7 Chapter 7 Pragmatics1【荐】.ppt

Chapter Seven Pragmatics: the Analysis of Meaning in Context 1 Defining pragmatics Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. G. Yule (1996) defines pragmatics in the following ways: the study of speaker meaning // the study of contextual meaning // the study of how more gets communicated than is said 2. Deixis and reference Deixis (from Greek) means ‘pointing’ via language. Examples: a)?You may go there tomorrow. b) The President is to meet him here today. 2.1 Person deixis Person deixis comprises personal pronouns. 2.1 Person deixis Notice the relationship between the system and participant-roles. We: interpreted as ‘I, in addition to one or more other persons’ ? inclusive we: including hearer Let’s go. Let’s enjoy ourselves. We’re together again. ? exclusive we: excluding hearer Let us go, here’s the money. We’ll leave without you. Honorific: an expression which indicate higher status e.g. tu / vous in French Du / Sie in German 你/您 in Chinese Her Majesty, Your Highness in English 2.2 Place/Spatial deixis Place or spatial deixis concerns the specification of locations relative to the location of the speaker. Place deixis // Spatial deixis --- proximal (to the speaker) --- distal (from the speaker) Proximal terms: here, this, come, bring, … Distal terms: there, that, go, take, ... e.g. Can you see that? I like this one, not that one. 2.3 Time/Temporal deixis 2.4 Discourse deixis Discourse or text deixis concerns the use of expressions within some utterances to refer to some portion of the discourse that contains that utterance. Deictic expressions can indicate the relationship between an utterance and the prior/following discourse. 2.4 Discourse deixis e.g. this, that, in the previous / following paragraph, in the rest of the paper, etc. The story goes