Semantics vs Pragmatics Semantics = the study of meaning, esp. denotation (wikipedia). Pragmatics = the study of meaning, esp. denotation and beyond.

• Slide 1

Slide 2 Semantics vs Pragmatics Semantics = the study of meaning, esp. denotation (wikipedia). Pragmatics = the study of meaning, esp. denotation and beyond (connotation) Slide 3 Reference and Deixis Speech Act Implicatures Politeness Presupposition Conversation Analysis Slide 4 Proposed by Paul H. Grice (i) the act of meaning, implying, or suggesting one thing by saying something else, or (ii) the object of that act. (Stanford, 2010) What is said vs What is implicated What is said can be contradicted, agreed or disagreed with, whereas what is implicated cannot (Cruse, 2011) Slide 5 A: Has John cleared the table and washed the dishes? B: He has cleared the table. i. Thats not true. ii. ? Thats not true, he has washed the dishes. iii. Youre right. iv. ? Youre right, he has washed the dishes What is implicated is he has not washed the dishes B has said that John has cleared the table and implicated that he has not washed the dishes. Slide 6 Another example Shut that flaming door! ?You have every right to be. ?No, youre not youre only pretending. Anger is not said but implicated. (Cruse, 2011) Slide 7 Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction, of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. Comprised of 4 maxims Slide 8 Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Slide 9 Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current pruposes of the exchange in which you are engaged. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Ex. A: What did you have for lunch today? Sandwich ?Food ?I had seven pieces of sandwiches, three of which was slight burnt. Slide 10 Be relevant A: Have you seen Mary today? B: ?Im breathing. Make the strongest statement that can be relevantly made, justifiable by your evidence (Levinson, 1983) John captured a wild cat >> Somebody caught an animal. Slide 11 Avoid obscurity. Avoid ambiguity. Avoid unnecessary prolixity (lengthy, wordy). Be orderly. ? The lone ranger rode off into the sunset and jumped on his horse. Slide 12 Theoretical Definition: S conversationally implicates p iff S implicates p when: (i) S is presumed to be observing the Cooperative Principle (cooperative presumption); (ii) The supposition that S believes p is required to make S's utterance consistent with the Cooperative Principle (determinacy); and (iii) S believes (or knows), and expects H to believe that S believes, that H is able to determine that (ii) is true (mutual knowledge). Slide 13 Flouting = Speaker (S) intentionally violates the maxims, knowing that the hearer (H) is well aware of his/her intention. I married a rat. Metaphoric expression It must be somewhere. Further search is needed. A: Did you hear about Marys B: Yes, well, it rained the whole time (Mary is approaching) Slide 14 A: Ill look after Sam for you. Dont worry. B: Oh, dont offer her any post-prandial concoctions involving super-cooled oxide of hydrogen. Slide 15 Conversational Implicatures 1. Generalised conversational Implicatures (GCI) 2.Particularised conversational Implicatures (PCI) Slide 16 (Meibauer, 2009) Slide 17 A: What time is it? B: Some of the guests are already leaving PCI: It must be late. GCI: Not all of the guests are already leaving. A: Wheres John? B: Some of the guests are already leaving. PCI: Perhaps John has already left. GCI: Not all of the guests are already leaving. Slide 18 Levinson(200) divides DCI into 3 types Q-Implicatures I-Implicatures M-Implicatures Slide 19 What you do not say is not the case Choosing a weaker member of a set implicates that the stronger members do not apply He owns 3 cars. Imp: He does not own 4 or 5 cars. It made her ill. Imp: She did not die. The gunmans target was the PM. Imp: The gunman did not hit the PM. Slide 20 Enrichments of what is said. What is simply expressed is stereotypically exemplified. We went to that new restaurant yesterday. Imp: I had a meal. John is going out with a nurse. Imp: The nurse is female. Slide 21 Marked expressions call for marked interpretations. There is a good reason to speak unconventionally. Bill caused the car to stop Normal: Bill stopped the car. Imp: Bill did not stop the car in the normal way The corner of Sues lips turned slightly upwards Normal : Sue Smile. Imp: Sues expression is not a smile. Slide 22 cooperative principle is formulated for instances in which interactants are interested in 'a maximally effective exchange of information' (Grice, 1975: 47). We cannot assume that a writer's primary purpose in writing a literary text is the effective exchange of information nor, even, that the writer necessarily intends the reader to grasp his or her intentions (Hickey, 1998). Slide 23 the writer at least would like the reader to grasp the basic, literal meaning of his or her written utterance and that the reader shares this desire; as long as this is all that is meant by the effective exchange of information. Slide 24 Render exactly what S says and implicates Facilitate the communication between S and H Textual equivalence vs Maximal cooperation Slide 25 World Economic Forum on East Asia 2555 Ms.Yingluck Shinawatra, the Prime Minister of Thailand, gave the opening speech at . (The context is not clear whether it is known that Ms.Yingluck is from Thailand.) observe Maxim of Quantity Slide 26 His rose-white boyhood Slide 27 7 ( ) ( . ) Communication and learning exchange process between different groups from the seven villages i.e. local administrative officers ( the sub-district headman, the village headmen, the village committee members, the municipality members), community leaders (housewives, volunteers, elders, agricultural officers, youths), monks, teachers and other inhabitants Slide 28 Cruse, D.A. (2011). Meaning in Language. Fawcett, Peter (2003). Translation and Language. Hickey, L. (1998). The Pragmatics of Translation Topics. Levinson, S.C. (1983). Pragmatics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010). Implicatures.