English 306A; Harris 1
Pragmatics
Interpersonal functionAustinian Speech ActsGricean Conversational Maxims
English 306A; Harris 2
Speech acts
Sam-I-Am’sbeen here.
I can’t find any whisky!
Conversational maxims
English 306A; Harris 3
Meaning
SemanticsPropositionsTruth/falsityContext-freeLanguage-in-vitro
PragmaticsUtterancesAppropriatenessContext-dependentLanguage-in-vivo
English 306A; Harris 4
Functions
Ideational function:What does “The cat is on the mat” mean as an
expression in the system of English?How?
Denotation, truth conditions, event schemata, semantic roles, …
Interpersonal function:What does “The cat is on the mat” mean to hearer X,
when said by speaker Y, in context Z?How?
Speech acts, conversational maxims, face principles, deixis, …
English 306A; Harris 5
Functions
Ideational function:What does “The cat is on the mat” mean as an
expression in the system of English?How?
Denotation, truth conditions, event schemata, semantic roles, …
Interpersonal function:What does “The cat is on the mat” mean to hearer X,
when said by speaker Y, in context Z?How?
Speech acts, conversational maxims, face principles, deixis, …
English 306A; Harris 6
Ideational function
What we’ve been studying to this point:Language from the perspective of encoding ideas, and the mechanics of transmitting those ideas, within the system of a language.
English 306A; Harris 7
Interpersonal function
Language from the perspective of making and maintaining human contact, so we can coöperate, negotiate, decide, get along, build bridges, and generally function as social animals.
English 306A; Harris 8
Interpersonal function
A supplement to the ideational function—not a substitute—but a crucial supplement.
The ideational function is necessary, but not sufficient.
English 306A; Harris 9
Phatic communionsocial contact
Communicativemental contact
Interpersonal function
English 306A; Harris 10
Interpersonal function
Phatic
The use of language to establish or maintain social relations
Sam!
English 306A; Harris 11
Phatic
Utterances whose chief function is to establish or maintain contact; much like canine gluteus-maximus reciprocal olfactory analysis.
Hi, Hello, yo, …How are you, How’s it going,
How’s it hanging, …Live long and prosper, Keep
on truckin, Keep it real, …Nice weather, Cold enough
for you?, Hope the rain don’t hurt the rhubarb, ….
English 306A; Harris 12
Interpersonal function
Communicative
The use of language to encode and transmit intentions
I will try them. You will see.
English 306A; Harris 13
Interpersonal function
Communicative
The use of language to encode and transmit intentions
I will try them. You will see.
English 306A; Harris 14
Interpersonal function
Communicative
The use of language to encode and transmit intentions
Take, for instance, the utterance, If you will let me be, I will try them. You will see.
Ideationally, it’s just a pair of propositions.
Communicatively, it’s a surrender, a capitulation, a collapse of my resolve, and a prediction that I won’t like
your damn viridescent chow!
English 306A; Harris 15
Communicative
Utterances whose chief function is to share mental contents
InformationAttitudesWorldviews
The cat is on the mat.Homer eats crap.Huh?Try them, try them, and you
may, I say.My kingdom for a horse. Please put the lid back
down.Put the F&^#ing lid down!e = mc2
English 306A; Harris 16
Phatic and Communicative
=Sam!If you will letme be, I will try them. You will see.
English 306A; Harris 17
Phatic and Communicative
Every utterance has both phatic and communicative dimensions.
English 306A; Harris 18
Speech Acts & Conversational Maxims
J. L. AustinPeople do things with words beyond asserting truth. We act through speech.
H.P. GriceThe way people coordinate their speech is very intricate. We follow maxims.
English 306A; Harris 19
English 306A; Harris 20
Speech acts
Locutionthe utterance of a sentence with specific denotation
Illocutionthe making of a statement, offer, promise, …
Perlocutionthe bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering a sentence (persuading, entertaining, scaring, …)
English 306A; Harris 21
Locutionthe utterance of a sentence with specific denotation
Illocutionthe making of a statement, offer, promise, …
Perlocutionthe bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering a sentence (persuading, entertaining, scaring, …)
Speech acts
English 306A; Harris 22
Locutionthe utterance of a sentence with specific denotation
Illocution= the speech act
Perlocutionthe bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering a sentence (persuading, entertaining, scaring, …)
Speech acts
English 306A; Harris 23
Illocutions/Speech Acts
pronouncement
pronouncement
statement
confirmation
despisement
(iconic statement)
Felicity Conditions
English 306A; Harris 24
despisement
The physical and social conditions under which a speech act can be performed
Illocutions/Speech Acts
Felicity Conditions
English 306A; Harris 25
The physical and social conditions under which a speech act can be performed
I christen thee “The Good
Ship Lollypop”!
Felicity Conditions
English 306A; Harris 26
Acts through speech
Offer, decline, accept, promise, bet, warn, threaten, suggest, advise, declare, marry, christen, compliment, insult, joke, …
Felicity conditions: appropriate intentions; appropriate circumstances; appropriate actions.
Try them! Try them! Try them and you may I
say!
Sam!If you will let me be, I will try them. You will
see.
English 306A; Harris 27
Categories of speech acts(Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7)
Ritualized social circumstances (thank someone when something has been exchanged, sentence at termination of trial, pronunciation of marriage,…); utterance primarily constitutes act.
Communicate, or request communication of information (assert facts, question truth of facts, solicit the completion of an assertion, …); utterance primarily engages in trafficing information.
Commit self or solicit others to do something (offer assistance, request favour, make a bet, …); utterance primarily concerns future conduct.
Constitutive
Informative
Obligative
English 306A; Harris 28
Communicate, or request communication of information (assert facts, question truth of facts, solicit the completion of an assertion, …); utterance primarily engages in trafficing information.
Commit self or solicit others to do something (offer assistance, request favour, make a bet, …); utterance primarily concerns future conduct.
Categories of speech acts(Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7)
Expressive
Declarative
thanking, apologizing, …
sentencing, pronouncing, …Constitutive
Informative
Obligative
English 306A; Harris 29
Commit self or solicit others to do something (offer assistance, request favour, make a bet, …); utterance primarily concerns future conduct.
Categories of speech acts(Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7)
Expressive
Declarative
Assertive
Interrogative
thanking, apologizing, …
sentencing, pronouncing, …
asserting, describing, …
asking
Constitutive
Informative
Obligative
English 306A; Harris 30
Final Exam
7:30 - 10:00 PM!
Thursday
16 December
RCH 305
English 306A University of Waterloo Final Examination
FALL TERM 2010
Student Name ____ ____ ____ _______ ____ ____ _______ __ ____ ____ __ Student ID Number ____ ____ ____ _______ ____ ____ _______ __ ____ ____ __
Course Number English 306A Course Title Introduction to Linguistics Section 01 Held With Course(s) Section(s) of Held With Courses(s)
n/a n/a
I nstructor Randy Harris
Date of Exam Thursday, 16 December 10 Time Period 7:30 PM - 10:00 PM Duration of Exam Two and a half hours Number of Exam Pages (including this cover sheet)
1
Exam Type Final
Format
multiple-choice true-false extra-credit short answer
Worth 50 % of course grade
Additional Materials Allowed None
Marking scheme
Section I Extra-credit Section II 60 % 10 40 %
30 questions 1 Event Schemata Analysis 40 questions
1% each right answer 2% each right answer
10 for fully correct analysis; partial marks for correct role- assignments. - 0.5 % each wrong answer
English 306A; Harris 31
Your 306A Grade
Greater of (M1 + M2 + F) OR Fi.e., 100% Final, if it helps
English 306A; Harris 32
Categories of speech acts(Dirven and Verspoor, Table 1, chapter 7)
Expressive
Declarative
Assertive
Interrogative
Directive
Commissive
thanking, apologizing, …
sentencing, pronouncing, …
asserting, describing, …
asking
requesting, ordering, …
promising, offering, …
Constitutive
Informative
Obligative
English 306A; Harris 33
Acts through speech
Speech acts: offer, decline, accept, promise, bet, warn, threaten, suggest, advise, declare, marry, christen, compliment, insult, joke, …
Felicity conditions: appropriate intentions; appropriate circumstances; appropriate actions.
English 306A; Harris 34
H. P. Grice
English 306A; Harris 35
How to talk
Make your conversational 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.
English 306A; Harris 36
How to talk
Coöperate.
English 306A; Harris 37
How we do, in fact, talk
Coöperate.
English 306A; Harris 38
And how we listen, too
Coöperate.
English 306A; Harris 39
Relation
Quality
Quantity
Manner
Be relevant.
Be truthful.
Be sufficient (but not prolix).
Be perspicacious.
How to talk, more specifically
Grice’s Maxims
English 306A; Harris 40
How to talk and interpret; conversational implicature
Grice’s MaximsNot moral or social injunctions
Empirically derived principles
Maxims that people naturally follow, and generally expect others to follow
To speak
To understand (conversational implicature)
Observable mostly in violation
English 306A; Harris 41
Maxim of relationIs there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be relevant.A1: Yep, there’s a gas station at
King and Weber. [closed]A2: Nope, you’ll have to go all
the way to Erb Street; everything’s closed around here because of the anthrax scare.
English 306A; Harris 42
Maxim of qualityIs there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be truthful.Say what you believe
to be true.Don’t say what you
believe to be false.
English 306A; Harris 43
Maxim of qualityIs there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be truthful.Say what you believe to
be true.Don’t say what you
believe to be false.A1: Nope. [ommitting that
there is gas bar at the Canadian Tire.]
A2: Well, there’s a gas bar, if you just need some gas.
English 306A; Harris 44
Maxim of qualityIs there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be truthful.Say what you believe to
be true.Don’t say what you
believe to be false.A1: Nope. [false; there is one]A2: Yep, two lights up on the
left there’s a new Petrosaurus Station.
English 306A; Harris 45
Maxim of quantityIs there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Provide enough informationBut not too muchA1: Yep.A2: Sure, King and Erb.A3: Yep, King and Erb.
They have a sale ongumboots at the hardware store across the street from it, too.
English 306A; Harris 46
Maxim(s) of mannerIs there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be clearDon’t be obscureDon’t be ambiguousBe briefBe orderly
English 306A; Harris 47
Maxim(s) of mannerIs there a gas station around here?
(=Tell me where I can get gas. I need it and I’m a stranger.)
Be clearYes. Somewhere near the
theatre. Don’t be obscureDon’t be ambiguousBe briefBe orderly
English 306A; Harris 48
Be clearDon’t be obscure
Yep. Next to the old Smith place.
Don’t be ambiguousBe briefBe orderly
Maxim(s) of mannerIs there a gas station around here?
(=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger)
English 306A; Harris 49
Be clearDon’t be obscureDon’t be ambiguous
Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t.
Be briefBe orderly
Maxim(s) of mannerIs there a gas station around here?
(=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger)
English 306A; Harris 50
Be clearDon’t be obscureDon’t be ambiguousBe brief
Sure quite a few. I know where every gas station built in the KW area since the Great War was located. First, there was the Ollie Petrie Service Station at the corner of …
Be orderly
Maxim(s) of mannerIs there a gas station around here?
(=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger)
English 306A; Harris 51
Be clearDon’t be obscureDon’t be ambiguousBe briefBe orderly
Sure. At Erb, turn right off King. To get to King, take Westmount, and turn left when you get there. Before that, go three lights down University and turn left at Westmount. First, however, …
Maxim(s) of mannerIs there a gas station around here?
(=Do you know where I can get some gas? I’m a stranger)
English 306A; Harris 52
[T]hough some maxim is violated at the level of what is said, the hearer is entitled to assume that that maxim, or at least the overall cooperative principle, is observed at the level of what is implicated.
How to listen(Conversational implicature)
English 306A; Harris 53
Grice’s Maxims
The important point:
Grice charted the many, many ways we coordinate our speech to each other’s needs and expectations.
English 306A; Harris 54
Intention; figuration
All language dialogic (conversational).Grice’s maxims form a baseline of expectations.Figures of thought (tropes) function by violating
maxims, deviating from baseline.The ‘first reading’ doesn’t make sense, so hearers
figure out the speaker’s intention--not what the utterance means, but what the speaker means by that utterance.
English 306A; Harris 55
Metonymy
English 306A; Harris 56
Metonymy
Violates quality
English 306A; Harris 57
Metonymy
Violates quality
Satisfies relation,quantity, manner
English 306A; Harris 58
Metaphor
My love is red, red rose.
English 306A; Harris 59
Metaphor
My love is red, red rose.
Violates quality
English 306A; Harris 60
Metaphor
Violates quality
Satisfies relation,quantity, manner
My love is red, red rose.
English 306A; Harris 61
Repetitio
My love is red, red rose.
Violates manner(brevity)
Satisfies relation,quantity, quality
English 306A; Harris 62
Polyptoton
Violates manner(brevity)
Satisfies relation,quantity, quality
English 306A; Harris 63
Polyptoton
Violates manner(brevity)
Satisfies relation,quantity, quality
English 306A; Harris 64
Irony
Lovely day!
English 306A; Harris 65
Irony
Lovely day!
Violates quality
English 306A; Harris 66
Irony
Violates quality
Satisfies relation,quantity, manner
Lovely day!
English 306A; Harris 67
Paronomasia
English 306A; Harris 68
Paronomasia
Violates manner(clarity)
English 306A; Harris 69
Paronomasia
Violates manner(clarity)
Satisfies relation,quantity, quality
English 306A; Harris 70
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:
What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet
English 306A; Harris 71
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:
What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet
Words, words, words.
English 306A; Harris 72
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet
Words, words, words.
Violates quantity and relation
(Satisfies quality and mostly manner)
English 306A; Harris 73
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet
English 306A; Harris 74
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet
Between whom?
English 306A; Harris 75
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet
Between whom?
Violates relation
(satisfies quantity, manner, … quality?)
English 306A; Harris 76
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey
beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have
plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus
down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go
backward.
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:I mean the matter that you
read, my lord.
Hamlet
English 306A; Harris 77
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey
beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have
plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus
down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go
backward.
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:I mean the matter that you
read, my lord.
Hamlet
Violates
quantity
English 306A; Harris 78
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey
beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have
plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus
down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go
backward.
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:I mean the matter that you
read, my lord.
Hamlet
Violates
relation
English 306A; Harris 79
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey
beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have
plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus
down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go
backward.
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:I mean the matter that you
read, my lord.
Hamlet
Violates
manner
(clarit
y, brevity
, orderlin
ess)
English 306A; Harris 80
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey
beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have
plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all of which though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have set it thus
down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go
backward.
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Polonius:I mean the matter that you
read, my lord.
HamletQuality
?
English 306A; Harris 81
Now, for the high-brow stuff
Hamlet
English 306A; Harris 82
I ask to be, or not to be.That is the question, I ask of me.This sullied life, it makes me shudder.My uncle's boffing dear, sweet mother.Would I, could I take my life?Could I, should I, end this strife?Should I jump out of a plane?Or throw myself before a train?Should I from a cliff just leap?Could I put myself to sleep?…To sleep, to dream, now there's the rub.I could drop a toaster in my tub.
Hamlet
English 306A; Harris 83
Pragmatics
Interpersonal functionPhatic and Communicative
Speech actsInformative, Constitutive, and Obligative
Grice’s MaximsThe coöperative principle (and its ramifications)Speaking and understanding (conversational
implicature)