UNIT 1 INTRODUCTION

1. Introduction.
This is a relatively young discipline, being the wastebasket of linguistics (Yule,
1996).
Austin (1962) defined some basic principles of Pragmatics on his How to do
things with words
During the 70s the interest in the discipline grew enormously in relation to what
people do with words.
In the 80s pragmatics came into the linguistic arena and was defined as
meaning in use or meaning in context. It is related to Chomskys performance.
Most recently, there have been two approaches to pragmatics:
a) Speaker meaning what we mean when we speak by focusing on the
producer of the message and taking a more social view of the discipline.
b) Utterance interpretation this approach focuses on the receiver of the
message and takes a more cognitive view of the discipline.
A more balances definition is considering it as meaning in interaction.
Thomas (1995): Meaning is not something which is inherent in the words
alone, nor is it produced by the speaker alone, nor by the hearer alone. Making
meaning is a dynamic process.
2. Levels of meaning.
There are three levels meaning:
a) Abstract meaning: what a word, phrase, sentence, etc. could mean in
theory.
b) Contextual meaning: we assign sense or reference to a word, phrase or
sentence (utterance meaning of the message). This is what the speaker
actually means.
c) Force: it is the speakers communicative intention.
Contextual meaning is the first level of speaker meaning.
Force is the second level of speaker meaning.
E.g. the best nails here! [force: persuasion; contextual meaning: a beauty room]
Sometimes there are understanding fails (especially if there are deictics).
The interaction between sense and reference provides the basis for the
resolution of pragmatic meaning.
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A notice saying Out of Order laying on the floor near a coffee machine and a
chair with a pile of books on it could mean:
1 machine is not working.
2 books are not yet arranged in any particular order.
There are numerous cases of structural ambiguity:
E.g. The Bishop walked among the pilgrims eating their picnic lunches:
1 The pilgrims were eating.
2 The bishop ate lunches.
Sometimes we can understand contextual meaning but not force:
E.g. is that your car?
1 Yes/no question.
2 Admiration.
3 Scorn.
4 Request for a lift.
5 A complaint that the vehicle is obstructing access to some place.
Both levels, contextual meaning and force are closely related but they are not
inseparable and we should not confuse them.
Take this sentence as object of analysis:
Sarah, its Diana. Dereks concert is tomorrow at eight (an answer-phone
message after not being at home for a few days):
Sentence meaning 1 the performance of Derek is tomorrow at eight.
2 the concert that Derek wants to go is tomorrow at
eight.
Contextual meaning 1 an expected hearing of the voice message from
Sarah.
Force 1 a reminding for Sarah.
2 response to a question.
3 excuse for not meeting Sarah.
3. Defining Discourse Analysis.
It is the study of real language in use.
The study of discourse is the study of any aspect of language use (Fasold,
1990).
Brown and Yule, 1983.

Discourse refers to language in use, as aa process which is socially situated

(Candlin, 1997).
Da embraces both formal and functional approaches: the term discourse
analysis is very ambiguous. Roughly speaking, it refers to attempts to study the
organization of language above the sentence or above the clause and therefore
to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written
texts. DA is also concerned with language in use in social contexts
(Slembrouck, 2005).
Discourse studies are essentially multidisciplinary (van Dijk, 2002). They cross
the Linguistic border into different and varied domains.
DA is studied not only by linguists, but also by communication scientists, literary
critics, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, social psychologists, political
scientists, etc.
4. Origin and brief history of Discourse Analysis.
The Chomskian Generative School (Syntactic Structures, 1957).
20th century emergence of other schools supporting the belief that a good
linguist description should go beyond the sentence:
-

Functionalism.
Cognitive Linguistics.
Sociolinguistics.
Text linguistics.
Discourse Analysis.

It is difficult to distinguish one for the another, especially Text Linguistics and
Discourse Analysis.
TL is a more formal approach; text internal factors (coherence and cohesion).
DA is a more functional approach; text external factors (acceptability,
informativity, situationality and intertextuality De Beaugrande and Dressler,
1981).
These are the common tenets of interrelated disciplines:
- Language use is necessarily social.
- The description of language must account for the real facts of language.
- Linguistic structures should be closely linked to the conditions of language
use.
- Language is natural and necessary vague and inaccurate.
5. Approaches to DA.

Current research flows from different academic fields. Discourse and DA are
used to mean different things by different researchers.
Leech (19839 and Schifrin (1994) distinguish between two main approaches:
-

The formal approach discourse is defined as units of language beyond

the sentence.
The functional approach discourse is defined as language in use.

Harris (1951) was the first linguist who used the term discourse analysis and
he was a formalist.
Schiffrin (1994) integrates both the formal and functional approaches:
Discourse as utterances, i.e, units of linguistic production (whether spoken or
written) which are inherently contextualized.
Discourse is multimodal because it includes not only the purely linguistic
content but also other semiotic systems (i.e. body language).
UNIT 2: THE CONTEXT
2.1. Context or co-text.
- The Pearsons are on Coke.
Three possible interpretations

- Its cold.
Three possible interpretations

Intention

They are drinking coke

They use cocaine
They have solid fuel heating
A weather forecast
Mom to little son (referring to weather)
Customer to waiter (referring to coffee)

Give information
Take your coat!
Complaint / request

2.1.1. Origins of the term context.

In 1923, Malinowsky coined the term context of situation.
Exactly as the reality of spoken or written languages, a word without linguistic
context is a mere figment and stands for nothing by itself, so in the reality of a
spoken living tongue, the utterance has no meaning except in the context of
situation.
Firth elaborated the concept of context in his 1950 paper Personality &
Language in Society.

o
o

The relevant features of participants, persons, personalities

The verbal action of the participants.
The non-verbal action of participants.

The relevant objects

The effect of the verbal action

The term context is very common but elusive of definition (Widdoson,

2004:32).
In 1985, Halliday & Hassan established what they call the context of situation
which can be described on terms of a simple conceptual framework of three
headings (1989):
The field of discourse refers to what is happening, to the native of the
social action that is taking place.
The tenor of discourse refers to who is taking part, the native of the
participants, their status and role.
The mode of discourse refers to what part the language is playing, the
organization of the text, the channel (written, spoken or combination).
Mey (1993) defined context as surroundings in the widest sense.
Sperber & Wilson (1995) defined context as a psychological construct, a
subset of the hearers assumptions about the world.

2.1.2. Types of context.

Context involves three different dimensions:
a) Situational context refers to the time, the place where language is used.
That is, the immediate physical environment surrounding both speaker and
hearer.
E.g. Its a long time since we visited your mother.
Possible contexts
Context A married couple in their living
Context B married couple in the zoo, in front of the hippos
He/she comes in all her vastness.
Possible contexts
Context A a TV reporter talking about a ship, but
the camera shows the Queen Mother
- Background knowledge that help us to construct meanings that speakers
belonging to other cultural communities might not share.

E.g:
A How is your new tennis partner?
B He has much in common with John McEnroe.
A Good server?
B Bad temper.
- Interpersonal or mutual knowledge is the knowledge speaker and hearer
share. Because they share this knowledge, they can take things for granted that
another interlocutor is unlikely to understand.
E.g: If he hadnt fallen out of bed, Id never have found out about it!
Other important aspect of the context is the setting. Setting refers to the time
and place of a speech act and in general, to the physical circumstance []
Scene, which is different from setting, designates the psychological setting or
the cultural definition of an occasion as a certain type of scene (Hymes,
1974:55).
We do not experience language in isolation if we did we would not recognize it
as a language but always in relation to an scenario, some background of
persons and actions and events from which the things which are said derive
their meaning.
2.1.3. Towards a comprehensive definition of context.
Co-text refers to the linguistic context in which a particular utterance
occurs. For example, in adjacency pairs such as the following:
A: Are you coming to the cinema? (Yes/no question)
B: Ive got an exam tomorrow.
The identification of the co-text has to do with the disambiguation of
references:
A: I went with Francesca and David.
B: Uhuh?
A: Francescas room-mate. And Alice a friend of Alices from London. There
were six of us. Yeah, we did a lot of hill walking.
Co-text is dynamic: contexts are constructed continuously during the course of
a conversation.
A*: Are we having classes tomorrow?
B: Its el Pilar.
* If B is a Spanish student, he will understand the answer. Otherwise, he will
not.
Context relationship with language is bilateral. In other words, we can
understand the text thanks to context but we can also guess the context from
the text.
Halliday & Hassan (1989:37) provides the following examples where, as
speakers of English, we can make inferences about the context of situation:

Once upon a time (fairy tale)

This to certify that (legal document)
Four hearts (card games)
On your marks (sportive competition)
30 please (order in a shop)
Just a trim, is it? (at a hairdressers)
Rail strike (rail workers having a strike; headline)
348-1929 (Id code; serial number)
Sea slight on a low swell (weather prediction)
Hands up (ask for volunteers)
Hands up all those whove finished (classroom)
Add the eggs one at a time (recipe)
From here, a short walk takes you to the fountain (tourist guide)
Remove battery holding down bolts (instructions)

2.2. Deixis.
Deixis comes from Greek. It refers to a particular way in which certain linguistic
expressions are dependent on the context in which they are produced or
interpreted.
Deictic expressions derive part of their meaning from their context of utterance.
E.g. I am here now.
The phenomenon of deixis has been of considerable interest to
philosophers, linguists and psychologists natural languages (face-to-face
interaction).
As people take turns, the referents I, you here, there, this,
systematically switch too difficulty for children in language acquisition.
In simple terms, deixis is organized around a deicitic centre (the
speaker) and his/her location in space and time at the time of speaking although
the location of the addressee is also taken into account, forming a two-centred
system.
Proximal (this, here, now) Vs. distal (that, there, then) in terms of
speakers location.
2.2.1. Personal deixis.
Pronoun and verb agreement.
1st personal encodes the participation of the speaker and temporal and
spatial deixis are organized primarily around the location of the
speaker/addressee at the time of speaking:
Speaker inclusion (1st person).
Addressee inclusion (2nd person).
As far as it is known all languages have 1st and 2nd person pronouns but
not all have 3rd person pronouns.

2.2.2. Time deixis.

Now, tomorrow, ten years ago, this week, this November, etc. take as the deictic
centre the speakers location in time at the time of the utterance.
The most pervasive aspect of temporal deixis is tense.

2.2.3. Spatial deixis (place deixis).

Deictic adverbs like here (including speaker) and there (remote from spaker)
are the most direct examples of spatial deixis.
Other spatial deictics are this and that (some languages have a three-way
distinction, e.g. Latin or Spanish).
Spatial deixis is also frequently encoded in verbal roots or affixes, with a typical
basic distinction between motion towards speaker (e.g. come) and motion
away from the speaker (e.g. go).
2.2.4. Discourse deixis.
In a spoken or written discourse, it is frequent to refer to earlier or forthcoming
segments of the discourse (e.g. in the previous/next paragraph).
Since a discourse unfolds in time, it is natural to use temporal deictic terms
(next) although spatial terms are also frequent (in this chapter).
2.2.5. Social deixis.
This includes honorifics: Madame, Your grace.
Honorifics include the speakers social relationship to another person
(usually the addressee but not always), on a dimension of rank.
There are two main kinds of honorifics:
a)
Referent honorifics: where the honour party is referred to. E.g. Usted,
voc, etc.
b)
Nonreferent honorifics: we can signal respect without referring to the
drese by choosing between different lexical and gramatical options. E.g.
Japanese, Korean or Javanese.
2.3. Reference.
This is the act of using language to refer in entities in the context is known as
reference: an act in which the speaker uses linguistic forms to enable the hearer
to identify something.

These linguistic forms are known as referring expressions and enable the
hearer to identify the entity being referred to, which is in turn known as the
referent (the speakers person in the real world).
E.g. I went with Francesca and David.
Deixis and reference are closely related. Deictic terms help the hearer to
identify the referent of a referring expression through its spatial or temporal
relationship with the situation of utterance.
Apart from deictics, there are other types of words and phrases that can be
referring expressions:
Proper names (e.g. Aristotle, Paris): these name persons, institutions and
objects whose reference is clear as opposed to common nouns (e.g. a
philosopher, a city).
Singular definite terms (e.g. the woman standing by the table) or
indefinite (a man was in here looking for you last night).
The choice of one type of referring expression rather than another seems to be
based on what the speaker assumes that the listener already knows.
Take this! Look at him!
Remember the old foreign guy with the funny hat?
2.3. Reference.
Succesful reference is:

- collaborative
- inference plays an important role

E.g. Mister Aftershave is late today.

-

A: Who is that?
B: Its me (doorphone, no video).

Co-text (linguistic environment) and context (physical environment) are

essential in assigning reference.
-

The cheese sandwich is made with white bread.

The cheese sandwhich left without paying.

Your ten-thirty just cancelled (hotel reception)

The heart attack mustnt be moved (the person who suffers from a heart
attack)

2.3.1. Types of reference.

Referring to the context outside: exophora.

When there is no previous mention of the referent in the text, we call it

exophoric reference.
When a referring items refers to entities in the background knowledge (whether
cultural or interpersonal), that have been mentioned in previous conversations
or texts, it is known as intertextuality (de Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981).
When we refer to the co-text we can speak of cohesion.
When the referring expressions refer to items within the same text, we
call it endophoric reference.
A: I went with Francesca and David (exophoric reference).
B: Uhuh?
A: Francescas room mate. And Alices (exophoric ref.) a friend of Alices
from London. There were six of us. Yeah, we did a lot of hill walking (endophoric
ref.)
When a referring expression links with another referring expression
within the co-text, we say it is cohesive with the previous mention of the referent
in the text. This is part of what is known as grammatical cohesion.
Endophora also avoids unnecessary repetition.
Example 1a vs 1b.
There are two types of endophora:
Anaphora (repetition) the pronouns link back to something that went
before in the preceding text. E.g. them and this (more frequent).
Cataphora (anticipation) The pronouns link forward to a referent in the
text that follows. It can be a stylistic choice, to keep the reader in suspense as
to who or what is being talked about.
2.4. Grammatical and lexical cohesion.

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a) Grammatical cohesion - Endophoric reference is only one form of

grammatical cohesion.
- There are not other forms that are not part of reference:
Substitution.
Ellipsis.

2.5. Pressupositions and entailment.

Speakers assume certain information is already known by their listeners. Such
information will generally not be stated communicative economy and clarity.
All Johns children are wise presupposes that:
John has children
John has more than one child
Presupposition and entailment describe two different aspects of this kind of
information.
A presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to
making an utterance background assumptions.
Speaker, not sentence, have presuppositions.
E.g.

a) Have you given up Linguistics?

b) You have studied Linguistics before.
c) Did you enjoy your dinner?
d) You have had dinner.
e) I dont regret leaving London.
f) I left London.

An entailment is something that logically follows from what is asserted in an

utterance. Sentences, not speakers, have entailments.
E.g. Marys brother has bought three horses.
Pressupositions

- A person called Mary exists.

- She has a brother.

Entailments

- Marys brother bought something.

- He bought three animals.
- He bought two horses.
- He bought one horse.

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- And other similar logical consequences.

Let us look back at historical background and semantic presupposition:

Presupposition originated with debates in philosophy, related to the

nature of reference, referring expressions, logical theory and truth conditions
(Frege, 1892; Russel, 1905; Strawson, 1952).
Frege (1892) was the first philosopher in recent times to pose the
question of presuppositions:
E.g. Kepler died in misery presupposes Kepler designates something, i.e. the
word Kepler has a referent.
Russell (1905) disagreed with Freges theory because he argued there
were sentences that lacked proper referents but they could still be meaningful
like: The King of France is wise.
In general terms, we find a substantial agreement about the definition of
presupposition in the philosophical tradition and later on, in semantics, where
they also deal with truth or falsity:
E.g. Presupposition is what remains valid even if the sentence is negated
(Asher, 3321).
These are some examples from the definition:
A)

John managed to stop in time.

John stopped in time (entailment)

John tried to stop in time (presupposition)
B)

John didnt manage to stop in time.

John tried to stop in time (presupposition).

John stopped in time (entailment).
Constancy under negation makes a basic distinction between presupposition
and entailment.
Presuppositions seem to be tied to particular words or aspects of surface
structure. These linguistic items that generate presuppositions are called
presupposition triggers (Levinson, 1983: 179).

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Kartunnen has collected 31 kinds of such presupposition triggers. Levinson

(1983:181-85) lists a selection from these as indicators of different types of
presuppositions:
A)
Proper names or definite descriptions: existential presuppositions:
- Johns brother has just got back from Texas John has a brother
B)
Factive verbs: they are factual presuppositions:
- She didnt realize he was ill He was ill.
- We regret telling him We told him.
Other factive predicates would be know, be sorry that, be proud that, be
indifferent than, be glad that, be sad that, be aware that, be odd that.
In non-restrictive relative clauses, the information that is in commas do not
affect the rest of the sentence. E.g. Hillary, who climbed the Everest in 1953,
was the greater explorer of our day.
Implicative verbs: manage.
Change of state verbs: stop, start, continue:
- John stopped/didnt stop smoking John had been smoking.
Iteratives: again:
- The fyling saucer came/didnt come again The flying saucer had
come before.
Temporal clause:
- Before Strawsson was born ever; Frege noticed presuppositions
Strawsson was born.
All of them represent lexical presupposition.
Strucutural presuppositions:
- Cleft sentences, pseudo-clefts
It was/wasnt Henry who kissed Rosie Someone kissed Rossie.
What John lost was his wallet John lost something.
-Wh- questions When did she die? She died.
Counterfactual presuppositions: counterfactual conditionals:
- If I werent ill Im ill.
Non-factive presuppositions:
- He pretended to be happy He wasnt happy.
- Other non-factive predicates: dream, imagine.
However, a strictly truth-conditional definition fails on several counts (Mey,
2002, 184-85):
1)

First, there is more to sentences than the abstract truth value they carry.

13

2)
Second, sentences, when spoken, cannot be considered in isolation from
the speaker (s) and listener (s), who are relevant factors in any situation of
language use.
According to Levinsson (1983) semantic presuppositions also pose two
important problems:
Defeasibility in certain contexts (both the co-text and the background
knowledge context), presuppositions are liable to evaporate. For example:
Factive verb know

- John doesnt know that Bill came (Bill came)

- I dont know that Bill came Bill came.

Before clauses (time adverbials)

thesis

- Sue cried before she finished her

- Sue finished her thesis.

- Sue died before she finished her thesis.

- Sue finished her thesis.
The projection problem it is related to the behaviour of presuppositions
in complex sentences, where they also disappear.
Compare A and B:
a)
b)

John didnt cheat again John had cheated before.

John didnt cheat again if indeed he ever did John had cheated before.

Compare C and D:
c)
Nobody realized that she was ill she was ill .
d)
Imagine that Kelly was ill and nobody realized that she was ill She was
not ill.
To sum up, semantic theories of presupposition are not viable because
semantics is concerned with invariant stable meanings and presuppositions are
not invariant or stable (Levinson, 1983: 204).
The notion of pragmatic presupposition was introduced by the philosopher
Stalnaker in an influential article (1977) and further developed by the same
Stalkaner and others (Kartunnen, 1974; Gauker, 1998, etc.)
Pragmatic presuppositions have been defined as assumptions shared by the
interlocutors, which from the background of their ongoing discourse (Stalnaker
1973, 1974) mutual knowledge or common ground.
This set of assumptions shifts as new sentences are uttered.

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 Some if not all of these shared background assumptions have linguistic

markers: thus Stalnaker (1973) (followed among others, by Soames, 1989) has
spoken of presupposition requirements or presupposition triggers (Levinson,
1983; Van de Sandt, 1988).
E.g.

a. My wife is a dentist.
b. I have a wife.

The mutual knowledge condition is far too strong.

E.g. a) Im sorry Im late, Im afraid my car broke down
b) The speaker has a car
Presuppositions may have information uses (Karttunen 1974, Stalnaker 1974).
The required presupposition still may not be included among the beliefs shared
by the interlocutors. It may be new information for the listener, who will
accommodate the presupposition by adding it to the shared background beliefs
(Lewis, 1979).
E.g.

a) Are you going to lunch?

b) No, Ive got to pick up my sister.

Stalkaner (1974), Kartunnen (1974) and Gauker (1998) thus talk about
informative presuppositions and presupposition accommodation.
E.g. Im sorry. Im late. My car broke down
The speaker presupposes he has a car.
The interlocutor(s) might have known so in advance (it was part of their
mutual knowledge) and they take it for granted.
The interlocutor(s) might not know the speaker has a car but
accommodate this new piece of information into their background knowledge,
generally accepting it as true (although not necessarily).
E.g. We regret that children cannot accompany their parents to the
commencement exercises (Gauker, 1998).

- The point is that Children cannot be accompanied by their parents.

- Parents have to accommodate this new piece of information into their
background knowledge.
- By putting it that way, the speaker acknowledges that this news might be
disappointing to some interlocutors.
Such informative uses of presuppositions are also frequent with persuasive
purposes (e.g. in the press, in advertisements, political speeches, etc.

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 It is more difficult to question something that is communicated only implicitly

(via presuppositions) than openly.
E.g. Political discourse and the press:
The moral and civil unity of the nation is also rooted in and held fast, by
religious life and belonging to the Catholic Church (Romano Prodi, 9-9-97).
Romano Prodi basically said in Loretto that we are united because we
are Catholics (La Stampa, 9-9-97).
E.g. Advertising:
Carlsberg, possibly the best beer in the world.

This is a generalization (open statement; invitation)

Peoples common knowledge or belief that the purpose of every advert, is to
emphasize the merits of specific products or services.
LOreal, because you worth it.

The best product for the best one. It is connected to the idea of selfesteem (strong statement).
There is a common background assumption of self-esteem.
To sum up, presuppositions are the result of complex interactions between
semantics and pragmatics. (Levinson, 1983: 225) hybrid account.
We conclude that presupposition remains, ninety years after Freges remarks
on the subject, still only partially understood (ibid).
a)
b)
c)

John regrets that he failed the exam (fact semantic presupp.)

John doesnt regret that he failed the exam (pragmatic presupp.)
John doesnt regret having failed, because in fact he passed

The cat is on the mat

Utterer: owner.
Intention: Warning, description, etc.

c) Found: Gray Cat

d) Phone: 491-7040
-

There is a cat
There is a mat

[semantic presupp]

[pragmatic presupp]

There is a cat
The cat is gray

Utterer: Owner.
Intention: Get the cat back.
Place: a lamppost for example.

[semantic]

[pragmatic]

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Pragmatic presupposition is holistic including the situation and the context,

while the semantic one (truth conditional account of presuppositions) only deals
with the truth that is beyond the utterance.
Pragmatic presuppositions do not only concern knowledge, whether true or
false: they concern expectations, desires, interests, claims, attitudes towards
the world, fear, etc (Caffi, 1994: 3324).
Practice (exercise 4):
The existence of Marcie.
[semantic]
Another trigger of presupposition (one more sheet).
- Marcie thinks that they share the same knowledge about Polonius (intertextual
reference of Hamlet).
Participants: Linus and Marcie who are classmates.
[pragmatic]
Place: at school.
Intention: To give the message that she doesnt want to give him another sheet
of paper.
Background assumption: people dont like to lend things.
Practice (exercise 5):
a)
If somebody asks: what went wrong? What is the immediate
presupposition and how it is confirmed?
He or she supposes that something wrong has happened. Shocking facts
and figures.
b)
What presuppositions are contained in the words the slightest interest?
It implies that if you are a legislator, you will read it, and otherwise if you are
interested on in health and hospital insurance you will. Experts are not
addressed.
c)
To understand this ad, do we rely mostly on its semantic or on its
pragmatic presuppositions?
Pragmatic presupposition because the writer takes for granted the reader
knows Blue Cross.
d)
Which of the presuppositions you have discovered are semantic, which
are pragmatic?
Wh- questions are semantic presuppositions, such as the title, which is the
trigger (What went wrong?).
She arrives the conclusion that the (fact) is a semantic presupposition.

17

 Practice (exercise 6):

What background knowledge does it assume for its readers?
There is a quite specific vocabulary. It is assuming shared cultural knowledge
and subfield knowledge.
The text makes no concession to those who do not understand the reference of
the specialized vocabulary. Why do you think this happens?
Because this article is targeted to people who like sports and know about the
issues and topics related to.
Practice (exercise 7):
It has failed the shared knowledge between the writer and the reporter.
Practice (exercise 8):
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

You have taken at least a cup of coffee.

That he has just hit you before.
That he has asked something to you (Semantic).
You have read that article once before.
Trigger You have taken time to make the drawing.
You put the paper somewhere.

UNIT 3
3.0. Introduction.
Speech Act theory: initially developed by Austin (How to do things with words,
1962). Different lectures put together and published in Oxford University and
Harvard, and after his death, this volume was published.
- Austin: the father of pragmatics.
- First to challenge the descriptive fallacy: the only function of language was that
of making true or false statements (truth conditional semantics). Linked to the
field of logic.
- His contention: language is not merely for saying, but also for doing.
- Before Austins challenge to truth-conditional semantics, logical positivists
(Bertrand Russell) held the view that the only meaningful statements were those
which could be empirically tested.
E.g. The king of France is bald. (In a time there wasnt a king of France, it would
be meaningless. In Austins view it has meaning).
If we take the following examples from the point of view of the logical positivism
approach, they could be simply meaningless, do we consider them
meaningless? In terms of logic they are meaningless because invisible cars do
not exist, so it is false and the same happens with came out of nowhere if you

18

take it literally. The second example below, you cannot sleep all the time, and
this person is speaking, not sleeping, so it is false. In terms of logical positivism,
they would be false and meaningless.
E.g. An invisible car came of nowhere, hit my car and vanished.
I sleep all the time, doctor
Russel
Austin
Everyday language was an imprecise and deficient tool of communication, full
of ambiguities and contradictions, and needed to be refined.
People
manage to communicate very well with language just the way it is, and without
serious difficulty.
Speech Act Theory (later developed

by Searle (disciple of Austin)

3.1. The performative hypothesis.

In Austins view there was some declarative sentences that could be not either
true or false, this truth and falsity conditions were simply irrelevant. Because
these sentences were not describing, they were aimed to perform, to do things.
Examples:
-

I bet you six it will rain tomorrow.

I hereby christen this ship by Queen Elizabeth II.
I declare war on
I apologize.
I object.
I bequeath you my Picasso.

They are not used to say things but to do things.

Austin termed these special sentences and the utterances realized by them
performative (utterances which are Speech acts).
Syntactically, performatives seem to share three common features:
They are declarative sentences in present simple.
The subject is always the first person pronoun referring to the
speaker(s).
Performative verbs will take the adverb hereby.
E.g. I hereby declare you Mayor of Canterbury.
Hereby can be used in order to test for performative utterances by inserting it:

- I hereby jog ten miles on Sundays.

However, these distinctive features are not so clear
E.g. I betted you five pounds.

19

 Performative verbs can be used non-performatively.

E.g. You are hereby warned.
The subject is not necessarily the 1st person pronoun.
E.g. Guilty!
Sometimes there are cases that do not contain a verb at all.
It is possible to distinguish two kinds of performatives (Levinson, 1983; Thomas,
1995:47):
a)
Explicit performatives that speakers use when they want to be
unambiguous.
b)
Implicit performatives they carry out an action but using other devices
such as mood, adverbs, intonation, etc.
-

Shut the door (I order you to shut the door).

Ill be there without fail (I promise Ill be there).
Therefore, (I conclude that).

There is a second problem has to do with this distinction between constatives

and performatives. Constatives could be also expanded into explicit
performatives if prefixed with a formula like I hereby state that:
-

Im alone responsible.
I state that I am alone responsible.

The performative/constative dichotomy was untenable. No real incompatibility

between utterances being truth-bearers (constatives) and simultaneously
performing actions (performatives).
Austin claimed that there is a whole family of speech acts of which constatives
and the various performatives (metalinguistic [object, apologize, deny, promise],
ritual [sentence, absolve, baptize], collaborative [bet] Thomas, 1995) are just
particular members.
3.2. Felicity conditions.
- Performatives cannot be true or false, however, they can go wrong if the
necessary conditions for them to be successful do not take place.
-These conditions are termed felicity conditions (if constatives have true
conditions, performatives have felicity conditions). (Felicity must be understood
in terms of appropriateness)
Austin distinguished three categories of felicity conditions:
a) First category has two parts:
a. 1. There must be a conventional procedure having a conventional effect.
a. 2. The circumstances and persons must be appropriate.

20

(E.g. a procedure could be a wedding, I declare you husband and wife, the ritual
that in order to be successful we need these conditions. In terms of a wedding,
we need a priest; we need a couple that are not prevented from marriage.
b) Second category: The procedure must e executed (i) correctly and (ii)
completely.
(E.g if the priest asks the other person if you want to marry, you have to answer
I do, and if you say ok, you have to follow a formula.
c) Third category:
c.1. The persons must have the requisite thoughts, feelings and intentions.
c.2. If consequent conduct is specified, then the relevant parties must do it.
(E.g. In a wedding the person is supposed to be wishing to get married, a
shotgun wedding, would be legally binding; and then, the second part,
consummating marriage, for instance).
>> If these conditions are not fulfilled, the act will be infelicitous.
E.g. I hereby divorce you. (not an act of divorce here in Spain, so the condition
that is not the conventional procedure, you are not capable of divorce
somebody. In Muslins society, you are the husband and you say this to your
wife it is fulfilled, but not in other cultures. Just uttering this message does not
perform the act of divorcing.
Curate: Will thou have this woman to thy wedded wife so long as both shall
live?
Bridegroom: Ok, why not? It is an infelicitous act, not fulfilled b category,
because the procedure is not uttered properly she doesnt say I do.
Speaker: I bet you ten pounds she will fail again. (Bet is other example of
performative, it is collaborative. If there is no answer on the part of the hearer,
do we have a bet? If there is not an uptake that the other accept the bet, ok, Im
on. It is not completely, b.2. category is not fulfilled in this collaborative process,
you need two parts involved in a bet. )
The precise felicity conditions of an act depend of the act being
performed, on its nature.
Misfires (Austin): those cases when there is a mismatch between the act
and the circumstances and the act is not fulfilled.
Felicity conditions are preconditions on speech acts:
a) General conditions on the participants: that they can understand the
language being used, that they are not play-acting or being-nonsensical.
b) Content conditions: for example, for both a promise and a warning, the
content of the utterance must be about a future event. Further condition for a
promise: future act of the speaker.
c) Preparatory conditions for a promise are significantly different from those for
a warning.

21

- For a promise, the event will not happen by itself and the event will have a
beneficial effect.
- For a warning, it is not clear that the hearer knows that the event will occur, the
speaker does think the event will occur and the event will not have a beneficial
effect.
d) Sincerity conditions:
- Promise the speaker genuinely intends to carry out the future action.
- Warning the speaker genuinely believes that the future event will not have a
beneficial effect.
e) Essential condition: the utterance changes the speaker state from nonobligation (promise) or from non-informing to informing (warning).
3.3. Utterances as acts: locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary.
When we utter a sentence, we are also performing actions.
Austin isolates three kinds of acts that are simultaneously performed:
Locutionary act the utterance of a sentence (the actual words uttered).
Ilocuitionary act (illocutionary force) the force or intention behind the
words (promising, offering, warning, etc.)
Perlocutionary act (perlocutionary effect) the consequence or effect on
the hearer(s).
E.g. shoot him!
-

Locutionary act: shoot him

Ilocutionary act: an order or advice, urging the addressee to shoot him.
Perlocutionary effect: the addressee might shoot that person.

E.g. Is that your car?

Locutionary act: Is that your car
Ilocutionary force: a complain, a warning, in order to check if hes the
owner of the car.
Perlocutionary effect: the addressee is expected to give an answer or if
he is a police agent he might impose a fine for the speaker.
The same words can be used to perform different speech acts (Is that your
car)
The different words can be used to perform the same speech acts.
E.g. the speech act of requesting someone to close the door:
-

Shut the door!

Could you shut the door?

22

Did you forget the door?

Put the wood in the hole.
Were you born in a barn?
What do big boys do when they come into a room, Johnny?

3.3. Speech acts classification.

Searle (1975) developed taxonomy of illocutionary acts where he distinguished
five main macro-classes:
a)
Representatives or assertives the speaker states what he/she believes
to be the case (describing, claiming, insisting, predicting, concluding, etc.) E.g.
It was a warm sunny day.
b)
Directives the speaker aims at making the hearer do something
(commanding, ordering, requesting, inviting, forbidding, suggesting, etc.) E.g.
Dont touch that!; Could you lend me a pen, please?
c)
Commisives the speaker commits him/herself to future action (promise,
offering, threatening, refusing, vowing, volunteering, etc). E.g. Ill help you if you
have any problems.
d)
Expressives the speaker states what he/she feels. They express
psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy
or sorrow (apologizing, praising, congratulating, deploring, regretting, etc.). E.g.
I feel I should have apologised for my behaviour.
e)
Declaratives or declarations the speaker changes the world by the very
utterance of the words. E.g. I hereby declare you husband and wife.
3.4. Direct and indirect speech acts.
Direct speech acts are those where a speaker wants to communicate the literal
meaning that the words conventionally express. There is a direct relationship
between the form and the function.
-

[Imperative form] Get me one order.

[Declarative form] I am hungry statement.
[Interrogative form] Do you like tuna? question.

Indirect speech acts are those where a speaker wants to communicate a

different meaning from the apparent surface meaning. The form and function
and not directly related:
-

[Interrogative form] Would you get me a sandwich? request.

[Declarative form] Its hot in here request (open the window).
[Imperative form] Come for a walk with me invitation.

The classification of utterances in categories is difficult, as long as much of what

we say operate on both levels and often have more than one of the macrofunctions.

23

E.g. Ive been seen Rivers. Which reminds me, he wants to see you, but I
imagine itll be all right if you dump your bag first.
* He wants to see you (declarative request; indirect speech act)
Statement describing Rivers wishes
Order or a suggestion to the hearer
3.5. Speech acts and society.
A) Social dimension:
Apparently (because of politeness), most speech acts we produce every day
would be indirect according to Searles distinction.
In English, directives are more often expressed as interrogatives than
imperatives. E.g. Thank you not for not smoking.
There are factors that can make speakers use indirect directives:
Lack of familiarity.
Reasonableness of the task.
Formality of the context.
Social distance (differences of status, roles, age, gender, education,
class, occupation and ethnicity).
Power and authority those of the less dominant role tend to use indirectness.
Speech acts and their linguistic realizations are also culturally bound and it
varies from country to country.
E.g. How fat you are! (praising, criticizing).
India: weight is an indicator of prosperity
Britain: slim beautiful
Differences in speech conventions (direct/indirect) can also cause difficulties
cross-culturally.
E.g. (from Cuba)
A = Bristish woman B= Cuban woman
A: Is Mr. Prez there?
B: Yes, he is.
A: Em Can I speak to him, please?
B: Yes, wait a minute.
E.g. Where are you going?
- Chinese: friendly greeting
- British person: intrusive (disrespectful) question
Chinese greeting British greeting
Hello, have you had your lunch?

Hi, a bit colder today

24

Specific differences between languages in the area of so-called indirect

speech acts are motivated, to a considerable degree, by differences in cultural
norms and cultural assumptions, and the general mechanisms themselves are
culture-specific (Wierzbicka, 1991: 62).
Intercultural or cross-cultural pragmatics:
a)
Interlanguage pragmatics: a branch of pragmatics which specifically
discusses how non-native speakers comprehend and produce a speech act in a
target language and how their pragmatic competence develops over time
(Kasper & Blum-Kulka, 1993; Kasper, 1995).
b)
Categorization of speech acts: one utterance can fall into more than one
macro-class (overlap).
c)
Another problem is the apparent messiness (chaos) of everyday spoken
language.
Fillers: so there you go, you know, so (bueno, pues aqui estamos). They
say very little and they are very difficult to classify in terms of the speech acts
taxonomy. Interactional, socially cohesive function.
Backchannels and feedback: (really? Uh uh) they show we are listening to our
interlocutor and encouraging them to continue talking.
Incomplete sentences: as in but she didnt do the er no.

When we talk, we do not produce isolated utterances but there are more
utterances produced by the interlocutors involved:
Speech event an activity, in which participants interact via language in
some conventional way to arrive at some outcome. It may include an obvious
central act (e.g. I dont like this, as a speech event of complaining) but it will
also include other utterances leading up to and subsequently reacting to that
central action (speech event of requesting directive).
Likewise, the same speaker can produce a larger piece of discourse than a
single utterance, which can include many speech acts but which, taken as
whole form of a macro-speech act.
E.g. political speeches:
Macro-speech act: persuading people to vote for her/his political party.
Informing

stating

Finally, over and above speech acts, there are two main macro-functions of talk
(Brown and Yule, 1983):

25

The transactional function is the one we use to transmit factual

information.
The interactional function is the one involved in expressing social
relations and personal attitudes, showing solidarity and maintaining social
cohesion.
In fact, most talk has a mixture of both functions: a cline from the purely
transactional to the purely interactional:
At the extreme end of the transactional.
At the extreme end of the interactional: phatic communion, we use
language not to communicate but to be friendly and show a readiness to talk.
3.8. Speech acts and power: CDA.
The idea of speech acts, uttering as acting, is central to what Fairclough calls
CLS (Critical Language Study). CLS analyses social interactions in a way in
which focuses upon their linguistic elements, and how language affects and is
affected by the system of social relationships (1989:9).
The work of Fairclough presents a comprehensive attempt to develop a theory
of CDA which links discourse, power and social structure.
Discourse is a three-dimensional concept, which involves texts, discourse
practices (production, distribution and consumption of texts) and social
practices (power relations, ideologies, hegemonic struggles).
Individuals are not usually free to manipulate language to achieve their goals,
but they are constrained by social conventions.
People do not have equal control in interactions because there are inequalities
of power.
Requests and power
Indirect requests leave the power relations
implicitly.
The grammar of a request can express varying degrees of indirectness.
UNIT 4: CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
1.

Introduction.

We are going to study two approaches at the structure of discourse.

a)
Exchange structure studies the conventional overall patterns that occur
when people are talking.
b)
Conversation analysis studies the way what speakers say dictates the
type of answer expected, and that speakers take turns when they interact.

26

There is a different approach: exchange structure starts with a model and sees
how real data fits it, whereas conversation analysis starts by observing real data
and describes what patterns emerge and after that, they develop a theory.

2.

Exchange structure.

Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) and the Birmingham School of discourse analysis.
They studied primary school lessons and found a regular structure.
They studied primary school lessons and found a regular structure.
According to the Birmingham School, there are five ranks or levels:
The act is the lowest rank. Acts are defined by their interactive function.
They cover the messiness of spoken discourse.
Their categories include, for example:
Marker as in well, OK and Right.
Acknowledge (backchannels).
Cue, as in hands up and Dont call out.
Evaluate, as in good and interesting.
Hence acts tend to be carried out in a fixed order of moves:
Basic moves: initiation (teacher), response (student) and follow-up
(teachers comment).
The combination of moves in the IRF structure is known as exchange.
Exchanges can combine to make the transaction.
Each exchange consists on two moves: initiation and response.
If we take as example of conversation a lesson, we could study different
transactions.
Moreover, there are certain limitations of IRF (initiation-response-):
It does not accommodate easily to the real life and unruliness of the
classroom.
It reflects the traditional teacher-centred classroom.
Contrarily to the previous case, there are learner-centred classes, in
which there is much interactions between students and the teacher and there
are learners initiations.
The IRF approach as described here is rarely used today.
The structure of classroom transactions is not typical of everyday talk but more
of ritualistic nature (interviews, trials, doctor-patient exchanges).
4.2. Conversation analysis.

27

CA takes a bottom-up approach: starting with the conversation itself and it lets
the data dictate its own structure.
CA can be seen as a process Linear, ongoing event that implies negotiation
and cooperation between speakers.
CA originated within Sociology with the work of Garfinkel (1967,74) and his
approach known as Ethnomethodology and then it was applied by Sacks and
Schegloff.
Ethnomethodological research suggests that knowledge is neither autonomous
nor decontextualized; it avoids idealizations and argues that that what speakers
produce are categories that are continuously adjusted according to whether the
anticipation of an actor is confirmedly another action or not. These categories
are called typifications. Language of one typification is social conduct.
Conversation is a way of using language socially, of doing things with words
together with other persons (Mey, 2001).
One of the main assumptions of CA is that interaction is structurally organized:
The core of CA is the explorational sequential structures of social
action, that is, the patterns that emerge as interaction unfolds.
The basic unit of the conversation is the turn:
A)
In normal western-type conversations, people do not speak at the same
time: they just wait for their turn.
B)
Yielding the right to speak or the floor to the next speaker constitutes a
turn.
C)
How do people allocate turns to each other? By turn-taking
mechanisms.
Turns normally occur at certain well-defined junctures in conversations; such
points are called transition relevant places (TRPs):
Natural breaks (pauses, endings, etc).
There are different mechanisms that are part of turn-management system (or
local management system): unwritten conventions about talking turns that are
known by members of a social group.
When the hearer predict that the turn is about to be completed and they
come before it is, this is an overlap.
Sometimes overlap exists when there is absence of familiarity and the
interaction does not flow smoothly.
Other kind of overlap expresses solidarity or closeness, as well as
opinions or values.
Overlap may also communicate competition when people are having a
discussion.

28

In a competitive environment, these holding the floor will avoid

providing TRPs: avoid pauses and fillers.
Another type of floor holding device is to indicate that it is a larger
structure.
Passives: unwritten cultural agreement about the acceptable length of
passives if one speaker turns over the floor to another and the other does not
speak then that silence is attributable to the second speaker and becomes
significant.
Backchannels: vocal indications that provide feedback that the message
is being received.
Adjacency pairs are two subsequent utterances constituting a conversational
exchange (Sacks & Schegloff):
Given the 1st part, the 2nd is expectable.
Each part has a preferred and a dispreferred response. This is a
preference structure.
Conversation is more than just combining pairs in sequences. The coherence
principle is stronger than the notion of paired adjacency.
Dispreferred responses are linguistically marked (preferred responses are
unmarked).
Dispreferred seconds (refusals or disagreements) exhibit one or more of the
following features (Levinson, 1983: 334):
Delay of delivery pause, use of a preface, self-interruptions, selfrepairs (e.g. What I really want to say is).
Prefaces markers of dispreferreds like Uh and Well, er, apologies,
hesitation in various forms (I dont know, but).
Accounts carefully formulated explanations for why the dispreferred act
is being done.
Declination component, characteristically indirect or mitigated
(hedges).
Preferred reponse: simple-structured second part.
There are also other sequences dealing with CA:
A)
Pre-sequences certain utterances are felt to be precursors to
something else. Pre-sequences include attention getters (hey, excuse me),
pre-announcements (guess what), pre-invitations (e.g. are you doing anything
tonight?), pre-threats (watch it), pre-request (I wonder if, do you have any
chance, are you busy?).
B)
Insertion sequences we may speak of nested adjacency pairs. The
pairs occur embedded within other adjacency pairs which act as macrosequences.
C)
Repairs it is a device for a correction of misunderstandings,
mishearings or non-hearings. We may distinguish self-initiated repair and otherinitiated repair. According to Levinson (1983: 341), the preference ranking on
the repair system is as follows (see example 14)

29

i.
ii.
iii.
iv.

Self-initiated, self-repair in own turn.

Self-initiated, self-repair in transition space.
Other-initiatied, other-repair in next turn.
Other-initiation of self-repair in next turn.

D)
Opening and closing sequences conventional openings tend to contain
the greeting, an enquiry after health and a past reference (as in how did it go
last night?). Closings tend to have a pre-closing sequence (long and drawn out
on occasion) rather than just ending with a farewell. Special features in the
opening and closing sections of different classes of verbal interchanges: overall
organization patterns
a.
Telephone conversations: Openings (summons-answer adjacency pairs),
first topic slot (announcemente by the caller of the reason for the call) and
prototypical closings (making of arrangements, giving of regards to family
members, use of markers (OK, so, all right) organized in passing turns and final
exchange of terminal elements (bye, cheers, take care).
There are certain limitations for CA:
Lack of sistemacity not exhaustive list of all adjacency pairs, or a
precise description of how adjacency pairs or TRPs might be recognized
(Eggins & Slade, 1997).
CA does not take into account sociolinguistic aspects of interaction. For
CA analysts, text (co-text) is context. The drawback is, as Fairclough (1989: 12)
says, conversation does not exist within in social vacuum. Conversation
structures are connected to structures of social institutions and society:
interactional sociolinguistics.
4.3. Interactional Sociolinguistics.
The interactional sociolinguistic approach to DA is multidisciplinary: it concerns
the study of the relationship between language, culture and society and has its
roots in Anthropology, Sociology and Linguistics.
Interactional sociolinguistics brings to the front the situational context and the
context of shared knowledge about speakers, their histories and their purpose
in speaking.
A crucial concept is that of contextualization cues (see handout).
Examples of contextualization cues include intonation or any prosodic choices,
conversational code-switching, lexical or syntactic choices, style switching and
facial and gestural signs. These cues may be different across cultures or across
social groups misunderstandings if contextualization conventions are different
(see example).
Goffmans contribution to Interactional Sociolinguistics:
-

Focus on physical co-presence rather than on social groups.

30

The self is a social construction (face shows the positive social value a
person claims for himself).
Other important concept is that of frame: social actors organize their experience
in terms of recognizable activities (a business meeting, a lecture, a game of
chess, etc) which are the frames through which people structure experience.
People from different groups have different ways of showing that they are joking
or serious, flirting, showing concern, acting apologetic, etc.
Interactional sociolinguistics and conversation analysis have become together
now (Ochs, Schegloff and Thompson, 1996) with analysts looking at the
relationship between grammar and social interaction, within the larger schemes
of human conduct and the organization of social life.
Unit 5: The Cooperative Principle
It is concerned with how we get from what the speaker says towards what the
speaker means. Grice: how the hearer gets from what speakers say (expressed
meaning) to what it is meant (implied meaning). (=illocutionary act in Austins
terms)
Bridging assumptions; social contract or form of cooperation social norms of
behaviour. We subconsciously abide by these conventions, they are not rules
as such.
Cooperative Principle and maxims
The maxims are the shared conventions by speakers.
The general principle: 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. (Grice quoted in Levinson 1983:33).
It can be divided into four maxims:
1) The maxim of Quantity:
- Try to make your contribution as informative as is required for the current
purposes of the exchange.
- Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
E.g. Well, to cut a long story short, she didnt get home till two. (speaker is
abiding by the maxim of quantity)
2) The maxim of Quality:
- Do not say what you believe to be false, be sincere.
- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
E.g.
A: Ill ring you tomorrow afternoon then.
B: Erm, shall be there as far as I know, and in the meantime have a word with
Mum and dad if theyre free. Right. Bye-Bye then sweetheart.
A: Bye-bye, bye.
3) The maxim of Relevance (which will later give rise to the Theory of
Relevance) is make your contribution relevant. Aka maxim of Relation.
A: I mean, just going back to your point, I mean to me an order form is a
contract. If we are going to put something in then lets keep it as general as
possible.
B: yes
4) The maxim of manner is be perspicuous (=be clear in meaning) and
specifically:

31

- Avoid obscurity, avoid ambiguity, be brief, be orderly.

E.g. Thank you Chairman, just to clarify one point. There is a meeting of the
Police Committee on Monday and there is an item on their budget for the
provision of their camera.

Observing and flouting the maxims

1 - Observing the maxims
Husband: Where are the car keys?
Wife: Theyre on the table in the hall.
Quantity: right amount of information, enough.
Quality: it is clearly expressed.
Relevance/relation: directly addressing the answer
Manner: there is clarity.
There is not level of additional meaning, what is said is what is meant.
2 Non-observing the maxims: ways of failing to observe a maxim:
2. 1. Flouting a maxim.
2. 2. Violating a maxim.
2.3. Infringing a maxim.
2.4. Opting out of a maxim.
2.5. Suspending a maxim.
2.1. Flouting a maxim
A flout occurs when a speaker blatantly (openly, conspicuously) fails to observe
a maxim, not with any intention of deceiving or misleading, but with the
deliberate intention of generating an additional meaning: conversational
implicature.
a) Flouting quantity.
Example 1
A: Well, how do I look?
B: Your shoes are nice
In the example quantity maxim is flouted, answering the question with implied
additional meaning; you imply that your clothes, hair, etc. isnt nice.
Example 2
A: how are we getting there?
B: well were getting there in Daves car.
B is not including A in the answer. It is not enough information, but what is
implied is that you are not coming with us.
b) Flouting the maxim of quality. (=dont tell lies, or things you lack evidence)
b.1. By saying something that obviously does not represent what they think.
Example 1 (to a shop assistant)
Ill go away and think about it and maybe come back later.
Imply meaning is that you dont like the product, clothes, etc.
Example 2
When Sir Maurice Bowra was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, he was.
Speaker is not saying what he thinks, the speaker knows that the speaker is
going to be able to add that meaning, we dont want to take you, you are not the
right candidate.
Example 3:
A: Would you like to go out with me tonight?

32

B: Sorry Im tired.
You are not deceiving because the intentions are very clear. Flouting is when
the hearer can get to the implied meaning, you are able to interpret or decode
the message thanks to implicatures.
b.2 By exaggerating as in hyperboles.
Examples:
A: I could eat a horse.
or
A: Im starving.
b.3. By using a metaphor: my house is a refrigerator in January
b.4. Conventional euphemisms:
Im going to wash my hands Im going to urinate.
b.5. Irony and banter.
According to Leech irony is an apparently friendly way of being offensive
(mock-politeness), while banter is an offensive way of being friendly (mockimpoliteness). Sarcasm is like irony but intended to hurt.
Example:
Irony: This is a lovely undercooked egg youve given me. Yummy!
Banter: youre nasty, mean and stingy. How can you give me only one kiss?
Bant can be used as a tease or filtration.
c) Flouting the maxim of relation.
Example:
A: So what do you think of Mark?
B: His flatmates a wonderful cook.
Example:
A: Have you made your bed today?
B: Today is quite lovely and sunny, isnt it?
Example:
A: theres somebody at the door.
B: Im in the bath.
d) Flouting manner.
e.g. appearing to be obscure to exclude a third party.
Example:
Mother: where are you off to?
Father: I was thinking of going out to get some of that funny white stuff for
somebody.
Mother: Ok, but dont be long dinners nearly ready.
White stuff and somebody: are vague references; and white stuff refers to ice
cream, he is trying to surprise the child and he doesnt guess what they are
talking about.
montsecustodio@gmail.com
c) Violating a maxim
Quiet or unostentatious non-observance of a
maxim. If a speaker violates a maxim s/he will be liable to mislead (Grice,
1975: 49).
The speaker knows that the hearer will not know the truth and will only
understand the surface meaning of the words. They intentionally generate a
misleading implicature.
Not all violations are blameworthy:

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- To a child of five Mummys gone on a little holiday because she

needs a rest, rather than Mummys got away to decide whether she is going to
divorce or not [white lite].
In many cultures, if one does not know the hearer very well, part of polite
behaviour.
d) Infringing a maxim: as result of imperfect linguistic performance (a child or a
foreigner), cognitive disability, drunkenness, nerves, etc.
- Opting out of a maxim when the speaker indicates unwillingness to
cooperate for legal or ethical reasons.
- Suspending a maxim under certain circumstances ir as oart of certain
events there is no expectation on the part of any participant that maxims will be
fulfilled. Lets explore some cases: maxim of quality in the case in funeral
orations by excluding and obituaries, when some unfavourable aspects are
omitted; poetry suspends the Manner maxim, because it does not aim for
conciseness, clarity and lack of ambiguity; in speedy communication via
telegrams, or notes, the quantity maxim is suspended; in jokes, there is a
suspension of several maxims because of its features such as ambiguity or
vagueness of meaning.
Grice distinguishes two types of implicature
I)
II)

Conventional implicature same implicature, regardless of context.

Conversational implicature implicature varies depending on context.

There are relatively few examples of conversional implicatures, which include

even, even, therefore and yet (Levinson).
Conversational implicature arises only in a particular context of utterance
(Great, thats really great! Thats made my Christmas! someone has opened
a present).
There is a bit a misunderstanding witm implicature and inference.
To imply is to hint, suggest or convey some meaning indirectly by means
of language.
To infer is to deduce something from eveidence.
5.4. Properties of implicature.
In Logic and Conversation, Grice discussed six tests for distinguishing semantic
meaning from implied meaning.
Grice (1975) listed six distinct properties of implicatures.
Thomas(1974) sums them up into four properties:
Non-detachability and non-conventionality some aspects of meaning
are semantic and can be changed or removed by relexicalization or
reformulation.

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Implicature changes However, conversational implicature may become

the meaning of a lexical item (e.g. company restructuration meaning massive
dismissals, creative accounting meaning cheating).
Calculability the implicature conveyed in one particular context is not
random. Possible to spell out the steps the hearer goes through in order to
calculate the intended implicature.
Defeasibility an implicature can be cancelled.
5.5. Limitations of Grices theory.
Sometimes an utterance has a range of possible interpretations. How do we
know when a speaker is deliberately failing to observe a maxim and hence that
an implicature is intended?
How can we distinguish between different types of non-observance?
Maxims overlap or difficult to distinguish.
The maxims are not equally important, and relevance seems to be inevitable.
For Sperber & Wilson (1995), Grices maxims can be reduced to one overriding
principle: relevance.
The mechanisms for calculating an implicature: comparison; exact opposite or
an implicature, which is no way related.
There are certain cross-cultural differences between different languages.

Implicature changes implicatures are the property of utterances, not of

sentences. The same words can carry different implicatures on different
occasions (i.e. depending on the context where they are uttered).
UNIT 6: POLITENESS THEORIES.
6.0. Introduction.
It does not refer to social behaviour but to choices made in language use (i.e.
the linguistic expressions used to give people space and show a friendly
attitude to them).
There are two main theories:
Brown & Levinson (1978, 1987) Politeness: some universals in language
usage. Cambridge: CUP.
Leech (1983): Principles of Pragmatics. Harlow: Longman.
o
Politeness Principles and its maxims.

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6.1. Brown and Levinsons theory of politeness: the concept of face.

In order to enter into social relationships, we have to acknowledge and show an
awareness of face (derived from Goffman, 1967 from English losing face
i.e. be embarrassed).
Face refers to public self-image.
The content of face can differ in different cultures but the notion itself seems to
be universal.
Aspects of face
Negative the want of every competent adult member that
his actions be unimpeded by others (non-imposition, personal space). E.g.
orders vs requests.
Positive the want of every member that his wants to be desirable to be at
least some others (what is important for us is important for others, to be liked,
need to feel accepted and appreciated by others). E.g. compliments.
In general, people cooperate in maintaining face in interaction. Cooperation is
based on the mutual vulnerability of face.
Face can be ignored in cases of social breakdown (e.g. quarrel) but also in
cases of urgent cooperation (e.g. an accident) or in the interests of efficiency
(e.g. during a surgical operation).
6.2. Face-threatening acts (FTAs).
These are certain illocutionary acts are liable to damage or threaten another
persons face: face-threatening acts (FTAs).

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