语言学资料 Pragmatics.ppt

Chapter 6 Pragmatics What is Pragmatics? a comparatively new branch of study in the area of linguistics developed and established in the 1960s and 1970s Pragmatics is the study of language in use or language communication. the study of language production language comprehension. the study of meaning in context. the study of language in relation to its users. Some Basic Notions in Pragmatics Pragmatics, Semantics Semantics is the study of the literal meaning of a sentence (without taking context into consideration). Pragmatics the study of the contextual meaning (taking context into consideration) and the appropriateness of naturally occurring utterances. Context a basic concept in the study of pragmatics generally considered as constituted knowledge shared by the speaker and the hearer the linguistic knowledge and the extra-linguistic knowledge the extra-linguistic knowledge including knowledge of the world /cultural background, knowledge about the specific situation / time, place, manner, etc., knowledge about each other /the relationship between the speaker and the hearer, etc Sentence Meaning  Utterance Meaning Sentence – a grammatical concept; an abstract, self-contained unit in isolation from context. Utterance – what people actually utter in the course of communication. Sentence meaning -- abstract and context-independent meaning; literal meaning of a sentence; having a dyadic relation as in: What does X mean? Utterance meaning -- concrete and context-dependent meaning; intended meaning of a speaker; the sum total of sentence meaning and context; having a triadic relation as in: What did you mean by X? Eg: The bag is heavy. The meaning of an utterance is based on the sentence