader as
well as hearer.

In addition, although one person may speak or write on
behalf of several people and may have a plurality of
addressees, whether in writing or speaking, we use
singular terms speaker and addressee throughout.

Speech acts are commonly taken to include such acts as
promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and
congratulating.
43
We l e a d
A speech act is an act that belongs to the class that
includes making statements, issuing commands,
asking questions, making promises, expressing
desires, etc.

A typical speech act is a linguistic act that counts as
a move in a discourse.
44
We l e a d
John Austin (1962; 1975) made a distinction between
constative and performative utterances.
Constate = To ascertain; to verify; to establish; to prove
Constative utterances describe or report events and
states affairs in the world. They can be said to be true
or false.
Performative utterances
a. do not describe or report or constate anything at all,
b. are not true or false
c. the uttering of a sentence is, or is a part of, the doing
of an action, which again would not normally be
described as, or as just , saying something.
45
We l e a d
Examples
She promised to do her homework.
This utterance is a constative utterance because it is a
report of an event that has happened. If this report is
report is accurate that is, that she did indeed promise
to do her homework then this utterance is a true
constative.
Question:
Now analyse the following sentence based on Austins
constative-performative distinction.
I promise to be home early.



46
We l e a d
Austins constative-performative distinction was later
replaced by his threefold classification of acts that in
speaking, a person performs a locutionary, illocutionary
and possibly even a perlocutionary act.
1. locutionary forces: the actual speaking/hearing of
words
2. illocutionary forces: stating, questioning, commanding,
promising, etc. (speaker's meaning)
3. perlocutionary forces: correlated with illocutionary
acts- the effects on others (meaning as heard by
hearer)(may or may not be the same as the illocutionary
act).
47
We l e a d
An example
The dangerous dog is in the garden.

A question
Can the illocution and the perlocution be alike or nearly
alike?
If yes, when?
If no, your answer is wrong.
The answer:
Yes. If communication is successful.

Source: Kreidler, W. Charles. (1998). Introducing English semantics. London: Routledge.

48
We l e a d
Seven types of speech acts
In an article entitled A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts
(1979), Searle uses the three factors illocutionary force,
direction of fit, and expressed psychological state as
the basis for classifying all speech acts. He identifies six
classes. However, some authors mention seven types
which are
1. Assertive utterances
2. Performative utterances
3. Verdictive utterances
4. Expressive utterances
5. Directive utterances
6. Commissive utterances
7. Phatic utterances
49
We l e a d
Topic Four
Politeness theory
50
We l e a d
Key theorists and definition
Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987).
Politeness theory is the theory that accounts for the
redressing (/rdrs/ remedy; correct something that is wrong) of the
affronts (actions or remarks that causes outrage or offence) to face
posed by face-threatening acts to addressees.
Politeness theory has since expanded academias
perception of politeness.
Politeness is the expression of the speakers intention to
mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening acts
toward another (Mills, 2003:6).
Another definition is "a battery of social skills whose goal is
to ensure everyone feels affirmed in a social interaction".
Being polite therefore consists of attempting to save face for
another.
We l e a d
Definitions
Face: the desired self-image you wish to present to
others.

Positive Face: a persons needs to be liked,
appreciated, and admired.

Negative Face: a persons desire to act freely, without
constraints or imposition from others.

Face-Threatening Acts: common behaviors such as
apologies, compliments, requests, and criticism.

Key Components of Politeness Theory
A. Assumptions
B. Preserving face
C. Factors that influence politeness
We l e a d
Assumptions
1. All individuals are concerned with maintaining face.

2. Human beings are rational and goal oriented.

3. Some behaviors are fundamentally face threatening.
We l e a d
Preserving Face
1. Facework: specific messages that deter or minimize
face-threatening acts.

2. Preventative Facework: strategies that a person can
use to help themselves or another avoid face-
threatening acts.

3. Corrective Facework: messages an individual can use
to restore their own face or the face of another once a
face threatening act has occurred.
We l e a d
Suprastrategies used when communication
threatens face
1.Avoidance: when a speaker chooses not to communicate in
a way that would create embarrassment or loss of face for
another.
2.Going off record: when a speaker subtly hints the face-
threatening topic.
3.Negative politeness: when the speaker makes an effort to
recognize the others negative face needs.
4.Positive politeness: when the speaker emphasizes the
receivers need for positive face.
5.Bald on record: when the communicator makes no effort to
protect the others face and simply commits the face-
threatening act.
We l e a d
Factors that influence politeness
Prestige: taking into consideration whether the
status of the other person is higher or lower than
their own status.

Power: taking into consideration whether the other
person has more power over them at the time.

Risk: taking into consideration whether or not the
other persons feelings will be hurt.


We l e a d
What to learn about politeness theory
It is how we manage our own and others identities
through interaction.
There are 3 primary assumptions of politeness theory:
maintaining face, humans are rational when achieving
face needs, some behaviors are face threatening.
Facework is vital to create and maintain a desired self
image.
There are other key behaviors that can contribute to
face: preventive facework, corrective facework,
avoidance, going off the record, negative and positive
politeness.
We l e a d
References
Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987.
Politeness: Some universals in language usage.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cruse, D. Alan (2000). Meaning in language: An
introduction to semantics and pragmatics. Oxford: OUP.
Kreidler, W. Charles. (1998). Introducing English
semantics. London: Routledge.
Leech, Geoffrey. (1983). Principles of pragmatics.
London: Longman.
Mills, Sara. (2003). Gender and politeness. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
59