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Mª Ángeles Martínez
PRAGMATICS & DISCOURSE
2016-2017
What is pragmatics?
“Pragmatics is the study of meaning in relation to the context in which
a person is speaking or writing. This includes, social, situational and
textual context. It also includes background knowledge context, that is,
what people know about each other and about the world. Pragmatics
assumes that when people communicate with each other they
normally follow some kind of cooperative principle: that is, they have a
shared understanding of how they should cooperate in their
communications. The ways in which people do this, however, varies
across cultures. What may be a culturally appropriate way of saying or
doing something in one culture may not be the same in another
culture. The study of this use of language across cultures is called
cross-cultural pragmatics.” (Paltridge 2012: 38)
• e.g.,
A: Will you come to my office with your son early
tomorrow morning, before the meeting begins?
B: OK.
• Implicature: Intended contextual meaning projected by
Speaker
• e.g.,
B: Can you spare a moment now to talk about my son’s
application?
A: Will you come to my office with your son early
tomorrow morning, before the meeting begins?
B: OK
Grice’s Cooperative Principle
• Make your contribution such as is required, at the
stage in which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange in which you are
engaged.
a) Standard implicatures:
Those which arise from the assumption that the maxims are being observed,
e.g.
(3) Walk up to the door, turn the door handle clockwise as far as it will go, and then pull
gently towards you.
(3) A: Walk up to the door, turn the door handle clockwise as far as it will go, and then
pull gently towards you.
• In these cases (which are very frequent), “we try to interpret B’s utterance a
nevertheless cooperative at some deeper (not superficial) level.” (Levinson 1987: 102),
so we wonder what connection there may be between A’s question and B’s answer.
Not observing the maxims (1)
• Flouting the maxims: Overtly exploiting them for some communicative purpose
(1) Mister Brown produced a series of sounds corresponding closely to an aria from
Rigoletto.
Mister Brown sang an aria from Rigoletto.
(2) Boys will be boys
• Opting out of a maxim: “where the speaker may, for ethical or legal reasons, refuse
to say something that breaches a confidentiality agreement that they have with
someone or is likely to incriminate them in some way.” (Paltridge 2012: 47)
Opting out of a maxim
e.g. (Paltridge 2012: 46)A newly-arrived American student stops a Chinese
student in the street and asks for directions to the train station. As they walk
down the road together, they engage in this exchange:
The American student quickly hails a taxi and takes it to the station.
(1) She picked her things and left the room (chronological sequence).
(2) She was a girl but intelligent. (What is conventionally implied by
but here?
(3) They were poor but honest.
Properties of implicatures (2)
• Context-dependence
• Defeasibility/Cancellability
• Non-detachability
• Calculability
Context-dependence
• “An expression with a single meaning (i.e. expressing
the same proposition) can give rise to different
conversational implicatures in different contexts.”
(Cruse 2000: 349)
(1) A: Have you brushed your teeth and
washed your hands?
B: I’ve brushed my teeth.
(2) A: Would you like another biscuit?
B: I’ve brushed my teeth.
Defeasibility/Cancellability
• Conversational implicatures can be cancelled by
adding some additional premises to the original
ones,
(1) After a job interview: “We’ll call you in a couple of weeks.” (Flouting Quality in
some cultures)
(3) “Shall I pick you uo at the airport?” “Well, it’s not really necessary.”