English Linguistics for tourism and commerce

Linguistics

Linguistics is the discipline that allows us to study human language. It is divided into:

• Grammar: language structure
  • Morphology: formation and composition of words;
  • Syntax: the formation and composition of phrases and sentences from these words;
• Phonology: sound system;
• Phonetics: properties of speech sounds, non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived;
• Semantics: meaning of words and concepts;
• Pragmatics: it deals with the choices that we make when we want to communicate or transmit a message to a person.

I choose the way in which I transmit the message.

Why pragmatics has become popular

Why has pragmatics become so popular in the last decades? In the late 1960s/early 1970s there was a collapse of earlier linguistic theories and certainties. Previous theories developed by illustrious linguists, such as Chomsky’s, were put under discussion.

Why were these theories partially rejected? Linguists and philosophers recognized the fact that there were several linguistic issues that remained totally unexplained.

ES: colorless green ideas sleep furiously --> the sentence is correct from the point of view of grammar but it doesn’t make sense from the point of view of pragmatics.

So, they started questioning.

• They fixed concepts of syntax and semantics --> we have to include other theories and perspectives if we want to understand the real meaning behind words;
• The relationship between logic and language --> sentences have to be correct from the point of view of grammar (morphology and syntax) but we have to take into consideration also the fact that logic and language have to be interlinked;
• Extralinguistic --> linguistic factors, but also body movements and gestures can be useful to understand the real meaning of the message we are communicating to someone;
• Relation between speakers and contexts --> we can’t fully understand what someone is telling us if we can’t analyze the context in which the communication exchange is happening.

There was a developing and increasing interest in pragmatics and there was a sort of shift from the fixed assumptions of a theoretical grammar (syntax) to an increasing interest in language users --> with the advent of pragmatics, scholars were more interested in the ways in which speakers and writers decide to transmit the message.

Traditional and pragmatic approaches

We have two different approaches:

• Traditional approach: analysis of the language often focuses on words, phrases, the structure of sentences and the way in which users build sentences --> interest in the end-product;
• Pragmatic approach: analysis concentrates on language used by human beings and the way in which they use it --> interest in the process of producing language and in its producers.

Definitions of pragmatics

We have different definitions of pragmatics:

• Charles Morris (1938) says that it is the study of the relation of signs and interpreters --> he uses the term interpreters because this implies that when I speak to someone I can’t just listen, but it is necessary to have an interpretation;
• Jerrold Katz (1977) says that grammars are theories about the structure of sentence type. Pragmatic theories, in contrast, explicate the reasoning of speakers and hearers --> through the use of pragmatics, we want to understand the kind of processing behind the sentence itself, that is called reasoning;
• Stephen Levingson (1983) says that it is the study of those relations between language and context that are grammaticalized or encoded in the structure of a language --> they are not just speakers, they are agents;
• N. Chomsky gives the most important definition and he says that we would have called this new science “the study of performance”: the way in which humans use language, the way in which they choose to use language and the way in which they interact with each other.
• David Cristal (1997) is one of the fathers of English linguistics and he says that it is the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction and the effects their use of language has on other participants in the act of communication;
• Verschueren (1999) says that pragmatics is a general cognitive, social, and cultural perspective on linguistic phenomena in relation to their usage in forms of behaviour;
• Mey (2001) says that pragmatics’ wastebasket is more like a can of worms; the problem is the basket contents tend to spill over into all the domains of linguistic thinking. Instead of making linguistics neat and clean, in the best logical or mathematical style, the wastebasket imposes its unruly order on our explanations.

Pragmatics and traditional theories

How can pragmatics co-habit with traditional theories? Pragmatic approach can coexist with other theories. We can use all of the approaches to understand the way in which people speak.

We have a first approach, and then a second approach.

• First approach: component view:
  • Grammar consists of several components;
  • These components correspond to different human abilities that can be recognized in the human brain;
  • Human faculties are independent but cooperating units;
  • Every human faculty is taken into account by a different discipline (grammar, phonology);
• Second approach: perspective view --> you use your knowledge:
  • Clear borderlines are rejected;
  • It focuses on all those factors that make a certain language use more or less acceptable;
  • It focuses on language users and the way they use their language;
  • It takes into account several disciplines (psycho-sociolinguistics).

What is the aim of pragmatics? Pragmatics is needed if we want a fuller, deeper and generally more reasonable account of human language behavior.

Through the use of pragmatic analysis, we avoid ambiguity --> in many cases, if we analyze sentences without context, we can’t deeply and fully understand what the speaker is talking about.

Examples of ambiguity

Examples of ambiguity:

A: «I just met an old Irishman and his son, coming out of the toilet» --> it is a non-finite clause.

In a finite clause, we have the agreement between the subject and the verb. In a non-finite clause, there isn’t the agreement between subject and verb. We have other options introduced by bare infinitives, to-infinitive, -ing form.

In this case the speaker is creating the ambiguity without being conscious because he doesn’t use the agreement between subject and verb.

B: «I wouldn’t have thought there was room for the two men» --> the content of the message is different from what the other person had understood.

A: «No silly, I mean, I was coming out of the toilet. They were waiting»

Utterance = enunciato --> clauses according to a syntactic approach.

How can we avoid ambiguity?

• Among real speakers, ambiguity doesn’t exist --> people, if there is a misunderstanding, solve it. In everyday communications, the two speakers together solve the ambiguity that has been created;
• Ambiguity appears when sentences uttered by the speaker are not within the context --> the two speakers immediately solve the ambiguity because they are in a real context;
• Sentences can be ambiguous, real speakers are not --> if the speaker builds a sentence that can be syntactically ambiguous, he sees the ambiguity and solves it.

Grice’s maxims of conversation

According to pragmatists, they wanted to be in the middle between linguists and philosophers of language. They gave us principles and maxims. They wanted to leave the syntactic and morphological approach, that uses rules. The idea at the base of rules is that they need to be followed and taken as they are. In the case of maxims and principles, people can choose to follow them or not. These maxims and principles can be followed if people want to create a clear communication.

Paul Grice was considered one of 3 fathers of pragmatics. He started taking into consideration the essence of pragmatics by theorizing 2 important principles:

• Communicative principle:
  • It represents speakers’ and hearers’ will to interact with each other --> human beings want to communicate because it’s something innate. When we are children, we can’t use our language because we have to learn, but we find many other ways to communicate with people around us;
  • People want to talk with the intention to communicate something to somebody --> if we consider that our need to communicate is innate, communication means to transmit a message. People use different ways to communicate because the way in which we communicate is culturally embedded. Communication is culturally embedded: it means that the way in which we communicate is related to the culture in which we live. We absorb the values, habits and norms of the world and context in which we live;
  • The foundation of linguistic behavior (no matter how one may try, one cannot communicate) --> we can communicate through facial expression, using another language, a body movement.
• Cooperative principles:
  • It represents speakers’ and hearers’ intention to cooperate in order to build a speech event --> people communicate because they want to transmit a message that the other person should understand;
  • Communication requires people to cooperate;
  • Conversations can develop only if both speakers and hearers want to take active part in the process --> if we want to have an effective conversation we have to be able to transmit a message but also understand what the other person is telling us;
  • Cooperation is an essential factor in communication, in other words, it is the expectation that the listener has toward the speaker --> the hearer is active because we always have to consider the expectations of the person who is talking to us.

According to Grice, make your contribution such as required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged --> to have an effective communication, you have always to take into consideration the 4 principles that he has theorized.

Grice identifies four basic maxims of conversation as guidelines of the cooperative principle --> these maxims specify what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient, rational and cooperative way.

Grice’s Maxims are minimal agreements needed to interact. According to him, participants of a communicative process should:

• Speak clearly;
• Speak relevantly;
• Be sincere;
• Provide sufficient information;

The maxims of conversation

The maxims of conversation are:

• The maxim of quantity: it relates to the amount of information provided in conversations. Grice proposes this maxim as an explanation for a certain kind of regularity in conversational behavior with respect to the amount of information provided in each turn of a conversation. You have to make your contribution as informative as required for the purpose of exchange, but do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

ES: Do you have time? Yes, it’s 10 o’clock --> the maxim is observed;

ES: Tim, can I have Ben’s telephone number? Yes --> the maxim is violated/flouted because less information is provided than is required;

• The maxim of quality: it requires information provided in conversations to be genuine and justified. Grice proposes this maxim as an explanation for a certain kind of regularity in conversational behavior with respect to the authenticity of information provided at each turn of a conversation. Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

ES: Tim, do you know where the Empire State Building is? Yes, it’s in New York --> the maxim is observed;

ES: Tim, how do you like this novel? Oh, I like the red cover --> the maxim is violated because Tim says something that, evidently, she does not believe in. He should answer with “I do not like this novel” or “I only appreciated the main character”;

• The maxim of relation/relevance: as an explanation for a certain kind of regularity in conversational behavior with respect to the relevance of information provided at each turn of a conversation. Make your contribution relevant.

ES: Tim, how do you like your steak cooked? Medium rare, please --> the maxim is observed;

ES: Tim, would you like to go to the cinema tonight? Oh, I like rock music --> the maxim is violated because Tim’s contribution is irrelevant for the purpose of the conversation.

• The maxim of manner: it is related to how something is being said in the conversation. Grice proposes this maxim as an explanation for a certain kind of regularity in conversational behavior with respect to the way information is provided at each turn of a conversation. Avoid obscurity, avoid ambiguity, be brief, be orderly and be perspicuous.

ES: What did John do when he saw King’s new book? He bought it and read it --> the maxim is observed;

ES: What did John do when he saw King’s new book? He read it and bought it --> the maxim is violated because information given is not logically presented.

Other maxims theorized by others are:

• Politeness maxim - Bach, Harnish: it means a polite linguistic behaviour (). You reflect upon > cortesia linguistica different ways through which you can transmit a message.

Speaker must not be offensive, vulgar, rude but speaker must be polite --> don’t impose, keep appropriate distance from audience; give audience options; allow for response; make audience feel good; maintain equality;

• Morality maxim – Bach, Harnish: speaker doesn’t repeat, ask for privileged information, do things they ought not to --> behave and develop communicative exchanges following moral parameters of the socio-cultural background in which speakers are acting.

Violation of maxims

Reasons for violation --> if someone wants to deceive the listener; if someone does not want to answer/give information requested; to produce sarcasm and irony; intercultural differences.

If maxims are violated, they theorized the idea called implicatures in order to fill the conversational gap. Grundy states that whenever a maxim is flouted there must be an implicature to save the utterance from simply appearing to be a faulty contribution to a conversation --> when two speakers of a conversation share background knowledge.

Violation illustrates that:

• We take maxims seriously;
• We can mean more than we actually say;
• It’s how we can say things without really saying them;
• Syntactic and semantic rules are not enough to explain how sentences convey meaning;
• When violated we assume the person could have fulfilled the maxim but chose not to, hence look for a reason.

ES: What time is it? It’s 2 o’clock, in fact Sue has just rung the bell, and now it’s Sunday --> the maxim of quantity is flouted and, given the purpose of the conversation, more information is provided than is required.

Implicature: Sue is a kind of “on time” person. Sue always comes at 2 o’clock.

ES: Tim, what is the capital of Spain? Oh, I believe it’s Moscow, or maybe Berlin; I’m not good in geography --> the maxim of quality is flouted and, given the purpose of the conversation, its implicature occurs when your contribution is one that is untrue or lacks adequate evidence. Tim flouts the maxim since he gives an insincere answer to the woman's question.

Implicature: Tim doesn't know exactly about the Capital City of Spain.

ES: Tim, have you done your homework? My bicycle is broken, mum --> the maxim of relation is flouted and, given the purpose of the conversation, its implicature arises when the speaker deviates from the particular topic being asked and discussed.

Implicature: The son tries to direct his mother’s concern away from the question which he does not like.

ES: What did John do when he saw King’s new book? He read it and bought it --> the maxim of manner is flouted and, given the purpose of the conversation, information given is not logically presented.

Presupposition

A presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse.

ES: Jane no longer sings Elton John’s song --> presupposition: Jane once sang that song.

ES: Have you stopped drinking milk? --> presupposition: you had once drunk milk.

ES: Have you talked to Catherine? --> presupposition: Catherine exists.

According to pragmaticians, presuppositions are always linked to the context --> ES: John doesn’t regret having failed the exam, because in fact he passed.

According to the context, we can have:

• Concept of context: it can be considered what happened before or during your communicative exchange;
• Dynamic context: the environment created by the speakers while they’re talking. It is not a static concept; it allows speakers to be intelligible. Taking context into account means not to analyse words in isolation.

ES: you have a green light

• It could mean that the space that belongs to you has green ambient lighting.
• It could mean that you are driving through a green traffic signal.
• It could mean that you no longer have to wait to continue driving.
• It could mean that you are permitted to proceed in a non-driving context.
• It could mean that your body has a green glow.
• It could mean that you possess a light bulb that is tinted green.

In the case of pragmatics, sentences are called utterance (= enunciato).

• Clauses in grammatical dimension.
• Utterance in pragmatic dimension.

Meaning is something contextual with respect to language and the world. According to pragmaticians, we can’t analyze an utterance without taking into consideration the context.

Context can be:

• Linguistic: it refers to the conventional meaning of words. It’s the basic level in which pragmatics works;
• Situational: the meaning of the words depends on the specific situation in which the communicative exchange is happening; Pragmaticians take for granted that presupposition exists because there’s a situational context.
• Socio-cultural: words and utterances can have different interpretations according to the socio-cultural context in which they are used.

Since language is developed in a social context, its use is governed by society rather than by the speakers.

ES: on the phone

A: Can you please come over again rig