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Chapter 6
PRAGMATICS
1. What does pragmatics study? How does
it differ from traditional semantics?
答：
Generally speaking, pragmatics is the
study of meaning in the context. It studies
meaning
in a dynamic way and as a
process. In order to have a successful
communication, the speaker
and hearer
must take the context into their consideration so
as to effect the right meaning and
intention. The development and
establishment pragmatics in 1960s and 1970s
resulted mainly
from
the
expansion
of
the
study
semantics.
However,
it
is
different
from
the
traditional
semantics.
The
major
difference
between
them
lies
in
that
pragmatics
studies
meaning
in
a
dynamic way, while semantics studies
meaning in a static way. Pragmatics takes context
into
consideration while semantics does
not. Pragmatics takes care of the aspect of
meaning that is
not accounted for by
semantics.
2. Why is the notion of
context essential in the pragmatic study of
linguistic communication?
答：
The
notion
of
context
is
essential
to
the
pragmatic
study
of
language.
It
is
generally
considered
as
constituted
by
the
knowledge
shared
by
the
speaker
and
the
hearer.
Various
continents of shared knowledge have
been identified, e.g. knowledge of the language
they use,
knowledge
of
what
has
been
said
before,
knowledge
about
the
world
in
general,
knowledge
about the specific situation in which
linguistic communication is taking place, and
knowledge
about
each
other.
Context
determines
the
speaker's
use
of
language
and
also
the
heater's
interpretation of what is said to him.
Without such knowledge, linguistic communication
would
not be possible, and without
considering such knowledge, linguistic
communication cannot be
satisfactorily
accounted for in a pragmatic sense. Look at the
following sentences:
(1) How did it go?
(2) It is
cold in hem.
(3) It was a
hot Christmas day so we went down to the beach in
the afternoon and had a
good time
swimming and surfing.
Sentence
(1)
might
be
used
in
a
conversation
between
two
students
talking
about
an
examination, or two surgeons talking
about an operation, or in some other contexts; (2)
might
be said by the speaker to ask the
hearer to turn on the heater, or leave the place,
or to put on
more clothes, or to
apologize for the poor condition of the room,
depending on the situation of
context;
(3) makes sense only ii the hearer has the
knowledge that Christmas falls in summer in
the southern hemisphere.
3.
How are sentence meaning and utterance meaning
related, and how do they differ?
答：
A
sentence is a grammatical concept, and the meaning
of a sentence is often studied as the
abstract, intrinsic property of the
sentence itself
in terms of
predication. But if we think of a
sentence as what people actually utter
in the course of communication, it becomes an
utterance,
and
it
should
be
considered
in
the
situation
in
which
it
is
actually
uttered
(or
used).
So
it
is
impossible
to tell if “The dog is barking” is a sentence or
an utterance. It can be either. It all
depends on how we look at it and how we
are going to analyze it. If we take it as a
grammatical
unit and consider it as a
self-contained unit in isolation from context,
then we are treating it as a
sentence.
If we take it as something a speaker utters in a
certain situation with a certain purpose,
then we are treating it as an
utterance.
Therefore,
while
the
meaning
of
a
sentence
is
abstract,
and
decontextualized,
that
of
an
utterance
is concrete, and context-dependent. The meaning of
an utterance is based on sentence
meaning;
it
is
the
realization
of
the
abstract
meaning
of
a
sentence
in
a
real
situation
of
communication,
or
simply
in
a
context.
Now,
take
the
sentence
bag
is
heavy
as
an
example. Semantic analysis of the
meaning of the sentence results in the one-place
predication
BAG (BEING
HEA
VY). Then a pragmatic analysis of
the utterance meaning of the .sentence
varies with the context in which it is
uttered. For example, it could be uttered by a
speaker as a
straightforward statement,
telling the hearer that his bag is heavy. It could
also be intended by
the speaker as an
indirect, polite request, asking the hearer to
help him carry the bag. Another
possibility
is
that
the
speaker
is
declining
someone's
request
for
help.
All
these
are
possible
interpretations of
the same utterance
“
M
y bag is
heavy”. How it is to be underst
ood
depends on
the context in which it is
uttered and the purpose for which the speaker
utters it.
While most utterances take the form of
grammatically complete sentences, some utterances
do not, and some cannot even be
restored to complete sentences.
4. Try
to think of contexts in which the following
sentences can be used for other purposes
than just stating facts:
a) The room is
messy.
b) Oh, it is raining!
c) The music of
the movie is good.
d) You have been keeping my
notes for a whole week now.
答：
a) A father entered his
son
’
s room and found it is
very messy. Then when he said,
“
The room is
messy,
”
he was
blaming his son for not tidying it up.
b) A son asked
his father to play with him outside. So when the
father said,
“
Oh,
it
’
s
raining
”
,
he
meant they couldn
’
t play
outside.
c) Two persons just watched a movie and
had a discussion of it. One person
sai
d, “
The story of
the
movie
is
very
moving
”,
so
wh
en
the
other
person
sai
d,
“
The
music
of
the
movie
is
good
”, he
me
ant he didn't think the story of the
movie was good.
d) A person wanted his
notes bac
k, so when he said, “you
ha
ve been keeping my notes for a
whole wee
k now”
,
he was demanding the return of his notes.
5. According to Austin, what are the
three acts a person is possibly performing while
making
an utterance. Give an example.
答
：
According
to
Austin's
new
model,
a
speaker
might
be
performing
three
acts
simultaneously when
speaking: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and
perlocutionary act.
A locutionary act
is the act of uttering words, phrases, clauses. It
is the act of conveying
literal meaning
by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology. An
illocutionary act is the act of
expressing the
speaker
’
s intention; it is
the act performed in saying something. A
perlocutionary
act is the act performed
by or resulting from saying something; it is the
consequence of, or the
change brought
about by the utterance; it is the act performed by
saying something. Let's look at
an
example:
You
have left the door wide open.
The locutionary act
performed by the speaker is his utterance of the
wo
rds “you”, “have”,
“door”,
“open”, etc. thus expressing what the
words literally mean.
The illocutionary act
performed by the speaker is that by making such an
utterance he has
expressed
his
intention
of
speaking,
i.e.
asking
someone
to
close
the
door,
or
making
a
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