Pragmatics II By Dr. Shadia

Slide 1: 

By: Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar http://www.kau.edu.sa/SBANJER http://wwwdrshadiabanjar.blogspot.com Pragmatics IIIntroduction Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 1

Regularity : 

Regularity in using language, People tend to behave to a certain extent in regular ways. This is because they are members of social groups and follow general patterns of behavior expected within the groups. Most people within a linguistic community have similar basic experiences of the world and share a lot of non-linguistic knowledge. Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 3

The Pragmatics wastebasket : 

The Pragmatics wastebasket For a long period of time, there has been a very strong interest in formal system of language analysis based on logic and mathematics. The emphasis has been on discovering some of the abstract principles that lie at the very core of language. universal features of language was in focus. Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 4

Slide 5: 

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 5 Linguists tended to push any notes they had on everyday language use to the edges. Many of those notes ended up in the wastebasket. That overflowing wastebasket has become the source of much of what is discussed in Pragmatics. The contents of that wastebasket were not originally organized under a single category. They were defined as the stuff that wasn’t easily handled within the formal analysis.

Slide 6: 

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 6 The duck ran up to Mary and licked her. A syntactic approach to this sentence would be concerned with the rules that determine the correct structure and exclude any incorrect structure. From the syntactic point of view such a sentence is grammatically correct.

Slide 7: 

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 7 Dogs lick not ducks!

Slide 8: 

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 8 The duck ran up to Mary and licked her. The bottle of ketchup ran up to Mary. Both sentences are grammatically correct. Semantically, the first sentence is okay as the word ‘duck’ is an animate while ‘a bottle of ketchup’ is non-animate and the verb ‘ran up to’ requires an animate subject. Formal Semantics

Slide 9: 

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 9 Semantics is also concerned with the truth-conditions of propositions expressed in sentences. The duck ran up to Mary and licked her. ‘The duck ran up to Mary’ = p ‘The duck licked Mary’ = q + & ‘The duck ran up to Mary and licked her’ = = r If p is true & q is true, then p&q is true. If either p or q is not true, then p&q is false. ‘ampersand’

Slide 10: 

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 10 In this type of analysis which is known as formal semantics, whenever p & q is true, it logically follows that q &p is true as the following: The duck licked Mary and ran up to her.

Slide 11: 

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 11 In the everyday world of language use, this state of affairs described in 2 is not identical to the original situation described in 1. There is a sequence of two events being described and we expect that sequence, in terms of occurrence, to be reflected in the order of mention.

If p involves some action and q involves another action, we have an overwhelming tendency to interpret the conjunction ‘and’, not as logical &, but as the sequential expression ‘and then’. : 

If p involves some action and q involves another action, we have an overwhelming tendency to interpret the conjunction ‘and’, not as logical &, but as the sequential expression ‘and then’. Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 12 P and then q

Slide 13: 

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 13 Syntax Pragmatics Rules Principles HAVE

Slide 14: 

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 14 A Pragmatic Principle We use a pragmatic principle to make sense of what we hear and read, but we can ignore if it doesn’t apply in some situations. Interpret order of mention as a reflection of order of occurrence.

Slide 15: 

Thank You! Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar 15