Appunti di Modulo Teorico Inglese III MT

English theoretical module III – Prof. Zurru (2017/18) Stefano Bricca

Introduction

To speak ≠ to communicate; to say ≠ to mean: communication isn’t made only through words. Speaking isn’t automatically communication. Marked sentences aren’t grammatically correct, but they are communicative. Words are chosen carefully, not randomly. Expectation is a key in communication. There are different types of meaning.

Sentence ≠ utterance

Implicit vs explicit

A: Do you like my dress, honey?
B: I like the colour

Relationship is reflected into the language (politeness, vezzeggiativi); the relationship also makes B to say something different from No I don’t like it.

Pragmatics, semantics, discourse analysis

Propositional meaning: literal meaning. Quanti piedi nella camera da letto con me dentro? 6: 2 miei + 4 del letto. In English, the same joke has a different result: 3. Words are language specific, meaning you can’t translate every riddle. In riddles, you play with the literal/propositional meaning of words, and you play with homonymy and polysemy.

Text-type

Kind of text, it can also be oral. Many text-types are not based on the propositional meaning. They can be: conversation, political speech, riddle, lecture, interview, monologue…

Words are the building blocks of language. Words are an important element in verbal communication. But not the only one.

Pragmatics

Different ways to define Pragmatics:

• The study of sentences and their principles, and if they are anomalous. It’s the study from a functional perspective, that attempts to explain facets of the linguistic structure. It takes into account also non-linguistic elements and causes/pressures.
• The study of the language in terms of its function, as a means of communication, as a means to achieve something.
• The study of the functions of language taking into consideration that non-linguistic elements have an influence on the language.
• The study of communication and the means of communication; the study of the meaning depending on the language.

The intended meaning the speaker wants to convey makes them choose certain words:

A: Do you like my dress?
B: I like the colour.

There is a relation between language, its users, and the context: context influences the speaker’s choices. There are also non-linguistic elements in communication.

In Pragmatics we focus on understanding the relation between language, meaning, and context. Focus on language as it is used by users in communication.

People imply more than they say. Pragmatics studies the intended and perceived meaning of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, or utterances in interactions.

Words are general language, in vocabulary, and are polysemic, while terms are specific language in certain fields, and have one meaning only.

Utterances are the smallest unit. An utterance is a sequence of words, preceded and followed by a pause.

A sentence is a sequence of words, starting from a capital letter and finishing with a full stop; they have substantive, verb, and object. It’s a syntactic structure.

Single words can be both sentences (Stop.) and utterances (Morning!). Utterances can be longer than one sentence, but can also be one word.

Meanings

So far, we need pre-modification before “meaning” because there are many types:

• Propositional meaning: literal meaning.
• Intended meaning: meaning that the speaker intends to convey.
• Implied meaning: meaning which is not explicitly said, but it’s implied.
• Perceived meaning: meaning as it is decoded by the hearer.

If I imply my intended meaning, the hearer has to guess. So, the perceived meaning can be different.

A: Si può aprire la finestra? intended meaning is asking someone to open the window. It’s an indirect speech act, a polite way to ask someone to open the window.
B: Ritengo di sì se si hanno le mani. reply to the propositional meaning of the question. This is considered as a rude reply.

Context

Words in a text are often not enough to understand their communicative meaning. Often, we need to know the context of the communicative exchange to understand the intended meaning of an utterance.

Context isn’t just the situation, but also the background experience, the knowledge of the person, that allows understanding a joke or a reference, like a Back to the future joke/reference.

• Relation between the speakers
• Background
• Framework of interaction: space, place
• Time
• Expectations
• Media/means of communication: oral, written, voice message

A: Door! utterance, not a sentence (but it’s a phrase and a word). It’s improbable that A means the metal/wooden squared piece with a handle.

What’s the meaning then? It could be:

• Literal meaning, while playing a game
• “Don’t slam the door!” with a toddler (then pointing at a door)
• “Someone is knocking, go open it!”
• “Open/close the door!”
• “Be careful or you’ll hit the door!”

We need extra information, the context, to understand the meaning of the utterance.

A: Door! B: I’m in the bath! A: Ok!

A: Door! B: I’m in the bath! (= I can’t open/close/go to the door) A: Ok! (= I’ll get it myself)

With utterances in a context, we now know it could be “open/close/go to the door/someone is knocking”. So, Door! isn’t used propositionally.

What’s the relationship between the speakers? They could be family members, a couple, friends. There is an interpersonal relationship for sure. Place: home, bath/toilet.

Meaning isn’t conveyed only by language. Language is fundamental, but not the only element. Meaning in context can be explained by:

1. Physical and social world: bilocation doesn’t exist; it’s not socially accepted to go open the door naked
2. Socio-psychological factors influencing communication: I can’t open the door wearing a towel; I want to enjoy my bath so I’m staying here; I don’t want to go.
3. Time: while having a bath
4. Place: home of both or of only one person involved in the conversation.

There are elements of the context, that are non-linguistic, but help us understand.

Utterance Intended/implied meaning

A: Door! Go open the door!
B: I’m in the bath! I can’t/won’t.
A: Ok! I’ll get the door myself.

Interactors communicate more than what their words apparently say. But why does A say Door! instead of Go open the door? Initially, A has a reason to shout Door!. Why doesn’t A just go to the door?

Speaker’s meaning: the speaker has an intended meaning which often, not always, is implied. It’s based on assumptions of knowledge: hypothesis based on factual evidence or on previous/background knowledge, shared by both speaker and hearer. This is how communication starts: the hearer has to interpret the intended meaning of the speaker.

Hearer’s interpretation: the message has to be interpreted and the implied meaning decoded. Misunderstanding can take place if it’s not done. The decoding of the message leads to formulate further assumptions and tests them through their utterances.

Contextual elements: someone ringing the bell at the door.

• Underlying assumptions: process of the brain in few seconds.
• Intended/implied meanings: Go open the door!; I can’t because I’m having a bath; I’ll do it.
• Utterance: the final stage. The utterance is the final step of a process. It’s the last step that having someone ringing at the door produces. When we select an utterance, it’s the last process. We don’t select our words randomly. There is a process that goes on in our minds before we speak.

Context

Context is an umbrella term. There are 3 distinct types of context, they work together. They influence each other and, all together, they build the context.

1. Situational/communicative context
2. Background knowledge context/knowledge of the world
3. Co-textual context/co-text

Relation between context and meaning-making; 3 reasons why context is strictly related to both production and interpretation of meaning:

• Context influences the way we communicate (most intuitive, already covered)
• Context helps reduce the potentiality of utterances
• Context allows to use utterances which are reduced in explicitness and understand other’s people utterances which are reduces in explicitness

Reduction of the potentiality of utterances

Utterances have meaning potential. An utterance can potentially mean anything, also the opposite of its propositional meaning. We can’t predict, in isolation from a given context, what an utterance is meant to convey.

Door! has many possible intended meanings: pay attention to the door, someone’s knocking, don’t slam it… But if you add a specific context (place is a shared apartment; participants are roommates; time is one is cooking and the other is bathing), you understand the intended meaning is “someone is knocking, go open the door”.

Reduction in explicitness

See you in 5 minutes! ≠ See you at 10 past 10.
Can you pass me that? ≠ Can you pass me the bottle?
A: Where can I find them? B: Over there. ≠ A: Where can I find the scissors? B: On my desk.

The two participants involved in this conversation

A: Do you like this one? understand everything because they share the
B: Ugh, no, I prefer the other one. context. But they could be talking about anything:
A: Which one? items of clothing, pets, houses, kitchens… To fully
B: That one, over there. understand, one needs to share the same context of
A: This one? these people. Context influences the utterances. If
B: Yeah! you share the context, it’s less time-consuming to use that, them, there, which are deixis.

If you don’t share the context, one can only understand the gist, since these utterances are reduced in explicitness: the message in sent to someone who’s there in that moment and gets everything.

Deixis, deictic elements/words

Nouns indicating something around us and linking the language to the external world. Deixis is a phenomenon of using a range of words to link the language to the external world. It’s a complicated phenomenon.

The main deixis are of time (now, then, in 5 min), place (here, there, this, that) or personal (I, me, you, they). With deixis you avoid using several words, but the message is still the same. They reduce the explicitness of utterances.

Reduction in explicitness is crucial. We tend to avoid time-consuming activities. We take whatever we can for granted, we tend to avoid being over-explicit. But with deixis context is necessary.

We take for granted things also with strangers, not only with friends/relatives.

1st element of context

Situational/communicative context

Situation where the interaction is taking place at the moment of speaking. Situational/communicative context carries non-verbal and extra linguistic pieces of information. This context helps speakers eliminate any ambiguity in the text and determines the meaning of utterances. It determines the way speakers communicate with one another (where, how, with whom), and what they talk about and what they do not talk about. It’s formal/informal; social/personal…

Contextual variables: situational context is an umbrella term. The situational context is composed of a number of contextual variables:

1. Topic
2. Setting
3. Participants
4. Medium (+ text type, purpose, channel)

These variables affect speakers and communicative exchanges. They are variables because they change all the time; they influence what we say, help us understand the intended meaning, reducing the potentiality of utterances, and allow us to be reduced in explicitness.

1) Topic of conversation

What is being talked about. It’s a strong variable.

• It may affect lexis, grammar, style. There are taboo topics, so avoided. Legal documents need long and complex phrases, no ambiguity, and formal language.
• It helps reduce the potentiality of utterances: a change of topic changes the meaning. “Greenhouse” referring to a home means it’s too hot; a real estate agent uses it with its literal meaning, while selling a farm.
• Reduction in explicitness: if the topic is English linguistic course, A: She commented about his mistake… B: Prepositional verb! A: She commented on. B uses a short utterance to correct A.

2) Setting

Time and place. Setting is two things:

• It may affect language/communication in a variety of ways.

Time:

• Diachronic: Chaucer, Dante; middle English, volgare toscano (differences on a timeline).
• Synchronic: course vs office hours, different interaction in the present between prof and student.

Place:

• It influences the type of language used and the concepts expressed. Church, school, home have different types of languages and volumes (whispering, loudness, education…)
• It helps understand the intended meaning:

EX1, church: A: May he rest in peace! B: Amen! (proper use of religious language)
EX2, home: A: De Niro is the best! B: Amen! (= I agree with you)

• Reduction in explicitness: A: Are we going now or later? B: Now.

3) Participants

Different sub-variables which influence communication, what is said and how it’s said:

• Individual identity (personality, impairment due to shyness, sleepiness, anger, emotions)
• Social identity (differences in gender, class, religion, age, ethnicity, roles, taboos, thoughts)
• Personal and/or social relationship between interactors (workplace, school, home)
• Presence/absence of an audience (communicative behaviour)

Reduction of potentiality of utterances: you change the participants, you change the meaning. Outside of context, it has a lot of potentiality.

Ex1, friends, quarrel: You can go to hell!, not literal meaning, but we aren’t friends anymore.
Ex2, priest: You can go to hell!, literal meaning, sin that leads to hell.

Reduction of explicitness:

Ex1: Shall we meet in front of the Orient Express at 8:30? Explicitness, not familiar.
Ex2: Same place same time? Personal relationship involved, reduction in explicitness.

The examples have the same intended meaning: inviting someone for something, but in two different ways since there is a different relationship between the participants. Matter of comfort and familiarity.

4) Medium ≠ channel

There is a tendency to confusion. Medium is the difference between spoken and written language, so how a certain communicative message is delivered. Cinema, TV, visual arts, pottery: how a message is delivered. The channel is the physical tool or instrument that is used to deliver the message through a certain media.

Medium and channel

The medium can be written or spoken:

• Written: more time, organised, planned, complex structure, linking words, grammatical accuracy, linear progression
• Spoken: disorganised, no time to think, simple structure, general vocabulary, unplanned, more immediate

There may be a mixture between the two: written-to-be-spoken (TV, political speeches) and spoken-to-be-written (lectures).

A text is the whole communicative interaction, which can be realised through different text-types, which are a lot: conversation, phone call, skype call, political speech, oral exam, lecture, assignment, sms, email… They are very different text-types: some are spoken language, some are written.

Interplay between medium and the rest of variables

• Time, place, and users are always there. Some pieces may lack, there could be no evidence. Variables interact and influence the text-type.
• Medium + text-type and purpose

Speech by Italian Pres of Rep vs University lecture: same medium, but one is written-to-be-spoken, one is spoken-to-be-written. Text-type and purpose differ.

• Medium + channel + participants

Phone call between friends vs phone call between student and lecturer: same medium and channel, different participants.

2nd element of context

Background knowledge context/knowledge of the world (KOW)

It’s constituted by everything we know about the world, all the info we possess and that:

• Influence our communicative exchange
• Allow us to reduce the potentiality of utterances
• Allow us to perform utterances reduced in explicitness and understand other’s people’s utterances which are reduced in explicitness

Knowledge of the language is one element of the background. Each of us has a different background knowledge context, and it isn’t linguistic. It’s the result of what we’ve learnt.

While situational context is always changing, KOW is always expanding, something is added every day, it’s continuously updated. But it also loses something: when new info is added, old info is forgotten, reduced, or fades.

Knowledge of the world:

• Is the knowledge about how things usually go, related to expectations. We update it.
• Is stored in our memory
• Helps us fill in the missing links in communication and understand the intended meaning of utterances.

We make assumptions, we have a goal, we make utterances. So, utterances are based on the KOW. We avoid extra/obvious information, we make assumptions, we learn that people at the bus stop start talking about traffic and weather.

Fairy tale about a wonderful prince > Shrek: KOW saves a conversation because one doesn’t usually consider Shrek as a wonderful prince. Certain elements are communicatively effective only if you are familiar and acknowledged. KOW may be required to understand something.

Two types of KOW

• Encyclopaedic/cultural KOW: open-access knowledge, shared by the member of the same group or community, acquired through TV, school, books, radio, internet, so through media. All of us belong to different groups and communities. Two people can share a lot of encyclopaedic KOW, but it is impossible to 100% share the same encyclopaedic KOW.
• (Inter)personal KOW: knowledge acquired through previous conversation and social activities, which includes personal knowledge about the interlocutor. It’s the different and unique knowledge which each of us possesses.