Discourse and Pragmatics

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Discourse and Pragmatics

• Speech Act Theory
• and Pragmatics

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Speech
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What speech events and acts would you expect in
the following situations?

• A Trial
• A Wedding
• A Date
• Yum Cha on Sunday

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Speech Acts

• How we do things with words
• John Austin and John Searle
• Its cold in here.
• Propositional Content
• Locutionary Force
• Illocutionary Force
• Perlocutionary Force
• We would like to thank customers for not smoking
  while in this store.

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Illocutionary Force

• Sometimes difficult to identify
• Often depends on context
• Sometimes spread over several utterances
• There may be more than one illocutionary force

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Kinds of Speech Acts

• Representatives (S conveys a belief)
• Directives (S tries to get H to do something)
• Commissives (S commits to future action)
• Declarations (S creates a new external
  situationperformatives)
• Expressives (S expresses personal feelings)

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Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

• Direct speech acts
• Use verbs that have the meaning of the act (e.g.
  I promise I will go, Did you steal my
  pencil?)
• Indirect speech acts
• Use other ways to perform the speech act
• Can you come tomorrow?
• I didnt know I made you angry
• I suggest you get out of my office before I
  punch you!

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Task
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Threats

• How many ways can you express the speech act of
• A threat or warning?

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Conditions

• Not all speakers can perform all speech acts
• There are certain conditions necessary for an
  utterance to be considered a certain kind of
  speech act
• Felicity conditions

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Felicity Conditions

• Speech acts judged not by truth value but by
  their happiness
• Language (propositional content)
• Context (preparatory condition)
• I now pronounce you man and wife
• Participants/setting
• Intention
• Speaker is sincere, believes the act will have
  the desired force

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Felicity Conditions

• Rules that need to be followed for an utterance
  to work.
• A promise
• I say I will perform an action in the future
• I intend to do it. I believe I can do it.
• I think I would not normally do it.
• I think the other person wants me to do it.
• I intend to place myself under an obligation to
  perform the action.
• We both understand what Im saying.
• We are both normal, conscious human beings.
• Both of us are in normal circumstances.
• The utterance contains an illocutionary force
  indicating device.

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Task

• What are the conditions for
• A marriage proposal
• A bet
• A request
• An order

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Speech Acts across Cultures

• Apologies
• Would you like a beer?
• Have you eaten?

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Conversational Implicature

• We guess what people mean by referring to certain
  DEFAULT EXPECTATIONS
• When people do not fulfill the default
  expectations
• They create IMPLICATURE (special meaning

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Implicature

• I love you.
• Thank you.

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• How is Alan doing in his new job at HSBC?
• Oh, quite well, I think. He likes his colleagues
  and he hasnt been to prison yet.

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Default Expectations

• Grice
• Conversation is rational behavior
• The Cooperative Principle
• Make your conversational contribution such as is
  required, at the stage at which it is occurs, by
  the accepted purpose or direction of the talk
  exchange in which you are engaged.

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Conversational Maxims

• The Maxim of Quantity
• Be only as informative as required for current
  conversational purposes.
• The Maxim of Quality
• Say only what you believe to be true and
  adequately supported.
• The Maxim of Relation
• Be relevant.
• The Maxim of Manner
• Be clear be brief and orderly and avoid
  obscurity and ambiguity.

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Maxims vs. Rules

• Sets of expectations which we exploit to make
  meaning.
• The point is not that we follow these maxims or
  that we should follow them.
• The point is that when we deviate from them we
  create a IMPLICATURE.

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Maxim of Quantity

• Make your contribution as informative as required
  for the current purposes of the exchange.
• Do not make your contribution more informative
  than is required.

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Maxim of Quality

• Try to make your contribution one that is true.
• Do not say what you believe to be false.
• Do not say that for which you lack adequate
  evidence.

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Maxims of Relevance and Manner

• Maxim of Relevance
• Be relevant
• Maxim of Manner
• Avoid obscurity of expression
• Avoid ambiguity
• Be brief
• Be orderly

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Examples

• Which Maxim/s is/are being flouted?
• What kind of implicature does it create
• Do you have any money on you?
• Is there anywhere I can powder my nose?
• Isnt my new boyfriend handsome?
• He has a very nice personality.

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• A Well, how do I look?
• B Your shoes are nice.
• I could eat a horse
• Remember that as a teenager you are at the last
  stage of your life when you will be happy to hear
  that the phone is for you.
• A So what do you think of Mark?
• B His flatmates a wonderful cook.

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• A Does your dog bite?
• B No.
• A Bends down to stroke it and gets bitten Ow!
  You said your dog doesnt bite.
• B That isnt my dog.

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• Husband How much did that new dress cost,
  darling?
• Wife I know, lets go out tonight. Now, where
  would you like to go?

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• Infringing a maxim
• Fail to observe a maxim because of their
  imperfect linguistic performance (a child or a
  foreign learner) nervousness drunkenness
  excitement cognitive impairment incapability of
  speaking clearly.
• Example
• Bush said Gates would not routinely attend
  Cabinet meetings but would take part in sessions
  where intelligence was necessary for making
  decision.

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Implicature

• l By observing the cooperative principle,
  interlocutors are able to work out what is meant
  from what is said.
• l Utterances do not always carry their literal
  meaning.
• l Non-literal meaning must be inferred from
  context and the cooperative principle.
• l Non-literal interpretations are referred to as
  implicatures.
• l Implicature is a special type of inference in
  which the hearer makes the assumption that the
  speaker is NOT breaking one of the conversational
  maxims of quantity, quality, relation, and
  manner.

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Task
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Limitations of the cooperative principle

• Different cultures, countries, and communities
  have their own ways of observing and expressing
  maxims for particular situations.
• There is often an overlap between the four
  maxims. It can be difficult to say which one is
  operating and it would be more precise to say
  that there are two or more operating at once.

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Relevance and meaning (Gee 1999)

• Meaning is not merely a matter of decoding
  grammar. It is also a matter of knowing which of
  the many inferences that one can draw from an
  utterance are relevant.
• Relevance is a matter deeply tied to context,
  point of view, and culture.
• lExample Sentence 1. May have multiple meanings
  2-4. What does it mean? Try to fill in the
  blanks.

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