SUMMARY CHAPTER 6
PRAGMATICS
PRAGMATICS
1. Introduction
Pragmatics is another broad approach to discourse: it deals with three concept (meaning , context, communication) that are themselves extremely vast and unwieldy. This chapter focuses on one particular type of pragmatic – Gricean pragmatics – not only because some other definition of pragmatics cover much of the same ground as discourse analysis, but because this theory has become “the hub of pragmatics research” (Fasold 1990 : 128).
In section 2.0, l describe the philosopher H. P. Grice’s ideas about speaker meaning (2.1 ) and the cooperative principle ( 2.2 ). After some general points about the application of Gricean pragmatics to referring terms (section 3 ), l use one particular discourse to suggest how Gricean pragmatics provides an approach to discourse analysis (section 4). Note that the sample analysis in tthis chapter begins the second focus of the analysis in this book: referring terms. I concentrate on the way the Gricean maxims of quantity and relevance explain the sequential alternation between referring terms, particularly the use of indefinite/ deinate, and explicit/ inexplicit referring terms. These sequences reveal patterns. And raise issues, to which we return in chapters 7 and 8. Section 5 summarizes the pragmatic approach.
2. Defining Pragmatics
Pragmatics was defined by Morris (1938) as a branch of semiotics, the study of its of signs ( but see Givon 1989 : 9 -25, for discussion of its earlier roots ). In addition to defining different aspect of the semiosis process, Morris identified three ways of studying signs – syntax is the study of formal relations of signs one another, semantics is the study of how signs are related to the objects to which they are applicable (their designate), pragmatics is the study of the relation of signs to interpreters. Thus, pragmatics is the study of how interpreters engage in the “taking – account –of” designate ( the construction of interpretants) of sign – vehicles.
2.1 Speaker Meaning
The first concept important to Gricean pragmatics is speaker meaning. As we will see, speaker meaning not only a distinction between two kinds of meaning (and hence, a division between semantic and pragmatic meaning), it also suggest a particular view of human communication that focuses on intentions. Strawson (1964: 155) separates not two, but three, intentions in Grice’s formulation. In Strawson’s terms, to mean something by x, S must intend the following:
a. S’s utterance of x to produce a certain response r in a certain audience A;
b. A to recognize S’s intentional (a);
c. A’s recognition of S’s intention (a) to function as at least part of A’s reason for A’s response.
2.2 The Cooperative Principle.
In order to understand the cooperative principle (CP), it is helpful to first describe Grice’s view of logical meaning in relation to natural language. Our discussion will also focus on the concept of implicature : an inference about speaker intention that arises from a recipient’s use of both semantic (i.e logical ) meanings and conversational principles. Because implicatures are related to semantic meaning, the “sign” remains important in meaning.
But because implicatures are also dependent on conversational principles, “context” mediates the sign – user relationship. Given this basic process, implicatures can be created in one of three ways: a maxim can be followed in a straight forward way, a maxim can be violated because of a clash with another maxim, or a maxim can be flouted.
3. Referring Terms : Pragmatic Processes In discourse.
Gricean pragmatics provides a way to analyze the inference of speaker meaning : how hearers infer the intentions underlying a speakers utterance. Our sample anlysis sample in section 4 focus on the organization of reffering terms in a narrative. Before beginning this analysis, l introduces several terms to be use in section 4 and the other chapters (7 and 8 ) dealing with simiilar issues (3.1). l also present brief examples suggesting the importance of the maxims of quantity and relation (3.2), motivate a discourse analysis of referring sequences (3.3), and comment of methodology (3.4).
3.1 Referring as a pragmatic process in discourse.
Although reference and referring terms have been analyzed through many different perspectives in philosophy and linguistics, scholars often view the process of referring to entities in the universe of discourse as pragmatic-simply because it is a process involving speakers, their intention, actions, and knowledge. Givon (1989:175), for example, states that.
Reference in a universe of Discourse is already a cypto pragamtic affair. This is because every universe of discourse is opened (“established”) – for whatever purpose- by a speaker. And that speaker then intends entities in that univverse of discourse to either refer or not refer. And it seems that in human language it is that referential intent of the speaker that controls the grammar of reference. (empphasis in original )
3.2 A preliminary gricean analysis : quantity and relevance
Differences in both definiteness and explicitness referring terms can be associated not just with pragmatics in general, but with the Gricean maxims of quantity and relevance.
3.3 Referring as a discourse process
Referring maybe seen as a problem. Rather than analyze referring terms per se, we may analyze referring sequences : how is initiated ?
3.4 The importance of method and data
Before going on to play Gricean pragmatics to some of the issues raised above, it is important to make some observations about method and data. Although l am applying Gricean pragmtics to discourse, the application l purpose does not always adhere to the typical methodology of Gricean pragmatics are in philosophy. Contemporary pragmatics is certainly a part of linguistics (Levinson 1983), but it is part of a linguistics that takes as data a hypothetical sentence, adds to it a hypothetical context, and calls it an utterance (e.g. Cole 1981)
4. Sample analysis: referring sequences in narrative
The simple analysis in this a section is based upon the referring expressions in one particular discourse- a narrative. After presenting the narrative (4.1), l show how the maxims of quantity and relevance help to account for the referring sequences in this particular discourse (4.2). l summarize in section 4.3.
| 4.1 The Data |
Stories are useful text in which to analyze referring sequence. In addition, although stories are situated within conversation, a story world can be somewhat independent of that world and can involve distinct time (and information state) shifts away from that world.
4.2 The analysis
We see in this section that maxims of quantity and relation work together in a very general way to guide H’s interpretation of S’s referential intention.
4.2.1 Referent 1 : passenger’
The referring expressions used for referent I raise several important issues. The first issues concerns the la belling of the referent ass ‘passenger’ and the use of the word fare to evoke that referent.
4.2.3 Referent 2: friend.
The first (and only) mention of referent 2 is as two friends. The main importance of this referent in the story is to be part of the later ‘they’, a collective referent comprised of ‘passenger’ and ‘two friends’ (but see section 4.2.3).
4.2.3 Referent 3 : ‘they’
| Referent 3 is the most problematic in the story, and it raises several difficult issues that concern not just reference, but pragmatics in general. e. g. whether hearers are able to recognize speakers’ referential intentions. |
4.2.4 Referent 4 : ‘ guy up front’
| I mentioned ‘guy up front’ in the previous section as a referent who was individuated from the collective ‘they’. Both first and next-mentions of this referent are definite and explicit : the guy up he front he the guy. |
4.2.5 Referent 5 : other cab drivers
| ‘Other cab drivers’ follow a typical pattern of indefinite/definite and explicit/inexplicit mentions. |
4.2.6 Referent 6 and , and 6a: ‘a cop’ and ‘cops’
| The final referent is ‘ a cop’, introduced (again) in relation to the speaker : (mm) and I found a cop right around the corner. |
4.3 Summary : referring sequences, relevance, and quantity
I have been suggesting in this section that one way that Gricean pragmatics applies to discourse analysis is by providing a description of the pragmatic conditions during which different referring terms are interpreted. The maxim of quantity helps to guide H toward information that can provide clause about the identity of a referent.
5. Gricean pragmatics as an approach to discourse.
In this chapter, we described Grice’s ideas about speaker meaning and the cooperative principle (section 2) and then applied these ideas to a particular problem: we used the CP (specifically, the maxims of quantity and relevance) to describe the conditions under which people use different expressions to communicate referential intentions in discourse (section 4). We concluded by saying that referring sequences are the outcome of pragmatically based choices concerning the provision of appropriate quantities of information in relevant ways, and thus that discourse structures are created (in part) by the cooperative principle.
Name :YOAN FARIDA
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