This document provides an overview of pragmatics and summarizes several key concepts in pragmatics. It begins with defining pragmatics as the systematic study of language use in context. It then distinguishes pragmatics from semantics and discourse analysis. Several pragmatic concepts are then summarized in 1-2 sentences each, including speech act theory, conversational implicature, conversational maxims, politeness, presupposition, deixis, and reference and inference. The document aims to introduce some of the main topics and approaches in the field of pragmatics.

2. Presentation On
Pragmatics
By
Muhammad Asif
Lecturer English Virtual University of
Pakistan
asif.vu12@gmail.com

3. Overview
Introduction and Definition of Pragmatics
Semantics vs. Pragmatics
Pragmatics vs. Discourse Analysis
The Difference between Grammatical Analysis and
Pragmatic Analysis
Speech Act Theory
Conversational Implicature
Conversational Maxims
Politeness and Interaction
Presupposition
Phatic Token
Deixis
References and Inferences
Conclusion

7. What is Pragmatics?

8. What is Pragmatics?
Pragmatics is a systematic way of
explaining language use in context. It
seeks to explain aspects of meaning
which cannot be found in the plain sense
of words or structures, as explained by
semantics.

9. Definition
 “Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice
of language in social interaction and the effects of our
choice on others.”
David Crystal
 “Pragmatics is all about the meanings between the
lexis and the grammar and the phonology...Meanings
are implied and the rules being followed are unspoken,
unwritten ones.”
George Keith

10. Semantics vs. Pragmatics

11. Semantics vs. Pragmatics
SEMANTICS
 Language Internal
 Linguistic Meaning
 What expressions
mean
 What is Said
 Language itself
PRAGMATICS
 Language
External
 Communication
 What speakers
mean
 What is implied
 Use of language

12. Pragmatics vs. Discourse Analysis

13. Pragmatics vs. Discourse Analysis
Discourse is a dynamic interactive
process in which speech acts affect the
situations in which they take place, and
in which the situation affects the way the
speech acts are understood. While
Pragmatics is the study of how more gets
communicated than is said.

14. The Difference between Grammatical
Analysis and Pragmatic Analysis

15. Invisible Meaning
In many ways pragmatics is the study of
‘invisible’ meaning, or how we recognize what
is meant even when it isn’t actually said.

19. Speech Act Theory

21. Speech acts
 The philosopher J.L. Austin (1911-1960)
claims that many utterances (things
people say) are equivalent to actions.

22. Speech acts
1.That the basic sentence type
in language is declarative (i.e. a
statement or an assertion)
2. That the principal uses of
language is to describe states of
affairs (by using statements)
3. That the meaning of
utterances can be described in
terms of their truth or falsity.
(Searle )

23. Speech Act Model
Speech Act Model

24. Speech acts
 Speech act theory broadly explains these
utterances as having three parts or
aspects:



Locutionary
Illocutionary
Perlocutionary

25. Speech acts
 Locutionary acts are simply
the speech acts that have
taken place.
 Illocutionary acts are the real
actions which are performed
by the utterance, where
saying welcoming and
warning.
 Perlocutionary acts are the
effects of the utterance on
the listener

26. Speech acts
Searle (1969) identified five illocutionary/perlocutionary
points:
All speech acts classified as
 Assertives – suggesting, boasting, concluding,
etc.
 Directives
– asking, ordering, inviting, etc.
 Commissives
– promising, planning, vowing,
etc.
 Expressives– thanking, apologizing, deploring,
etc.
 Declarations
– performatives (statechanging)

27. Performatives
These are speech acts of a special kind where the
utterance of the right words by the right person in the
right situation effectively is (or accomplishes) the social
act.
One can apologize by saying "I apologize," promise by
saying "I promise," and thank someone by saying
"Thank you." These are examples of performative
utterances,

28. Felicity conditions
There are certain expected or appropriate
circumstances known as felicity
conditions.
The following felicity condition must apply to the utterance:
“I warn you not to smoke.”
'I order you to clean your boots.’

29. Implicature
Implicature is a component of speaker
meaning that constitutes an aspect of
what is meant in a speaker's utterance
without being part of what is said.

30. Implicature
For example, the sentence:
"Mary had a baby and got married“
strongly suggests that Mary had the baby before the
wedding, but the sentence would still be strictly true if
Mary had her baby after she got married.

31. Conversational implicature
The conversational implicature is a message
that is not found in the plain sense of the
sentence. The speaker implies it.
Grice proposed that implicatures like the
second sentence can be calculated from the
first, by understanding three things:
 The usual linguistic meaning of what is said.
 Contextual information (shared or general
knowledge).
 The assumption that the speaker is obeying
what Grice calls the cooperative principle.

32. Conversational implicature
An example of what Grice meant by conversational
implicature is the utterance:
“Have you got any cash on you?”
where the speaker really wants the hearer to
understand the meaning:
“Can you lend me some money? I don't have much on
me.”

33. Conversational maxims and the cooperative principle
The success of a conversation depends upon
the various speakers' approach to the
interaction. The way in which people try to
make conversations work is sometimes called
the cooperative principle.
Paul Grice proposes that in ordinary
conversation, speakers and hearers share a
cooperative principle.
Speakers shape their utterances to be
understood by hearers.

34. Conversational Maxims
 Quality: speakers should be truthful. They should not
say what they think is false, or make statements for
which they have no evidence.
 Quantity: a contribution should be as informative as is
required for the conversation to proceed. It should be
neither too little, nor too much. (It is not clear how one
can decide what quantity of information satisfies the
maxim in a given case.)
 Relevance: speakers' contributions should relate
clearly to the purpose of the exchange.
 Manner: speakers' contributions should be
perspicuous: clear, orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity
and ambiguity.

35. Politeness and Interaction
Leech defines politeness as forms of
behaviour that establish and maintain
comity. That is the ability of
participants in a social interaction to
engage in interaction in an atmosphere
of relative harmony.

36. Politeness and Interaction
According to Brown and Levinson, politeness
strategies are developed in order to save the
hearers' "face." Face refers to the respect that
an individual has for him or herself, and
maintaining that "self-esteem" in public or in
private situations
Politeness is showing awareness of another’s
face. Your face, in pragmatics, is your public
self image. (George Yule)

37. Positive Politeness
It is usually seen in groups of friends, or
where people in the given social situation
know each other fairly well. It usually
tries to minimize the distance between
them by expressing friendliness and solid
interest in the hearer's need to be
respected.

38. Positive Politeness
Avoid disagreement:
A: " What is she, small?"
B: "Yes, yes, she's small, smallish, um,
not really small but certainly not very
big."
Assume agreement:
"So when are you coming to see us?"

39. Negative Politeness
The main focus for using this strategy is
to assume that you may be imposing on
the hearer, and intruding on their space.
Therefore, these automatically assume
that there might be some social distance
or awkwardness in the situation.

40. Negative Politeness
Be indirect:
 "I'm looking for a comb."
Forgiveness:
 "You must forgive me but...."
Minimize imposition:
 "I just want to ask you if I could use your
computer?"

41. Presupposition
Language often points to the unstated
commonly understood information. We
be able to use inference to find out what
this information is.
What a speaker/writer assumes is true or known by a
listener/reader can be described as a presupposition.

42. Presupposition
Examples of presuppositions include:
 Do you want to do it again?
Presupposition: that you have done it already,
at least once.
 Jane no longer writes fiction.
Presupposition: that Jane once wrote fiction.

43. Phatic tokens
 These are ways of showing status by orienting
comments to oneself, to the other, or to the general or
prevailing situation.
 Self-oriented phatic tokens are personal to the
speaker: “I'm not up to this” or “My feet are killing me”.
 Other-oriented tokens are related to the hearer: “Do
you work here?” or “You seem to know what you're
doing”.
 A neutral token refers to the context or general state of
affairs: “Cold, isn't it?” or “Lovely flowers”.

44. Deixis
It is often and best described as “verbal
pointing”, that is to say pointing by
means of language. The linguistic forms
of this pointing are called deictic
expressions, deictic markers or deictic
words; they are also sometimes called
indexicals.

45. Deixis







Deictic expressions include such lexemes as:
Personal or possessive pronouns
(I/you/mine/yours),
Demonstrative pronouns (this/that),
(Spatial/temporal) adverbs (here/there/now),
Other pro-forms (so/do),
Personal or possessive adjectives (my/your),
Demonstrative adjectives (this/that),
Articles (the).

46. Deixis
Contextual use of deictic expressions is known as
secondary deixis, textual deixis or endophoric
deixis. Such expressions can refer either
backwards or forwards to other elements in a text:
 Anaphoric deixis is backward pointing, and is the
norm in English texts. Examples include
demonstrative pronouns: such, said, similar, (the)
same.
 Cataphoric deixis is forward pointing. Examples
include: the following, certain, some (“the speaker
raised some objections...”), this (“Let me say
this...”), these, several.

47. Deixis
Deictic expressions fall into three
categories:
 Person deixis (you, us),
 Place deixis (here, there) and
 Time deixis (now, then).
Example: You’ll have to bring that back
tomorrow, because they aren’t here now.

48. Deixis
 Deixis is clearly tied to the speaker's
context, the most basic distinction being
between near the speaker (proximal) and
away from the speaker (distal).
 Proximal deictic expressions include this,
here and now.
 Distal deictic expressions include that,
there and then

49. Reference and inference
Yule: “Words themselves do not refer to
anything, people refer”

50. Reference
Reference is an act in which a speaker, or
writer, uses linguistic forms to enable a
listener, or reader, to identify something.
Linguistic forms are referring expressions.

51. Reference
Reference is an act in which a speaker, or writer,
uses linguistic forms to enable a listener, or
reader, to identify something. These linguistic
forms are called referring expressions.
They can be:
(a) proper nouns
‘Brasília’
‘Bill Clinton ’
(b) noun phrases (definite)
(c) noun phrases (indefinite)
(d) pronouns

52. Reference
The choice of one type of referring
expression rather than another seems
to be based, to a large extent, on what
the speaker assumes the listener
already knows.

53. Reference
Examples:
a) There's a man waiting for you.
b) He wants to marry a woman with lots of
money.
c) We'd love to find a nine-foot-tall basketball
player

54. Inference
For successful reference to occur, we
must also recognize the role of
inference.
What are inferences?

55. Inference
Inferring is connecting prior
knowledge to text based information
to create meaning beyond what is
directly stated.

56. Inference
Listeners make inferences about what is
said in order to arrive at an interpretation
of the speaker’s intended meaning. The
choice of one type of referring expression
rather than another seems to be based on
what the speaker assumes the listener
already knows.

57. Inference
Words themselves don’t refer to anything.
People refer.
Because there is no direct relationship
between entities and words, the listener’s
task is to infer which entity the speaker
intends to identify by using a particular
expression:
“Mister Aftershave is late today”

58. Conclusion
Pragmatics is the study of how linguistic
properties and context factors interact in
interpretation of utterances. In other
words, Pragmatics studies the factors
that decide our choice of language in
social interaction.

59. T hank you