Chapter 7: Pragmatics

deictic

"placeholder" words like he, there, now, yesterday that don't inherently refer to something specific. These words' meanings are always determined byt he context in which they are uttered.

the maxims of manner

1) Avoid obscurity of expression (that is, don't use words or phrases that are hard to understand) 2) avoid ambiguity 3) be brief 4) be orderly one of Grice's maxims. differ critically from the other three sets of maxims. they all have to do with the info a speaker is expected to give or not give in a discourse. The maxims of manner have nothing to do with info itself, have to do with expectations about how one foes about giving and interpreting that info in being a cooperative conversational partner. First means speaker should avoid use of jargon that listeners can't reasonably be expected to know and they should also avoid needlessly complex sentence structures. Second references understanding that what we're saying should be clear within the particular context. avoid saying things with more than one meaning (he promised to phone at noon) unless listened can be expected to know the right meaning. expected to interpret meaning based off of context. Third tells us not to make sentence lengthy when a few words will do. can violate maxim of manner by being wordy but not maxim of quantity (# what i do is that i'm an instructor and the subject matter that i teach is linguistics). Fourth- what we say should be organized in some intelligent way. convey all info on one topic first before moving on. Telling a story in chronological order is part of following this maxim. four maxims of manner don't provide insight into what info a speaker should share, but they are critical with regard to how that info can be clearly understood.

The maxim of relevance

1) Be relevant one of Grice's maxims. also called the maxim of relation. expected to make contributions that pertain to the subject of the conversation. Our default assumption is that the people we're talking with are cooperative and that they are doing their best to make the conversation work. This assumption allows us to make inferences. people can still change topics like using word instead to change topics but acknowledges what other person said- asking permission to go against that maxim.

The maxims of quantity

1) Make your contribution as informative as is required. 2) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required one of Grice's maxims. concern how much info is appropriate for a speaker to give in a discourse. first maxim reflects fact that we are expected to give all the info necessary for a given circumstance and to make as strong a claim as is warranted. Second reflects the expectation that we neither provide too much info nor make a stronger claim than is warranted. The degree of informativeness related to specificity of the "strength of the claim". ex. someone asks you where you live. how much info you give depends on context

The maxims of quality

1) do not say what you believe to be false 2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence in order to follow first maxim, must also follow second. but people differ strikingly in what they think is good evidence for their views. it is also the case that in different contexts there are different requirements for how much or what kind of evidence will qualify as "adequate." (ex pg 280 doctor with valid claim that spider venom won't kill and guy who got bit and survived who believes venom doesn't kill. their levels of certainty differ, but both have equal claim to utter sentence given appropriate context and their stated experience) one of Grice's maxims. address our expectations of honesty in a conversation. Effective communication is greatly hindered either is the speaker randomly mixes lies with the truth or if the hearer assumes that anything the speaker says is likely to be a lie.

Cooperative Principle

H. P. Grice made this principle. states that the basic assumption underlying conversation is the understanding that what one says is intended to contribute to the purposes of the conversation-- that is, that people intend to be cooperative conversational partners. (what being cooperative is will differ depending on the context.) even in casual context, the convo will normally have one or more purposes, and each of the participants can be expected by the rest to behave in ways that further these purposes.

flouts

Maxims can be exploited or flouted in order to communicate indirectly. A speaker flouts a maxim when he says something that in its most literal meaning appears to violate a maxim, but the listener is expected to understand the meaning being conveyed due to shared understanding of the maxims. might do this to avoid hurting one's feelings (writes succinct recommendation letter flouting the maxim of quantity giving much less info than expected but still getting message across. Could also change subject if person you're talking about appears flouting maxim of relevance. Or flout maxim of quality if say "Right, and I'm the Queen of England" to seem less hurtful than "you're wrong". can be sarcastic with friends "you're amazing" and not mean it. The flouting of maxims often plays a particularly role in humor, also important part of everyday communication. important to remember that when speakers and hearers flout maxims, their intention is to be cooperative conversational partners. but this cooperation requires a higher degree of effort on the part of both speaker and hearer, so it carries the risk of the intended message not getting through.

inferences

Our default assumption is that the people we're talking with are cooperative and that they are doing their best to make the conversation work. This assumption allows us to make inferences. (ex. Is Jamie dating anyone these days? Well she goes to Cleveland every weekend (infers that Jamie is dating someone, in particular someone in Cleveland)

implicates

There's a place around the corner called Joe's implicates Joe's sells coffee in this scenario

inference

a conclusion that a person is reasonably entitled to draw based on a set of circumstances. A perosn may draw an inference in cases when no one has tried to imply anything at all. There mnust be someone trying to communicate an idea in order to say any implying has been done (can infer it was rained without pavement saying it's wet or that it rained)

felicity conditions

a set of conditions that must hold in order for any speech act to be felicitous. ex felicity conditions for requests it must be the case that - the speaker believes that the action has not yet been done, the speaker wants the action to be done (Or thinks that the action should be done for some reason). the speaker believes that the hearer is able to do the action. The speaker believes that the hearer may be willing to do the things of that sort for the speaker. Felicity conditions for questions: must be the case that - the speaker does not know some piece of info about some state of affairs, the speaker wants to know that info about the state of affairs, the speaker believes that the hearer may be able to supply the info about the state of affairs that the speaker wants. some of the felicity conditions for a speech act may be suspended in certain contexts. for example in normal convo doesn't ask people questions we already know the answer to but then there' trivia, lawyers questioning witnesses, teachers giving exams. we recognize these situations to be socially acceptable in one way or another.

performative speech act

a special kind of speech act. one in which the particular action named by the verb is accomplished in the performance of the speech act itself. Use performative verbs

presupposition triggers

a word or phrase that typically indicated that a sentence has a presupposition; a word or phrase whose meaning generates presuppositions. saying Alan stopped falling asleep during meetings. STOPPED indicated that he fell asleep in classes before and is a presupposition trigger. Stop triggers a presupposition that a person had to previously do whatever it is he is supposed to have stopped. Therefore, if it were not common knowledge among the participants in a conversation that Alan used to fall asleep in meetings, a speaker could not felicitously utter either Alan STOPPED falling asleep during meetings or Alan did not STOP falling asleep during meetings.

speech acts

act when you use language. It is our ability to do things with language--to perform speech acts-- that makes language useful to us. In fact, with language we can do things that would otherwise be impossible, like making a bet or giving advice. come common speech acts assertion- conveys information question - elicits information request- (more or less politely) elicits action or information order - demands action promise - commits the speaker to an action threat - commits the speaker to an action that the hearer does not want to be felicitous these speech acts miust be utteres in a certain kind of context (ex a request must be directed to a person (animal or machine) that is capable of doing whatever action was requested.

presupposition

an underlying assumption that must be satisfied for an utterance to make sense or for it to be debatable. Appear exceedingly often in the sentences that we hear uttered every day, and most of the time we don't notice their presence at all. However, when they are not satisfied, we are often left not knowing quite how to respond.

context

can affect utterance in many ways. To determine meaning of sentence He is there now, one would need to know when the sentence was uttered and what the speaker was talking about. Deictic elements are one of the reasons utterances are context dependent. Out-of-the-blue context affects utterances too. Linguistic, situational, and social context. These three aspects of context -- along with several others-- provide critical info about what utterances mean

syntactic structures

certain speevch acts are so common that many languages have particular syntactic structures conventionally used to mark them. like different sentence types has specific SVO order or wh- question words.

sentence types

declarative, interrogative, imperative. DON'T confuse with declarative, interrogative, and imperative.

performative verbs

denote purely linguistic actions. Ex: I assert that.. I ask again... I order you to... i request that.. Yes, I'm threatening you: if you do that again, I'll report you... i'm warning you: watch out for that pothole... I bet you five bucks that... I advise you to... i promise... [i hereby pronounce you husband and wife... I christen this ship... We declare the defendant...] these specialized performance verbs (last three) often have additional felicity conditions associated with them having to do with the authority of the speaker. dentist can't randomly pronounce people husband and wife with authority. performatives must fulfill various other felicity conditions, in order to be fully felicitous and effective - like saying i quit to friends vs to boss TWO MAJOR REQUIREMENTS FOR PERFORMATIVES: 1) the subject of the sentence must be first person, I or we, and 2) the verb must be in the present tense, since performative speech acts, like all actions, take place in the present can put hereby before performative to test it

satisfied

for a presupposition to be satisfied, the participants in the discourse must believe that the presupposed info is true (or at least that they behave as thought they believe it like Santa) before the sentence containing the presupposition is uttered. Presuppositions can be satisfied wither when the info that they contain is considered common knowledge-- ex that there is such a river as the Amazon-- or when they contain info that has previously been asserted in the discourse. Either way, the speaker can reasonably assume that all of the participants are aware of it. If a sentence containing a presupposition is uttered in a context where the presupposition is not satisfied, most of the time that utterance is infelicitous.

situational context

gives info about the situation in which the utterance is uttered. allows us to refer to things in the world even if they have not been mentioned before in discourse. (ex saying it smells if goat walks in room and peeps know you're talking about goat even if haven't talked about it yet)

linguistic context

has to do with what preceded a particular utterance in a discourse. refers to what others have said earlier in the conversation. ("ex: yes means different things when preceded by proposal or if want to eat green beans, etc. The linguistic context of an utterance tells what speakers are talking about. Is made up of all the sentences that have been uttered in a discourse leading up to the utterance in question

direct speech acts

include performatives. they perform their functions in a direct and literal manner. That is, the function that the sentence performs in a discourse is evident from its literal meaning. Make a direct literal utterance or use a performative verb that names the speech act.

social context

includes info abut the relationships between the people who are speaking and what their social roles are. it's what makes it okay for coach to tell you to run laps but not vice versa. lets us know when "yes m'am" is polite vs sarcastic.

infelicitous (#)

marked by # symbol to indicate infelicity. An utterance that is inappropriate in some way in the context it is uttered. (ex what do you do for a living. # i have a job. or # my favorite color is purple, too! (not providing enough detail and not giving a relevant answer) An utterance is only infelicitous relative to a particular context.

entailment

relationship based on literal meaning. Thus they're conclusions that can be drawn irrespective of an utterance's context. Speakers routinely intend to convey info in addition to what is entailed by the sentences they utter. Fortunately, hearers also routinely draw conclusions from the utterances they hear, even when the sentence uttered does not ential the conclusion drawn. That is, an utterance's context often helps us to draw conclusions--inferences-- that were not entailed by the sentence that was spoken.

social rules

rules for conversation. (they are not part of a language's grammar, though they are part of speakers' communicative competence). as such, they are in competition with social tules that come form other aspects of society, and sometimes, for one reason or another, they lose. from this we learn that Grice's maxims, being conventions, are very different from natural laws. While their essence may be universal across languages and cultures, the way that they are implemented and the way that they interact with other societal rules will obviously vary between societies.

implying

sending the message without saying it directly. implying is what is done by the person sending the message; inferring is what is done by the person receiving the message

felicitous

speakers also use context to figure out whether an utterance is appropriate in any given setting. An utterance is felicitous when it is situationally appropriate, when it's appropriate relative to the context in which it is uttered. An utterance is only felicitous relative to a particular context. Felicity is a property of utterances not of sentences. in general, speakers of a language know intuitively whether an utterance is or isn't felicitous also may differ from person to person. still general guidelines utterances must follow to be felicitous)

prosody

study of tune and rhythm of speech and how these features contribute to meaning

jargon

terms restricted primarily to specialized areas of knowledge

specificity

the "strength of the claim"

presupposition accommodation

the process by which participants in a discourse decide to accept (and not question) information that is presupposed by a sentence uttered in the discourse, even though the presupposition was not satisfied prior to the utterance. Two requirements for presupposition accommodation: plausibility and accessibility.

pragmatics

the study of the ways people use language in actual conversations. Pragmatists study both how context helps to determine whether a particular utterance is appropriate or inappropriate as well as how changes to context alter sentences' meanings

maxims

things that prevent meaningless discourse. Principles guiding the conversational interactions of both speakers and hearers. Following these maxims is an important aspect of ensuring that our utterances are felicitous. In general, felicitous utterances are ones that conform to Grice's maxims. just as important for speakers to follow these maxims as hearers to assume that speakers are following these maxims.

pitch accents

used on words to make some words more prominent than others. By our choices in where to put these pitch accents, we can force different information to be presupposed (ex. Laura went to Fort Wayne. Laura went to TOLEDO too. (presupposition is that Laura went somewhere other than toledo because the prosodically prominent word is Toledo.)

indirect speech acts

what the speaker actually means is different from what she or he literally says. they are often, although not always, indicative or politeness considerations on behalf of the speaker. we can perform an indirect speech act in many cases by appealing to a particular one of its felicity conditions. is it's a performative speecha ct it's not indirect. check if any felicity conditions are violated for the sentence's literal meaning but not for its intended meaning. (ex asking a question when know the answer). if the standard response to an utterance is different from what its literal meaning would arouse, then it is used to perform an indirect speech act. Ex: could you take out the garbage people would either do it or not do it instead of sying yes or no. It is often the case that when declarative sentences are used to make assertions, or interrogative sentences are used to ask questions, or imperative sentences are used to give orders, the resulting sentences are direct speech acts, while other pairings between form and speech act yield indirect speech acts. This generalization does not always hold, however. Ex: Take out the garage = direct request. Vs. Allow me to request that you take out the garbage is a request that the speaker be permitted to make another request = indirect

implicature

when a speaker implies something using language, we say that her utterance contains an implicature. Conclusions that are drawn about what people mean based on what we know about how conversation works. If given suitable context, any maxim can be responsible for helping to generate an implicature. 1) Implicature based on maxim of relevance: (i want coffee. There's a place around the corner called joe's. Implying joe's sells coffee even if There's a place around the corner called joe's doesn't entail coffee is sold. many kinds of implicature 2) implicature based on maxim of quantity: have you done your homework for all of your classes yet? I've finished my history hw. implies i have not finished my hw for my other classes. but will assume that this person giving as much info as possible that's required to answer her question. How far can you run. ten miles. implies that can only run ten miles without stopping even if could run more. 3) implicature based on the maxim of manner: rebecca took the medication and had an allergic reaction. Rebecca had an allergic reaction and took the medication. both these sentences provide exactly the same entailed meaning. However, someone who assumer that the speaker is being cooperative will assume that the speaker is telling the story in an orderly fashion. or since maxim dictates that speaker be brief if someone says "the man who lives with me is an electrician" will assume that because didn't use shorter phrase like my husband or my brother that doesn't have these relationships with man. also can v=be inferred from maxim of quantity. 4) implicature based on the maxim of quality: sometimes we may draw inferences based on the assumption that we have the same standards for evidence as do our conversational partners. Ex: sandy: we need someone to make some sort of cake for the picnic. Tom: I can make my family's favorite chocolate cake. implies that he's made it before based on maxim of quality. communication would become very cumbersome if we could not rely on implicature. We use our context and our knowledge about the universe to draw inferences from what we hear because it allows us to use language more effectively.

utterance

whenever a person speaks or signs a sentence there has been an utterance of the sentence. It Is not an abstraction like a sentence, it is something that happens. maybe described as having many of the same properties as sentences (e.g. lenaguage and length). However, utterances have other properties as well: we may talk about the time of an utterance, the place of an utterance, the volume of an utterance, the speaker, etc. An utterance NEEDS context unlike a sentence.

existence presuppositions

whenever someone utters a sentences about a specific thing or person, then the speaker presupposes that that thing or person exists in order to be able to say something about it. like saying have pet giraffe.