Download Pragmatics

Pragmatics
语用学
From theory to practice
• Course description
• The course aims to help undergraduates know the
basic concepts and principles in pragmatics as well as
to provide a framework for research study in
pragmatics which may give some insights into their
research work and dissertation writing.
Lecture I What is pragmatics?
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Exercise 1
Paraphrase the sentence:
It’s cold in here.
From our linguistic knowledge, the sentence can be
easily interpreted as:
• The temperature in this place is frigid.
• When we concentrates on meaning that comes from
purely linguistic knowledge, independent of the
situation, we come to the branch of Semantics (语义
学).
• Exercise 2
• Discuss the meaning in two different contexts:
• (a) Mike and Annie are in the living room. Mike asks
Annie whether she’d like to eat dinner in the living room
or the kitchen. Annie replies: It’s cold in here.
• (b) The Queen and her butler, James, are in the
drawing room. The window is open. The Queen says:
It’s cold in here.
• The semantic meaning remains unchanged, in context
(a) and (b), the semantic meaning is still The
temperature in this place is frigid.
• But when it comes to the implied meaning of the
speaker, context (a) really means: Let’s eat in the
kitchen while context (b) probably indicates: James,
shut the window.
• When we concentrates on those aspects of meaning that
cannot be predicted by linguistic knowledge alone and
takes into account knowledge about the physical and
social world, we come to a quite new subject –
Pragmatics (语用学)
• The focus of pragmatic analysis is on the meaning of
speakers’ utterances rather than on the meaning of
words or sentences.
• Below are four definitions of pragmatics. What elements
do they have in common?
• (a) Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice
of language in social interaction and the effects of our
choice on others.
(Crystal, 1987, P.120)
• (b) Pragmatics can be usefully defined as the study of
how utterances have meanings in situations.
(Leech, 1983, P. x)
• (c) Pragmatics is the study of how more gets
communicated than is said. (Yule, 1996, p.3)
• (d) There is a distinction between a hearer’s knowledge
of her language and her knowledge of the world. In this
section, I shall argue that it is this distinction that
underlies the distinction between semantics and
pragmatics.
(Blackmore, 1992, p. 39)
• Pragmatics can be defined in various ways. A general
definition is that it is the study of how speakers of a
language use sentences to effect successful
communication.
• 语用学是一门科学地研究语言使用的学科.
• Pragmatics can also be regarded as a kind of meaning
study.
• Exercise 3
• Now provide a third context for It’s cold in here
which would yield a third and different pragmatic
meaning.
• Mike and Annie are in the greenhouse. Mike wonders
why his flowers haven’t bloomed. Annie replies: It’s
cold in here.
• Sp: The temperature in this place is frigid.
• Pp: The flowers aren’t blooming because the
greenhouse is too cold.
• Two or more utterances might have the same
underlying sentence as their ‘script’, but they can
have quite different interpretations in context(语境）.
• Once the notion of context was taken into
consideration, semantics spilled over into pragmatics.
• What distinguishes semantics and pragmatics is
whether in the study of meaning the context of use is
considered.
• Context is generally considered as constituted by the
knowledge shared by the speaker and the hearer.
• The shared knowledge is of two types: the knowledge
of the language they use, and the knowledge about
the world, including the general knowledge about the
world and the specific knowledge about the situation in
which linguistic communication is taking place.
• Exercise 4
• See the following conversational extracts and decide if the
meaning type under discussion would be primarily the
concern of semantics or pragmatics.
• Parent: Where are your shoes, young man?
• Child: Under my bed.
• Parent: when I asked where your shoes were, I wanted
you to put them on!
• Sandy: Lugubrious?
• Bill: You know, sort of mournful, not very cheerful.
• Dave: What did Macbeth mean when he said that life
was a tale told by an idiot?
• Sarah: I guess he thought that life didn’t make any
sense.
• Exercise 5
• Context is one of the key elements in pragmatic
studies. One can interpret the same sentence quite
differently in different contexts. The meaning of the
sentence is largely based upon the situation that is
used. Please discuss the implied meaning of “恭喜
你!” in different contexts.
Summary
• Language meaning can be analyzed at several levels.
• Semantics concentrates on the meaning that comes
from linguistic knowledge, while pragmatics
concentrates on those aspects of meaning that cannot
be predicted by linguistic knowledge alone and takes
into account our knowledge about the physical and
social world.
Summary
• The focus of pragmatic analysis is on the meaning of
speakers’ utterance rather than on the meaning of
words or sentences.
• Utterances need not consist of complete sentences.
Each utterance is a unique physical event created at a
particular point in time for a particular communicative
purpose.
Suggested booklist
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《新编语用学概要》（何兆熊，上海外语教育出版社， 2000）
《语用学概论》 (何自然 冉永平，湖南教育出版社, 2006)
《语用学：现象与分析》(冉永平，北京大学出版社，2006)
《汉语文化语用学》（钱冠连， 清华大学出版社，1997）
《认知语用学概论》（熊学亮，上海外语教育出版社， 1999）
《认知语言学概论》（赵艳芳，上海外语教育出版社，2001）
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Pragmatics, Stephen C Levinson, 外语教学与研究出版社，2001
Principles of Pragmatics, Leech, G., London: Longman, 1983
Pragmatics: An Introduction, Mey, Jacob, 外语教学与研究出版社, 2001
Doing Pragmatics, Grundy, Peter Edward Arnold, 1995
Understanding Utterances, Blackmore, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992
The Pragmatics of Translation, Hickey, Leo (ed.), 上海外语教育出版社,
2001
• Translation and Relevance, Gutt, E., Oxford: Balckwell 1991