english in use

• Situational Context

  • What speakers know about what they can see around them
  • The immediate physical co-presence
  • The situation at the moment of speaking
• Three types of context

  • Situational context
  • Background knowledge context
  • Co-textual context
• Situational context


  • What speakers know about what they can see around them
  • The immediate physical co-presence
  • The situation at the moment of speaking
• Background knowledge context


  • Cultural background knowledge
  • General knowledge people have about areas of life
  • Interpersonal background knowledge
  • Specific, possibly private knowledge about the history of the speakers
  • Knowledge acquired through previous interactions, activities or experiences
• Co-textual context


  The context of the text itself – the co-text
• Semantics


  • Context-invariant, speaker-independent meaning
  • Meaning potential
  • What does X mean? (conventional meaning, what is said)
  • Principles for describing meaning, meaning relations and meaning combinations
• Pragmatics


  • Context-sensitive, speaker-dependent meaning
  • Concrete meaning in a given context
  • What does the speaker mean by uttering X? (non-conventional meaning, what is meant)
  • Principles for bridging the gap between what is said and what is meant
• Important concepts in pragmatics

  • Deixis and reference
  • Cooperation and implicature
  • Context
  • Inference, presupposition and entailment
  • Speech Act Theory
  • Conversation and Discourse Analysis
  • Inter- and cross-cultural Pragmatics
  • Politeness
• Deixis


  • Especially personal, possessive and demonstrative pronouns and adverbial constructions of time and place have both a context-independent (semantic) and context-dependent (pragmatic) meaning
  • These constructions are called deixis or deictic expressions
• Central deictic dimensions


  • Person deixis
  • Place deixis
  • Time deixis
• Person deixis


  • Different persons involved in a communicative event
  • I/we – the speaker(s)
  • You – the addressee(s)
  • He/she/they – persons not involved
• Place deixis


  • Location relative to the location of a participant in the speech event
  • Place adverbials, demonstratives, prepositions of place or direction, verbs of motion
  • Pairs like here – there, near – far
• Time deixis


  • A reference to time in relation to the moment of the utterance, demonstratives
  • Time adverbials, tense, e.g. now, soon, tomorrow, yesterday, present, former, this month
• Non-central deictic dimensions


  • Social deixis
  • Discourse deixis
  • Manner and degree deixis
• Social deixis


  • Relates to the social status of the persons directly (speaker, addressee) or indirectly (person talked about, bystander) involved in a communicative event
  • e.g. Sir, Madam, Your Honour, Professor, Du-Sie
• Discourse deixis


  Provide a means of increasing text coherence by explicitly referring to specific parts of the discourse which follow or precede the deictic expression, e.g. In conclusion, all in all, anyway
• Manner and degree deixis


  Describes objects by using gestures, e.g. The dog was this small. Why don't you do it like this?
• Most of the time 1st and 2nd person pronouns are deictic
• With 3rd person pronouns, context is important
• Deictic and non-deictic definite references

  • Look at her! (deictic)
  • Look at Mary! Doesn't she look great? (non-deictic, anaphoric reference)
• Types of reference

  • Definite
  • Indefinite
  • Generic
• Definite reference


  • One or more specific individual entities are referred to
  • Persons
  • Things
  • Places
  • Times
• Indefinite reference

  • The identity of the referent is not known or not relevant to the message conveyed
  • No particular person, thing, place, time
• Generic reference

  • Reference is made to a whole class of referents rather than an individual
  • True for a whole group
• Definite reference


  • I saw Pete here yesterday. (deictic definite)
  • The man gave the book to her. (non-deictic definite)
  • The new crime novel, you really have to read it. (anaphoric definite)
• Indefinite reference


  • A man gave the book to her. (indefinite article)
  • I like crackers very much. (quantifier)
  • There are many people in the streets. (quantifier)
  • Let me show you something. (indefinite pronoun)
  • You never know. (special case)
  • We have to know history in order not to repeat it. (special case)
• Generic reference


  • A lion is a large cat.
  • Lions are large cats.
  • The lion is a large cat. (ambiguous)
• Entailment is one of two semantic inferences, i.e. it based on the conventional meaning
• A proposition X entails proposition Y if the truth of Y follows necessarily from the truth of X
• Presupposition


  Predictions that are taken for granted when a sentence is uttered
• Presupposition

  • John managed to repair his computer.
  • Presupposition 1: John owns a computer.
  • Presupposition 2: John tried to repair his computer.
  • Presupposition n: Someone has developed computers.
• Difference between entailment and presupposition


  • Entailment: Fails when negated, less context-dependent (logical necessity), results-oriented towards the future
  • Presupposition: Still holds when negated, more context-dependent (defeasible), given facts-oriented towards the past
• Difference between entailment and presupposition


  • I saw my uncle yesterday.
  • Entailment: I saw another human being today.
  • Presupposition: I have an uncle.
  • I didn't see my uncle yesterday.
  • Entailment: That I saw another human being today may or may not be true.
  • Presupposition: I have an uncle.
• Pragmatic inference


  Based on situational knowledge, interpersonal knowledge, world knowledge, and linguistic knowledge
• Pragmatic inference


  • What time is it? The Tagesschau just started. (situational knowledge)
  • Let's go for a walk. The Tagesschau just started. (situational knowledge)
  • This wine is very dry. (world knowledge)
  • The next trains leaves from platform 2. (world knowledge)
  • I would take it. (linguistic knowledge)
• Speech act


  • An utterance made by a certain speaker to a certain hearer in a certain context
  • Locution – The linguistic form
  • Illocution – The intention of the speech act
  • Perlocution – The effect on the listener
• Types of illocutionary acts according to Searle

  • Assertives (representatives)
  • Directives
  • Commissives
  • Expressives
  • Declarations
• Assertives (representatives)


  Describe the world
• Directives


  Attempts to get people to do things
• Commissives


  Promises or threats to inform others about future actions