英语语言学eleven大学课程.pptVIP

* Pragmatics Pragmatics can be defined as the study of how speakers use the sentences of a language to effect successful communication. Pragmatics is different from traditional semantics in that it studies meaning not in isolation but in context. Semanticists take meaning to be an inherent property of language, pragmaticists regard meaning as something that is realized in the course of communication. Sentence Meaning Utterance Meaning It is the abstract context-independent entity called semantic proposition. It is context-dependent. It is the product of sentence meaning and context. Therefore, it is richer than the meaning of the sentence. 2. Speech Act Theory Speech act theory originated with the British philosopher John Austin in the late 50’s. According to this theory, we are performing various kinds of acts when we are speaking. Before the speech act theory was advanced, it was believed that the business of a statement is either to describe or to state. It must be either true or false. Austin made the pimary distinction between two types of utterances: constative and performative. Constative vs. Performative The constative utterance is verifiable and it is either true or false. The performative utterance is used to perform an action, so it has no truth value. (92) “I do.” as uttered in the course of a marriage ceremony. (93)“ I name this ship Elizabeth.” ---as uttered when smashing the bottle against the stern. (94)“ I give and bequeath my watch to my brother.” --- as occurring in a will. (95) “ I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow.” --- as uttered when making a bet. According to Austin, while making an utterance, a speaker is performing three acts simultaneously: a locutionary act, an illocutionary act, and a perlocutionatry act. A locutionary act is the act of saying something; it is an act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology. An illocutionary act is the act performed i