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Discourse and Culture (Pragmatics view)

Discourse Analysis

It covers an extremely wide range of activities, from the narrowly focused investigation of how words such as ‘oh’ or ‘well’ are used in casual talk, to the study of dominant ideology in a culture as represented, for example in its educational or political practices.

However, within the study of discourse, the pragmatic discourse is more specialized. It tends to focus specifically on aspects of what is unsaid or unwritten (yet communicated) within the discourse being analyzed. It also pays much more attention to psychological concepts such as background knowledge, beliefs, and expectations.

General terms in pragmatics

1. a. Wastebasket in a term of pragmatics is place of the investigation of abstract, potentially universal, features of language in the center of the work tables. Many of these notes on ordinary language in use began to be knocked off and ended up in the wastebasket. It was worked by the linguists and philosophers of language tended to push notes they had on everyday language use to the edges.

b. Structuralists and functionalist say about wastebasket

Structuralist of the wastebasket is abstract, potentially universal, features of language in the center of the work tables.

The overflowing of Wastebasket functionalist has the source of what will be discussed in pragmatics such as deixis, reference, presupposition, entailment, implicature, cooperative principles, speech act, speech event, politeness, and etc. The content of wastebasket is a stuff of difficult matters within formal systems of analysis and in order to understand the matters, we really have to look at how it goes there.

2. The Phenomenon of speech level in every language is heavily emphasized by speakers.

In deixis point of view, it is included personal deixis which deictic categories of speaker, addressee, and others are elaborate with markers of relative social status. It is sometimes namely social deixis which addressee with higher status and addressee with lower status is different. It conveys the distinction of formality, social distance, and politeness. As an understanding of the context in this case, the social status of the speaker relative to the other participants is crucial to its use. Expressions which indicate higher status are described as honorifics. There are three main types of honorifics, categorized according to the individual whose status is being expressed; Addressee, Referent, and Participant. Addressee honorifics express the social status of the person being spoken to (the hearer), regardless of what is being talked about. It does not concern the status of any participant, but the circumstances and environment in which the conversation is occurring. The classic example of this is diglossia, in which an elevated or "high form" of a language is used in situations where more formality is called for, and a vernacular or "low form" of a language is used in more casual situations.

For example in my own language system (Javanese):

Javanese speech is stratified into:

Ngaka (the impolite and informal colloquial "everyday" speech).

Krama is known as the polite and formal style. Krama is divided into two other categories: Krama Madya: semi-polite and semi-formal, and Krama Inggil: fully polite and formal Note- in Javanese, though the above is orthographically correct, the "a" is pronounced as an "o". All these categories are ranked according to age, rank, kinship relations, and intimacy. If a speaker is uncertain about the addressee’s age or rank, they commence with krama inggil and adapt their speech strata according to the highest level of formality, moving down to lower levels. Krama is usually learned from parents and teachers, and Ngaka is usually learned from interacting with peers at a younger age.

Semantics	Pragmatics
1. Type 2. Meaning 3. sentence 4. Context-Invariant 5. Linguistics 6. Literal 7. Saying	1. Token 2. use 3. Utterance 4. Context-sensitive meaning 5. Speaker’s meaning 6. Non-literal use 7. implying

Examples in my own languages (Indonesian):

1) Kamu wangi sekali, habis ini kamu harus mandi ya!

This part of utterance is not the true meaning. Kamu wangi sekali here means your smell is very bad, not your smell is very good. Pragmatically, this kind of utterance purpose is to say with allusion in order to tease. The next following ‘habis ini kamu harus mandi ya!’ is the true meaning. Semantically, it is used to command or suggest the addressee to take a bath as soon as possible because of the bad smells.

2) A : Mama, tidur yuk?

B1 : Aku harus berangkat kerja pagi sekali besok

B2 : Tidak mau

This conversation between the husband and his wife above can be accomplished as an example. A expressed this kind of the words ‘tidur yuk?’ was not the real meaning of go sleep soon. He pragmatically used that expression to invite her doing something. To express what B1 said for the politeness respond, she rejected the invitation from her husband to make love indirectly using another utterance which implied ‘no’. If the wife says ‘no’ (B2) directly using semantically meaning, it will hurt the husband.

4. A presupposition is speaker’s utterance / assumption. The person’s presupposition is influenced by his/her own idea, education background, social background and cultural background. The speaker’s utterance may also hold more specific presupposition. In the sentences, not speakers, have entailments. The entailments follow from the sentences, regardless of whether the speaker’s beliefs are right or wrong. They still focus on the sentences, logical form, convention and formal which text or co-text is influenced by linguistic environment, so the sense of relation between presupposition and entailment is from specific into generic. They are communicated without being said because of its logical nature generally discussed as much in temporary pragmatics as the more speaker-dependent notion of presupposition.

5. Have you stopped beating your wife? Why is it difficult to answer?

Because it is a loaded question which a dangerous thing. A loaded question is a question with a false or questionable presupposition, and it is loaded with that presumption. The question above presupposes that you have beaten your wife prior to its asking, as well as that you have a wife. If you are unmarried, or have never beaten your wife, then the question is loaded. Since this example is a yes/no question, there are only the following two direct answers: "Yes, I have stopped beating my wife", which entails "I was beating my wife." Or "No, I haven't stopped beating my wife", which entails "I am still beating my wife." Either direct answer entails that you have beaten your wife, which is, therefore, a presupposition of the question. So, a loaded question is one which you cannot answer directly without implying a falsehood or a statement that you deny. For this reason, the proper response to such a question is not to answer it directly, but to either refuse to answer or to reject the question.

6. The relationship between conversational implicature and cooperative principles:

Conversational implicature is a nonconventional implicature based on an addressee’s assumption that the speaker is following the conversational maxims or at least the cooperative principle. In daily communication, people are observing a set of basic rules of cooperating with each other so as to communicate effectively through conversation. This set of rules the cooperative principle elaborated in four sub-principles (maxims), that is the cooperative principle.

What is implied

What is said

The explanation of the picture above is a distinction between 'generalized' and 'particularized' conversational implicatures. Implicatures between which arise ‘by default’ without any particular context or special scenario being necessary and those which require such specific contexts. In contrast to the latter, the former are 'hard to distinguish from the semantic content of linguistic expressions, because such implicatures are routinely associated with linguistic expressions in all ordinary contexts. Note that in this case of such under-informative statements, the speakers use more ‘what is implied’ rather than ‘what is said’.

Mengapa Pragmatik Perlu Dipelajari Program Studi Linguistik?

Mengapa Pragmatik Perlu Dipelajari Program Studi Linguistik?

1. Pendahuluan

Dalam jangka yang cukup lama, seperti diungkap oleh Yule (1996: 6), studi bahasa sangat dikuasai oleh kecenderungan untuk menjelaskan bahasa berdasarkan sistem formalnya, yaitu dengan menurunkan sistem yang terdapat dalam matematika dan logika, dan mengabaikan unsur pengguna bahasa. Sebagai tataran terbaru dalam linguistik, Pragmatik merupakan satu-satunya tataran yang turut memperhitungkan manusia sebagai pengguna bahasa. Meskipun memiliki fokus kajian yang serupa dengan semantik, yaitu makna, seperti akan saya jelaskan kemudian, makna yang dikaji dalam pragmatik berbeda dengan makna yang dikaji dalam semantik.

Makalah ini bertujuan menjelaskan pentingnya bidang pragmatik untuk dipelajari dalam program studi linguistik. Untuk tujuan tersebut, saya mengawali mak

Contoh yang pas untuk terjemahan pragmatik ini bisa kita lihat pada teks terjemahan yang memuat informasi mengenai perbaikan mesin, seperti kalimat bahasa sumber

REFERENCE & INFERENCE (study of pragmatics)

REFERENCE & INFERENCE

Reference is an act in which a speaker, or writer, uses linguistic forms (referring expression) to enable a listener, or reader, to identify something.

Referring expressions, which can be;

- Proper nouns (ex: Shakespeare, Cathy Revuelto, Hawaii)

- Noun Phrases which are definite (ex: the author, the singer, the island)

- Indefinite (ex: a man, a woman, a beautiful place)

- Pronouns (ex: he, her, it, them)

Reference is clearly tied to the speaker’s goals (to identify something) and the speaker beliefs (can the listener be expected to know that particular something?) in the use of language.

We must also recognize the role of inference. Because there is no direct relationship between entities and words, the listener’s task is to infer correctly which entity the speaker intends to identify by using a particular referring expression.

· Referential and Attributive uses

Ex: he wants to marry ‘a woman with lots of money’

(It can designate an entity that is known to the speaker only in terms of its descriptive properties. The word ‘a’ could be replaced by ‘any’ in this case. This is sometimes called an attributive use, meaning ‘whoever/whatever fits the description’. It would be distinct from a referential use whereby I actually have a person in mind and instead of using her name or some other description

· Names and Referents

Ex: Brazil wins world cup

(The referent is to be understood as football team, not as a government. The nature of reference interpretation just described is also what allows readers to make sense of this utterance using names or countries)

· The Role of Co-Text

Our ability to identify intended referents has actually depended on more than our understanding of the referring expression. It has been aided by the linguistic material, or co-text, accompanying the referring expression. The referring expression actually provides a range of reference, that is, a number of possible referents.

Ex: a. ‘The cheese sandwich’ is made with white bread (food)

b. ‘The cheese sandwich’ left without paying (person)

While the phrase ‘the cheese sandwich’ stays the same, the different co-texts lead to different type of interpretation in each case. Of course, co-text is just linguistic part of the environment in which a referring expression is used. The physical environment, or context, is perhaps more easily recognized as having a powerful impact on how referring expressions are to be interpreted.

· Anaphoric Reference

Ex: in the film, a man and the woman were trying to wash a cat. The man was holding the cat while the woman poured water on it. He said something to her and they started laughing.

In English, initial reference, or introductory mention, is often indefinite (‘a man’, ‘a woman’, ‘a cat’). In the definite noun phrases (‘the man’, ‘the cat’, ‘the woman’) and the pronouns (‘it’, ‘he’, ‘her’, ‘they’) are examples of subsequent reference to already introduced referents, generally known as anaphoric reference, or anaphora. In technical terms, the second or subsequent expression is the anaphor and the initial expression is the antecedent.

Ex: I turned the corner and almost stepped on it. There was a large snake in the middle of the path.

Note that pronoun ‘it’ is used first and is difficult to interpret until the noun phrase is presented in the next line. This pattern is technically known as cataphora, and is much less common than anaphora.

Ex: Cook for three minutes.

When the interpretation requires us to identify and entity, as in ‘Cook (?) for three minutes’, and no linguistic expression is present, it’s called zero anaphora, or ellipsis. The use of zero anaphora as a means of maintaining reference clearly creates an expectation that the listener will be able to infer who or what the speaker intends to identify. It is also another obvious case of more being communicated that is said.

CONVERSATION & ITS STRUCTURE (pragmatics study)

CONVERSATION & ITS STRUCTURE

· Conversation Analysis

There is a scarce commodity called the floor which can be defined as the right to speak. Having control of this scarce commodity at any time is called a turn. In any situation where control is not fixed in advance, anyone can attempt to get control. This is called turn taking. Because it is a form of social action, turn taking operates in accordance with a local management system that is conventionally known by members of a social group. Any possible change of turn point is called a Transition Relevance Place (TRP). This type of analytic metaphor provides us with a basic perspective in which speakers having a conversation are viewed as taking turns at holding the floor.

· Pauses, overlaps, and backchannels

Transitions with a long silence between turns or with substantial overlap (both speakers trying to speak at the same time) are felt to be awkward. When two people attempt to have a conversation and discover that there is no flow, or smooth rhythm to their transitions, much more is being communicated than is said. If one speaker actually turns over the floor to another and the other does not speak, then the silence is attributed to the second speaker and becomes significant. It’s an attributable silence. There are many different ways of expecting the conversational partners to indicate that they are listening such as head nods, smiles, and other facial expressions and gestures, but the most common vocal indications are

CONVERSATION AND PREFERENCE STRUCTURE in pragmatics study

CONVERSATION AND PREFERENCE STRUCTURE

Conversation analysis

- Floor: The right to speak

- Turn: having control of the scarce commodity at any time

- Local management: members of social group

- Transition relevance place: any possible change of turn point

Pauses, Overlaps, and Backchannels

When two people attempt to have a conversation and discover that there is no ‘flow’, or smooth rhythm to their transitions, much more is being communicated than is said. If one speaker actually turns over the floor to another and the other doesn’t speak, then the silence is attributed to the second speaker and become significant is called attributive silence. There are many different ways to indicate that the listener listening, including head nods, smiles, and other facial expressions and gestures, but the most common vocal indications are called backchannel signals, or simply backchannels. In conversation, silence is significant and will be interpreted as meaningful.

Conversation Style

Some individuals expect that participation in conversation will be very active, that speaking rate will relatively fast, with almost no pausing within turns, and with some overlap or even completion of the other’s turn. This is one conversation style. It has been called a high involvement style. It differs substantially from another style in which speaker use a slower rate, expect longer pauses within turns,

Discourse and culture in pragmatics study

DISCOURSE AND CULTURE

Discourse Analysis

Coherence

What language users have most in mind in an assumption of coherence, that what is said or written will make sense in terms of their normal experience things.

For example:

a. Plant sale (means that someone is selling plants)

b. Garage sale (does not mean that someone is selling garages)

Although these notice have an identical structure, they are interpreted differently. Indeed, the interpretation of (1b), that someone is selling household items from their garage, is one that requires some familiarity with suburban life.

Definition, Background, and Scope of Pragmatics

Definition, Background, and Scope of Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of language which focuses attention on the users and the “context” of language use rather than on reference, truth, or grammar. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Fotion 1995).

Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specific events, the intentional acts of speakers at times and places, typically involving language. Logic and semantics traditionally deal with properties of types of expressions, and not with properties that differ from token to token, or use to use, or, as we shall say, from utterance to utterance, and vary with the particular properties that differentiate them. Pragmatics is sometimes characterized as dealing with the effects of context. This is equivalent to saying it deals with utterances, if one collectively refers to all the facts that can vary from utterance to utterance as ‘context.’ One must be careful, however, for the term is often used with more limited meanings.

We must ask ourselves, then, what is context: is it simply the reality which fills in meaningful details missed by a theory such as the invariant core theory? No, it is not. Context can be divided into four subparts of which reality is but the first. We call the aspect of context the physical context; that is, where the conversation take place, what objects are present, and what actions are taking place. Second, we have an epistemic context, background knowledge shared by the speakers and hearers. Third, we have a lingual context, utterances previous to the utterance under consideration. Finally, we have a social context, the social relationship and setting of the speakers and the hearers.

Politeness and Interaction in pragmatics study

Politeness and Interaction

Politeness can be defined as the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face. Showing awareness for another person’s face when that other seems socially distant is often described in terms of respect or deference.

Within their everyday social interactions, people generally behave as if their expectations concerning their public self-image, or their face wants, will be respected. Alternatively, given the possibility that some action might be interpreted as a threat to another’s face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat. This is called a face saving act.

A person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others. A person’s positive face is the need to accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others. So, a face saving act which is oriented to the person’s negative face will tend to show deference, emphasize the importance of the other’s time or concerns, and even include an apology for the imposition or interruption. This is also called negative politeness. A face saving act which is concerned with the person’s positive face will tend to show solidarity, emphasize that both speakers want the same thing, and that they have a common goal. This is also called positive politeness.

One way to see the relevance of the relationship between these politeness concepts and language use is to take a single speech event and map out the different interpretations associated with different possible expression used within that event. For example, you arrive at an important lecture, pull out your notebook to take notes, but discover that you don’t have anything to write with. You think that the person sitting next to you may provide the solution. In this scenario, you are going to be ‘self’, and the person next to you is being to be ‘other’.

However, generally speaking, bald on record expression are associated with speech events where the speaker assumes that he or she has power over the other (for example, in military contexts) and control the other’s behavior with words. In everyday interaction between social equals, such bald on record behavior would potentially represent a threat to the other’s face and would generally be avoided. Avoiding a face threatening act is accomplished by face saving acts which use positive or negative politeness strategies.

A positive politeness strategy leads the requester to appeal to a common goal, and even friendship. However, in most English speaking contexts, a face saving act is more commonly performed via a negative politeness strategy. Even more relevant for our concern with the pragmatics of language in use, the availability of the bald on record form, as well as off record forms, means that the use of a face-saving on record forms represents a significant choice. The choice of a type of expression that is less direct, potentially less clear, generally longer, and with more complex structure means that the speaker is making a greater effort, in terms of concern for face, than is needed simply to get the basic message across efficiently.

Speech Acts (general knowledge)

SPEECH ACTS

Speech Acts is Actions performed via utterances. There are three related acts:

1. There is first locutionary act, which is the bassist act of utterance, or producing a meaningful linguistic expression.

2. Mostly we don’t just produce well-formed utterances with no purpose. We form an utterance with some kind in function in mind. This is the second dimension, or the illocutionary act. It is performed via the communicative force of an utterance.

3. Perlocutionary act will utter on the assumption that the hearer will recognize the effect you intended. For example, to account for a wonderful smell, or to get the hearer to drink some coffee.

IFIDs (the Illocutionary Force Indicating Device)

It is an expression or a slot for a verb that explicitly names the illocutionary act being performed. Such a verb can be called a performative verb (Vp).

Felicity Conditions

There are certain expected or appropriate circumstances for the performance of a speech act to be recognized as intended. There are pre-conditions on speech acts

· General Conditions

· Content Conditions

· Preparatory Conditions

· Sincerity Conditions

· Essential Conditions

The Performative Hypothesis

Is one way to think about the speech acts being performed via utterances is to assume that underlying every utterance (U) there is a clause, containing a performative verb (Vp) which makes the illocutionary for explicit.

Speech Act Classification

· Declarations

· Representatives

· Expressives

· Directives

· Commissives

Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

The five general functions of Speech Acts

Speech Act type Direction of fit S = Speaker, X = Situation

· Declarations words change the world S causes X

· Representatives make words fit the world S believes X

· Expressives make words fit the world S feels X

· Directives make the world fit words S wants X

· Commissives make the world fit words S intends X

Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act. Whenever we have an indirect relationship between a structure and function, we have an indirect speech act. Thus, a declarative used to make a statement is a direct speech acts, but a declarative used to make a request is an indirect speech act. Indirect acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English than direct speech acts.

Short explanation about Directive function with speech act

1. What is meant by directive speech function and how does it relate with speech act? Provide with an example!

Directive function concerns with getting people to do something while speech acts which express directive force vary in strength.

Example:

Sit down è Imperative

Can you sit down è Interrogative with modal verb

Sit down, will you? è Interrogative with tag

Won’t you sit down ?è Interrogative with negative modal

I want you to sit down è Declarative

2. Explain the directive function in relation with social status, relatives, formality, and gender! Provide with one example!

Didit Linguist (Didit Kurniadi)