语言学pragmatics的ppt

1、pragmatics,flower,i. introduction,what is pragmatics?,pramatics can be defined as the study of language in use and linguistic communication.,why do we need pragmatics since we have grammatical analysis?,after we have done grammatical analysis of a sentence, there is still some aspect of meaning unco

2、vered by our analysis.,example: the grammatical analysis of he went to town yesterday does not tell us who he is, which town or when yesterday. in other words, there are still things undetermined.,depending on the context, he can be anybody, any male. town can refer to any place big enough to be cal

3、led town. and yesterday can refer to any day in the past. as a result, the sentence must have performed many functions.,from this brief discussion, we can see that the context of a situation in which a sentence is used contribute a lot to its meaning which cannot be accounted for in pure grammatical

4、 analysis.,ii. context 2) illocutionary act: the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc. in uttering a sentence, by virtue of the conventional force associated with it; 3)perlocutionary act: the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering the sentence, such effects being speci

5、al to the circumstances of utterance.,example:,suppose the speaker says its cold in here. its locutionary act is the saying of it with its literal meaning its cold in here. its illocutionary act can be a request of the hearer to shut the window and its perlocutionary act can be the hearers shutting

6、the window or the refusal to comply with the request.,the locution of an utterance is actually its literal meaning. the illocution of an utterance is the speakers communicative intention or the function it is intended to perform. the perlocution of an utterance can be as the same as the illocution w

7、hen it is recognized and satisfied, or very different from it when it is not recognized or when it is ignored. for example, when the illocution is an invitation, the perlocution can either be an acceptance or a refusal, depending on social and personal factors.,a. illocutionary acts,what speech act

8、theory is most concerned with is the illocutionary acts. it attempts to account for the ways by which speakers can mean more than what they say. it is also designed to show coherence in seemingly incoherent conversations.,ex. a: thats the phone.(1) b: im in the bathroom.(2) a: okay.(3) this seemingl

9、y unconnected conversation is very coherent on a speech-act level, and that in saying things people are in fact doing things.,b. types of illocutionary acts,searle suggests 5 basic categories of illocutionary acts as follows: assertives （陈述） directives （指令） commissives（承诺） expressives （表达） declarati

10、ons （宣布）,assertives,sentences that commit the speaker to the truth of sth. typical cases are i think the film is moving and im certain that he had got it. the degree of commitment varies from statement to statement. the commitment is small in i guess hed got it but very strong in i solemnly swear th

11、at he had got it.,directives,sentences by which the speaker tries to get the hearer to do sth, i beg you to give me some advice and i order you to leave right now are both attempts to get something done by the hearer. among the verbs that can denote this group are ask, request, plead, entreat, comma

12、nd, advise, etc.,commissives,sentences that commit the speaker to some future action. promises and offers are characteristic of this group. interestingly, warning is also a commissive, as if you smoke again ill beat you to death, because it also commits the speaker to doing sth.,expressives,sentence

13、s that express the speakers psychological state about sth. verbs typically used for this category are thank, congratulate, apologize, welcome, deplore and so on.,declarations,sentences that bring about immediate change in the existing state of affairs. as soon as an employer says to an employee you

14、are fired, the employee loses his/her job. verbs often used for declarations are name, christen, nominate, point, declare , etc.,c. indirect speech acts,one group of sentences which speech act theory is concerned with are those sentences that perform one illocutionary act indirectly by performing an

15、other, that is, indirect speech acts.,can you pass the salt, please?is both a question about the hearers ability to pass the salt and a request of him to pass the salt. the problem here is how it is possible for the speaker to say one thing and mean something else, and how it is possible for the hea

16、rer to understand the indirect speech act. it is suggested that in cases like this much is relied on the shared background information and the general powers of rationality and inference on the power of the hearer.,ex. x: lets go to the movies tonight. y: i have to study for an exam. in order to wor

17、k out that ys utterance is a refusal, x has to go through a process of inference like this. i have make a proposal to y and a relevant response must be one of acceptance or rejection or further discussion. but his reply was none of these, so his illocution must be different from the literal meaning.

18、 i know that studying for an exam takes a lot of time and going to movies also takes a lot of time. he probably cannot do both in one evening. probably his primary illocutionary act is to reject my proposal.,in practice, no one would consciously go through this process; but this is supposed to be in

19、 the way indirect sppech acts work. requests are often performed indirectly. their indirectness has certain characterstics that tend to group sentences of request into the following types:,group 1,sentences concerning the hearers ability to do sth.: ex. can you run another 5,000 meters? could you ru

20、n away from the talons of the chengguan?,group 2,sentences concerning the speakers wish or want that the hearer will do sth.: i would like you to fetch my cellphone from the company. i would appreciate if you could save a seat for me. id rather you didnt be late any more. id be very much obliged if

21、you would go to the qixia mountain with me.,group 3,sentences concerning the hearers doing sth.: would you kindly get off my foot? wont you stop making that noise?,group 4,sentences concerning the hearers desire or willingness to do sth.: do you want to go to the library with me now? would it be con

22、venient for you to come over to play sanguosha, the boardgame on friday afternoon? would it be too much trouble for you to take my bag back?,group 5,sentences concerning reasons for doing sth.: you should write to them every now and then. must you make that noise whenever you are reading? youd bette

23、r book the tickets 2 weeks in advance.,sometimes we have sentences that have more than one of these elements, with one inside another: would it be too much trouble if i suggested that you could possibly make a little less noise?,d. difficulties in speech act theory,often an utterance does not perfor

24、m only one act, but two or three acts, and it is not always easy to decide what act or acts an utterance performs. ex. if a mother says to a child is that your coat on the floor?,sometimes two unrelated acts are performed by one utterance and it is left to the hearer to choose. ex: a: they say its the