Pragmatics

• speakers act through language (they promise something, command sb., ...)

  Speech Act Theory (John L. Austin, 1962): Speech act = linguistic actions performed by speakers in a certain context with certain communicative intentions

  ↳ e. g. "I'll phone you tomorrow"-> speech act: promising
• Locution


  Linguistic form of a speech act
• Illocution


  communicative intentions of a speech act (e. g. promising)
• Perlocution


  effect a speech act has on the listener
• Utterance


  refers to realisation of a speaker's communicative intention; often do not equal sentences formally
• Declarations: speech acts in which an existing state of affair is changed by declaring something

  ↳ e. g. I pronounce you husband and wife
• Representatives/Assertives: speech acts in which the view of the speaker on a state of affair is represented or

  asserted -> e. g. Our team has won the competition
• Expressives: speech acts in which the speaker expresses their feelings and inner state

  ↳ e. g. Good job! l apologise for the men
• Directives: speech acts in which the listener is directed to perform an action

  ↳ e. g. Be quiet!
• Commissives: Speech acts in which the speaker is commited to certain actions

  ↳ e. g. Shall I get you some water? I refuse to answer this question.
• · some speech acts are combinations of the five classes above

  · classification of speech acts is situation-specific (e. g. Who are you talking to? In which tone? )

  -> needs Linguistic Context (what was said before & after) and non-linguistic context (physical & social

  setting of utterance -> who said it, where, ... )
• Performative verbs


  verbs that explicitly indicate force -e. g. promise, warn, claim, apologise
• Direct speech acts


  direct correspondence between location and illocation
• Indirect speech acts


  relation of location and illocation mismatched

  ↳ eg. "Why don't you go see a doctor. "-> inquiry on a formal level, but actually a request
• General condition: if a speech act is supposed to be successful, the hearer must be able to understand the location
• Propositional content condition: a speech act has to properly render its content (eg. threats need to render a future action

  -> eg. * If you don't pay me, I resigned /If you don't pay me, I will resign)
• Preparatory condition: certain prerequisits need to be fulfilled before the speech act takes place

  -> e. g. "Please lift the table" you wouldn't ask a child, but a buff dude
• Inferencing


  process of discovering the pragmatic meaning of utterances
• Situational context/knowledge


  objects around you (gestures, mimic, posture, ...)
• interpersonal knowledge


  knowledge that speaker and listener share (mostly personal, like being allergic to sth. )
• world knowledge


  knowledge that is easily accessible & common ground for almost everybody
• background knowledge -> interpersonal knowledge + world language
• co-textual knowledge


  knowledge of what has been said before (and sometimes after) the discussed utterance
• Cooperative principle


  the general idea that communication is rational and cooperative
• Maxims of the cooperative principle:

  Maxim of Quantity: provides as much information as required, not more or less

  Maxim of Relevance: only give relevant information

  Maxim of Manner: making contributions in a clear, brief and orderly manner

  Maxim of Quality: do not lie deliberately
• conversational implicature: inference drawn in the context of a specific conversation (assuming that the interlocuter adheres

  to the cooperative principle and making use of background and situational knowledge)
• Flouting


  Intentionally not following the maxims of the cooperative principle quite right (mostly to manage personal relationships)
• Face


  a social self-image
• face-threatening act


  a speaker endangers the hearer's positive/negative face
• positive politeness


  polite behaviour is directed towards the positive face of the interlocuter

  (e.g. by flouting maxims) -> letting them know we like/are interested in them
• negative face


  desire of not being disturbed in privacy/imposed upon -> autonomy& self-determination
• Mitigating Device


  use of an element (like interrogative instead of imparative)to minimise the face threat
• negative politeness


  polite behaviour is directed towards the negative face of the interlocuter

  (eg. by employing mitigating devices)
• positive face


  desire to be admired, loved, accepted -> desire to be well thought of a understood and accepted
• Sincerity condition: speaker's intentions must be recognised as earnest and sincere
• Essential condition: Listener needs to recognise the intended function (illocution) for the speech act to be successful
• Pragmatics


  the study of what we do with language
• politeness


  Linguistic strategy used by speakers to minimise threats to the listener's face