Lingua e Traduzione Inglese 5

CONCEPT IN PRAGMATICS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

1 LESSON

In the first part of the program, will be covered the following topics: situational context; cultural and interpersonal background context; exophora, deixis and intertextuality. It is important to remember the concepts of syntax - semantic - pragmatic:

• Syntax is the relationship between signs irrespective of meaning.
• Semantics is the relationship between signs and their meanings.
• Pragmatics on the other hand, is the discipline that deals with the relationship between signs and speakers, the 'how', causes and effects of what is communicated by and with language.

2 LESSON

So, what are Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis?

Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis study context, text, and function.

Discourse analysis emphasizes the structure of the text, and it studies:

• how the elements of a language are organised.
• how discourse is imposed: a framework based on a social transaction.
• the exchange structure, that is how sometimes situations follow some fixed sequences in a general framework of exchange; how a speaker can influence the hearers with what they say.
• the conversation analysis, that is the structure of a conversation.
• interactional sociolinguistics; that is the structural pattern of a conversation with reference to social interaction, context, function, social rules, conventions, or principles.

On the contrary, pragmatics deals with the social principles of discourse. It studies:

• how to use language from a socio-cultural perspective.
• the way social rules and/or principles are determined by a social distance between speakers.
• the maxims speakers follow during a conversation so that they can cooperate or be socially accepted by the hearer(s).

Example: We are not amused

Analysing the sentence from a grammatical point of view highlights linguistic aspects, but not information about the context. Therefore, a semantic (it tells us about the meaning of words) and pragmatic (takes a socio-cultural perspective on language usage) analysis will be done.

3 LESSON (testo proposto ed eventuale esercitazione su esso)

1 LESSON

Let us analyse the words more closely:

• The situational context refers to what speakers know of the environment surrounding them; so, the situational context is the physical co-presence of speaker(s) and hearer(s).

Example: a conversation between teacher and student

In this case, the situational context is a classroom.

• The background knowledge context is basically the cultural knowledge, that is what people know about the world. We can divide the background knowledge into:
1. cultural general knowledge, that is what people know of the way of the world; for example, by a group of people that even share a special vocabulary to better communicate.
2. interpersonal knowledge, that is the speakers' knowledge about their personal (private) life, for example, between siblings or lover in which they give some information for granted, since it is sure that the hearer will understand whatsoever the speaker says.

• Co-text: the context of the text we are dealing with. The co-text is formed by all the words that surround a word we are referring to in a text.

Example:

The room was empty when I arrived

• What is a reference? A reference is an act in which the speaker(s) use linguistic forms to enable the hearer to identify the entity being referred to. Such linguistic forms are called referring expressions. We use referring expressions to identify an entity. The entity being referred to is called referent.

Example:

Lewis met the Smiths

In this sentence, we have two referring expressions: “Lewis” and “the Smiths.” “Lewis” refers to the person who makes the action; “the Smiths” refers to a family involved in the action.

Deixis: Deixis is fundamental in both narrative and dramatic texts because it helps us to understand what, when, and where something is happening. Scholars have defined three types of deixis: person, place, and time:

1. Person deixis uses personal pronouns to refer to a person: I am in trouble.
2. Place deixis (or special deixis) refers to a location, that is the place where an entity is in the context. (c.s. here / there).
3. Time deixis points to time: Next year, you’ll go to school.

Intertextuality: We talk about intertextuality when a referring expression points to entities that have been already mentioned in a previous conversation for example when two friends are talking about a popular song.

• References are divided as:

1. Exophoric reference: when we refer to an entity for the first time in a text.
2. Endophoric reference: when we refer to an entity that has already been mentioned in the text.
   1. Anaphora: it refers to an entity that has been mentioned before in the co-text.
   2. Cataphora: it refers to an entity that is mentioned forward in the co-text.

Endophoric reference is an example of grammatical cohesion, but there are two other forms:

1. Substitution: it avoids repetitions in a text.
2. Ellipsis: it has the same function as in the co-text; that is, it avoids repetitions. In doing so, ellipsis omits part of the discourse the reader already knows, and it counts on the fact that the reader can retrieve the missing words from the co-text.

Grammatical cohesion is when a referring expression is linked to another within the co-text.

to play with cards, first of all have everyone sit. Deal until you run out of cards. Each player holds the cards face down without looking at them.

Grammatical cohesion varies from genre to genre. There are some texts, such as legal or medical ones, or instruction texts, for example, where the use of substitutions or ellipses could lead to ambiguity and misunderstanding.

• Lexical Coherence

1. Repetition: it is the most common form of lexical coherence. It consists of repeating a word or word-phrase several times.
2. Synonym: is not the exact same word used by the speaker/writer, but a different one that means the same.
3. Superordinates: not a synonym, but a more general “umbrella” term that includes the noun we are referring to. -> I eat apples and oranges. I love fruits!
4. General words: they can be considered higher level superordinates. This category gathers general nouns such as “thing”, “stuff”, “place”, “person” and general verbs such as “to do” and “to happen”. Their meaning is so vague that it fits for everything.

14 LESSON

Politeness

Scholars started to direct their attention towards Politeness during the 1960s. We refer to the linguistic expressions that show a friendly attitude towards the others; to show and get respect by people; to be part of a group. The first scholar who provided a definition was Austin in his famous work How to do Things with Words (1962); Austin’s research was systematized some years after by John Searl in his work Speech Acts (1969). In this work, he makes clear that every illocutionary act is intentional and necessary involves an interlocutor, because the speaker wants to obtain something, or to produce an effect on the hearer. The best context to analyse the effects of the speaker’s words upon a hearer is that of conversation. According to Grice, there is a Cooperative Principle at the base of the conversation and Every time one or more maxims are flouted, Grice says we produce an implicature: implicit messages the hearer addresses to the speaker. Lakoff considers politeness as a reducer of social friction. She creates a model of politeness based on three principles:

• do not impose.
• give options.
• make your receiver feel good.

Leech studied Lakoff’s principle and developed a similar approach formed by six principles:

1. Tact maxim.
2. Generosity maxim.
3. Approbation maxim.
4. Modesty maxim.
5. Agreement maxim.
6. Sympathy maxim.

(a) COMPETITIVE: The illocutionary goal competes with the social goal; e.g., ordering, asking, demanding, begging.

(b) CONVIVIAL: The illocutionary goal coincides with the social goal; e.g., offering, inviting, greeting, thanking, congratulating.

(c) COLLABORATIVE: The illocutionary goal is indifferent to the social goal; e.g., asserting, reporting, announcing, instructing.

(d) CONFLICTIVE: The illocutionary goal conflicts with the social goal; e.g., threatening, accusing, cursing, reprimanding. (Leech 1983: 104)

Each maxim operates only if based on four parameters: cost-benefit, optionality, indirectness, authority, and social distance. Leech distinguished between two kinds of politeness:

• absolute politeness that is focused on semantics, and
• relative politeness more concerned upon pragmatic analysis. The scholar also classifies the illocutionary goal based on social aims.

Both Lakoff and Leech’s models have been criticized by scholars because there are too abstract and do not offer enough data to create and analyse some case studies. In this respect, Brown and Levinson created a model based on the concept of face. The first scholar who theorized the concept of “face” in 1967 was Goffman and it is an image of self-delineated in terms of approved social attributes. Brown and Levinson considered the concept of face into “positive” and “negative” face; the former is related to our desire to be approved by the others the latter is linked to our willingness to act without impediment. So, every conversation can constitute an occasion of threatening and all the actions that can damage our face are called by Brown and Levinson, FTA, face-threatening acts. Brown and Levinson divided FTAs into two groups, those that threaten the hearer’s face (both positive and negative), and those that threaten the speaker’s face (both positive and negative). The hearer's positive face is threatened when the speaker does not really care about his/her feelings. In this case, disapproval, criticism, accusations, disagreements and so on are all potentially threatening acts.