语用学

Deixis

The term of deixis is borrowed from the Greek word.

Associated with the context,and a word with represent instructions,is called deixis.traditionally divided into three main areas,the instruction of person,place and time. The directive has the characteristic of pointing.

It can be classified into different types,there are person

deixis(me,you),place deixis(here,there),time deixis(now,then) and discourse deixis.

In linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place. Words or p hrases that require contextual

information to convey any meaning – for example, English pronouns –are deictic. Deixis is closely related to both indexicality and anaphora, as will be further explained below. Although this article deals primarily with deixis in spoken language, the concepts can apply to written language, ge stures, and communication media as well.

Aspects/levels of meaning

By learning this part,i have a whole understanding about aspects/levels of meaning.Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.by learning,we all know that the Levels of meaning are include: lexical, sentential, textual .and the Aspects of meaning include: natural, nonnatural, etc. Lexical meaning is composed of conceptual meaning and associative meaning. Lexical meaning is relatively stable.lexical meaning n (Linguistics) the meaning of a word in relation to the physical world or to abstract concepts, without reference to any sentence in which the word may occur to any compare grammtial meaning ,content word.

sentential Meaning and Definition

(a.) Of or pertaining to a sentence, or full period; as, a sentential pause. (a.) Comprising sentences; as, a sentential translation. sentential: words in the definition

Textual meaning

A text, first of all, conveys "textual meaning." Textual meaning therefore "refers to the way the text is organized as a piece of writing (or speech)" (Eggins, 1994:12). This function is described in terms of "theme dynamics" and related to the "register" dimension of "mode" (Fawcett, 1997:110).

Discursive meaning

(adj.) (of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main point or cover a wide range of subjects

"amusingly digressive with satirical thrusts at women's fashions among other things", "a rambling discursive book", "his excursive remarks", "a rambling speech about this and that"

Aspects of Meaning include two parts:Semantic meaning and Pragmatic meaning.

Entailment

Entailment mainly points to the logic level, the deep structure of the sentence.Entailment does not depend on the context.It is a pure logical reasoning.And it is inherent in the sentence,can not be eliminated.

Entailment, a relationship between sentences that forms the basis for one of the inferences that interpreting utterances involves. Between two sente nces where the truth of one (A) requires the truth of the other (B).

In terms of truth value, the following relationships exist between these two sentences:(1) When A is true, B is necessarily true;(2) When B is false, too;(3) when A is false, B may be true or false; (4) When B is true, A may be true or false. Entailment is basically a semantic relation or logical implication, but we have to assume co-reference of “He” in

sentence A and sentence B, before we have A entail B.

Entailment differs from implicature, where the truth of one (A) suggests t he truth of the other (B), but does not require it. For example, the sentenc e (A) Mary had a baby and (B) got married implicates that (A) she had a baby before (B) the wedding, but this is cancellable by adding -- not nece ssarily in that order. Entailment also differs from presupposition in that in presupposition, the truth of what one is presupposing is taken for granted .

Implicature

Implicatures can be part of sentence meaning or dependent on conversational context, and can be conventional or unconventional. Implicture are inferences that cannot be made from isolate utterances. They are dependent on the context of the utterance and shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer.

Grice has proposed a way of analyzing implicatures based on cooperative principle and its maxims of quantity, quality, relation and manner.

Generally, conversational implicatures can be devided into two kinds: generalized and particularized.

A generalized implicature is a conversational implicature that is inferable

without reference to a special context.

1) Does he have any children?

Impicature: I don't know whether he has and I want to know.

2) John walked into a house and found a tortoise behind the door. Implicature: The house is not John's.

3) She is poor and honest. (no implicature)

She is poor but honest.

Implicature: Generally poor people are not honest.

Particularized implicatures are generated in a conversation by overtly and deliberately violating some submaxims.

Politeness

Linguistic politeness exists in all languages.Politeness considerations regulate every human speak’s verbal behavior in social interaction.

The politeness principle is a series of maxims, which Geoff Leech has pro posed as a way of explaining how politeness operates in conversational e xchanges. Leech defines politeness as forms of behaviour that establish a nd maintain comity. That is the ability of participants in a social interactio n to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony. In stating his maxims Leech uses his own terms for two kinds of illocutionary acts.

In everyday conversation, we adapt our conversation to different situations. Among friends we take liberties or say things that would seem discourteous among strangers. And we avoid over-formality with friends. In both situations we try to avoid making the hearer embarrassed or uncomfortable. Face-threatening acts are acts that infringe on the hearers' need to maintain his/her self-esteem, and be respected. Politeness strategies are developed for the main purpose of dealing with these Face-threatening acts

Adaptation

Adaptation theory:macro pragmatics core.

Linguistic adaptation theory is established by Jef Verschuerent in 1999.

In his theory ,the use of language is a continuous process of language choice,these choice can occur at all levels of language organization,including voice,morphology,syntax,semantics,etc.The process of using language adaptation,not only needs to conform to the communication intention,but also needs to conform to the communicative environment.

There are three characteristics of language:variability,negotiability and adaptation.

Variability: defining the range of possibilities from which choices are to

be made.

②Negotiability: choices are not made mechanically or according to strict rules or fixed form-function relationships, but rather on the basis of highly flexible principles and strategies that are both rational and reflexive .

③Adaptability: making choice from a variable range of options in the negotiable manner as to meet human communicative needs.

And linguistic adaptation could be examined from four angels :contextual correlates of adaptation,structural objects of adaptation,dynamics of adaptability,salience o,f the adaptation process.

Pragmatics on the Internet

With the rapid development and wide use of Internet in China, communication on the Internet has become one of the ways for more and more people to communicate and entertain with each other. So there comes out a new speech community and a new kind of language called network language. We have been so familiar with network language Some experts talk about the network language’s influence to the Chinese teaching from the instrumental and humanistic point. They think that the network language has negative effect on students’

abilities of reading, writing and oral communication. Prevail of this kind of language is not good for students to learn normal words and grammar.

From a long time past, many people have done some related researches about the network language. They describe this kind of language from many aspects, but seldom from the sociolinguistic points of dialect, age, gender and status.

There are some experts has analyzed the network language from sociolinguistics. He also talks about its characters, explores why it arises and develops and the tendency of its development.

Pragmatics outside China

Pragmatics of language originated in the exploration of the philosopher.The last century,in Western philosophy of logical positivism genre,Formed a language Philosophy.Some philosophers transferred to the research center for human use media symbols.At that time,Pragmatics is only in philosophical level.But still laid the foundation of Subsequent studies.With the progress of the society and technology.Linguistics as a new discipline,it can be determination at the published of JOURNAL OF PRAGMATICS.

Knowledge of cross-cultural pragmatics introduces the habits and charact eristics among people under different cultural settings and the systematic analysis among different languages. As China becomes connected with th e outside world, an increasing number of attentions have been paid to the knowledge of cross-cultural pragmatics. When we communicate with eac h other, we must use language. However, different languages may have di fferent cultural characteristics. As a result, the cultural characteristics of t he mother tongue will influence the cross-cultural one.