大三语言学基础WeekVII：Pragmatics(AGeneralView)概要1.ppt

* 语言学 Linguistics Week VII Pragmatics A General View Part II Pragmatics Chapter 1 A General View of Pragmatics 1.1 Wastebasket of Pragmatics 1.2 Context in Pragmatics 1.3 History and Definition of Pragmatics 1.4 Why the Necessity of Pragmatics Study? Chomskyian dichotomy of sentence structure: deep structure and surface structure. S(1) I slept badly. S(2) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. S(3) Flying planes can be dangerous. different deep structures may merge into a single ambiguous surface structure 1.1 Wastebasket of Pragmatics When Chomsky threw his “green ideas” “furiously” into the wastebasket of semantics, others who claim themselves to be syntactic analysts or semanticists continue doing so, each contributing new rules and assertions to the study of language and leaving behind plenty of waste for latecomers to deal with. “The semantics basket being filled to the brim, another waste-basket had to be created to catch the overflow” (Mey). And this “another waste-basket” is Pragmatics. 1.2 Context in Pragmatics That scholars have left such a plenty of waste behind seems to suggest that the meaning of a sentence is more elusive and uncertain than we can imagine. Therefore, what we’ve discussed in Part I, be it syntactic study or semantics, seems to be mainly concerned with, in a sense, the static aspects of language. However, language in use is a rather complicated matter, and the elusiveness and uncertainty of meaning render all the theories so far mentioned controversial and weak under attack. Meaning, in fact, is rather dynamic, and is dependent upon context. Sentences without context can result in ambiguity. Scenario 1: A: I just met the old Irishman and his son, coming out of the toilet. B: I wouldn’t have thought there was room for the two of them. A: No silly, I mean I was coming out of the toilet