Chapter 6 Pragmatics and Text Analysis【荐】.ppt

* 22 The politness principle and its maxims can be ignored in some situations, such as: (a) In times of emergency or when the primary concern is the efficiency of communication rather than the face; (b) When the threat to the hearer’s face is minor or none; (c) When the speaker has authority over the hearer; (d) When the speaker and the hearer are in intimate relations. Presupposition the Structure of Discourse Pragmatic Presupposition: Pragmatic Presupposition: a relation between a speaker and the appropriateness of a sentence in a context, thus it is very sensitive to contextual factors. Defeasibility in discourse contexts e.g. At least John won’t have to regret that he did a Ph.D. John did a Ph.D. But if the participants mutually know that John has just failed to get into a doctoral course, then the presupposition is canceled. The situational context, the background knowledge, is in direct contradiction of the presupposition, i.e. it is cancelled by the context. Compare the pair of examples: Sue cried before she finished her thesis. Sue finished her thesis. 2. Sue died before she finished her thesis. Sue never finished her thesis. With predicates like aware, know, the use of the first person subject will also cancel the presupposition usually carried by other subjects. e.g. John doesn’t know that Bill came. Bill came I don’t know that Bill came. The cancellation of presupposition in the second sentence may be called intra-sententail cancellation. Projection for presupposition The interpretation of a complex sentence on the basis of its constituent clauses. It is discovered that the presupposition of a constituent clause may not be inherited by the complex sentence as a whole, which is known as the projection problem. John tried to pass his exams. John didn’t manage to pass his exams. John didn’t manage to pass his exams; in fact he didn’t even try. John didn’t manage to pass his exams, if indeed he e