Lingua e Traduzione Inglese 5

Concept in pragmatics and discourse analysis

1 lesson

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

• 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 about the environment surrounding them; situational context is the physical comprehension of speaker(s) and hearer(s).

Example: A conversation between a teacher and a 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:

• 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.
• Interpersonal knowledge, that is the speakers' knowledge about their personal life; for example, between siblings or lovers in which they give some information for granted, since it is sure that the hearer will understand whatsoever the speaker says.

Concept in pragmatics and discourse analysis

1 lesson

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

• 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

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.