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In the late 1960s, two elderly American tourists who had been
touring Scotland reported that , in their travels, they had
come to a Scottish town in which there was great ruined
cathedral. As they stood in the ruins, they saw a small boy and
they asked him when the cathedral had been so badly
damaged. He replied in the war. Their immediate
interpretation, in the 1960s, was that he must be refereeing to
the second world war which had ended only twenty years
earlier. But then they thought that the ruins looked as if they
had been in their dilapidate state for much longer than that,
so they asked the boy which war he meant. He replied the
war with the English, which they eventually discovered, had
formally ended in 1745. (Yule, 2009: 112)
What is Pragmatics?
The study of what speakers mean or meaning
is called pragmatics.
In many ways, pragmatics is the study of
invisible meaning or how we recognize what is
meant even when it isn’t actually said or
written.
Our interpretation of the meaning of the sign
is not based solely on the words but on what
we think the writer/speaker intend to
communicate.
Our understanding of much of what we read
and hear is tied to this processing of aspects
of the physical context, particularly the time
and place, in which we encounter linguistic
expressions.
Deixis
People can actually use deixis to have some
fun. The restaurant owner who puts up a big
bill board that reads
Free Meal Tomorrow ( to get you to return to
the restaurant ) can always claim that you are
one day early for the free meal.
Reference
Relationship between linguistics expression and
outside world.
MEANING
reference
sense denotation
extension intension
Saussure
Dyadic model
Peircean Theory
The semiotic Triangle:
reference assignment
implicature
Language Processing
Models
Theories of Meaning
Semantics vs.
Pragmatics
SEMANTICS PRAGMATICS
Language Internal Language External
Linguistic Meaning Communication
What expressions What speakers
mean mean
What is Said What is implied
Language itself Use of language
Geoffrey Leech