Pragmatiek LCX058B05
Inhoudsopgave
Week 1 – Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3
Seminar slides ................................................................................................................................ 3
Levinson, S. C. (2024). The Dark Matter of Pragmatics: Known Unknowns. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. .............................................................................................................................. 4
Week 2 – Truth and Action ............................................................................................................. 7
Video lecture ................................................................................................................................... 7
Introduction week 2...................................................................................................................... 7
Indexicality & deixis ...................................................................................................................... 8
Understanding pragmatics – Chapter 1 Pragmatics and philosophy .................................................... 9
Week 3 – Indirectness and implicatures ........................................................................................ 10
Video lecture ..................................................................................................................................10
Entailment and presupposition ................................................................................................... 10
Utterance and sentence ............................................................................................................. 10
Grundy, P. (2019). Doing pragmatics. In Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429300301...11
Chapter 3 – Inference and utterances .......................................................................................... 11
Week 4 – Recap week ................................................................................................................... 14
Video lecture ..................................................................................................................................14
Summary video Austin & Searle – Speech act theory .................................................................... 14
Week 5 – Culture and context ....................................................................................................... 17
Seminar 5.1....................................................................................................................................17
Seminar 5.2....................................................................................................................................18
Auer, P. (1996b). Context and contextualization. In John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks (pp. 1-
19). https://doi.org/10.1075/hop.1.con8 ..........................................................................................19
Senft, G. (2014). Understanding pragmatics: an interdisciplinary approach to language use. Routledge.
http://site.ebrary.com/id/10829768 .................................................................................................21
Week 6 – Framing and participation .............................................................................................. 23
Video lecture framing and participation............................................................................................23
Seminars .......................................................................................................................................23
Branca Telles Ribeiro & Susan M. Hoyle - Frame Analysis, Handbook of Pragmatics Online 2000 .........25
Week 7 – Face and politeness ....................................................................................................... 27
Seminars .......................................................................................................................................27
1
, Video lecture ..................................................................................................................................29
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Politeness: Some universals in language usage [chapter 1, reprint].
In N. Coupland, & A. Jaworski (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: critical concepts [volume III: Interactional
sociolinguistics] (pp. 311-323). London: Routledge. ..........................................................................31
Mock exam Chat gpt .................................................................................................................... 31
2
,Week 1 – Introduction
Seminar slides
Pragmatiek =
- „[...] when we refer to attitudes and modes of behavior as pragmatic, we mean
that they have a factual kind of orientation in common. People who act
pragmatically or take a pragmatic perspective generally prefer a practical,
matter of fact and realistic rather than a theoretical, speculative and idealistic
way of approaching imminent problems and handling everyday affairs. To put it
differently, they share a concrete, situation-dependent approach geared to
action and usage rather than an abstract, situation-independent and system-
related point of view “- Bublitz & Norrick, Foundations of Pragmatics, 2011, p.
3
- „[...] pragmatic characterizes those theoretical and methodological approaches
that are oriented toward use and context rather than toward some system, and
that they regard use and context as creating a high degree of analytical surplus. “-
Bublitz & Norrick, Foundations of Pragmatics, 2011, p. 3
- „It bridges the gap between the system side of language and the use side and
relates both at the same time. Unlike syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics and
other linguistic disciplines, pragmatics is defined by its point of view more than
by its objects of investigation “- Bublitz & Norrick, Foundations of Pragmatics,
2011, preface
- “But pragmatics isn’t about form, it’s about the use of forms: although we know
what the speakers’ words mean formally (their semantics), knowing what the
speakers mean by using them (their pragmatics) isn’t so obvious.”- Grundy,
Doing Pragmatics, p.1-2
- “The distinction between what a speaker’s words (literally) mean and what the
speaker might mean by his words”- Atkinson, Kilby & Roca (1988:217) in Grundy
(2019:8)
- „Pragmatics [is] a general functional perspective on (any aspect of) language, i.e.
[...] an approach to language which takes into account the full complexity of its
cognitive, social, and cultural (i.e., ‚meaningful ‘) functioning in the lives of
human beings. “- Verschueren, Handbook of Pragmatics, 1995
- „The goal of pragmatics is to understand the cognitive abilities that speakers and
hearers can employ when conveying and understanding meaning in context “-
Cummins, Pragmatics, 2019, p. 9
3
, Levinson, S. C. (2024). The Dark Matter of Pragmatics: Known
Unknowns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chapter 1: What is pragmatics and why does it matter?
- Levinson à Pragmatics = The study of how humans communicate beyond the
literal meanings of words, using context and inferred meanings.
- Focus on how pragmatics helps us overcome communication limitations,
particularly the slow pace of speech encoding vs rapid pace of comprehension.
- Pragmatics, allows to convey more meaning than what is stated. Results in more
eficient and nuanced communication.
Chapter 2: How to find out what we don’t know we don’t know.
There are 6 reasons why we can conclude that there are these unknown unknowns:
1. The subject is half a century old
2. A great deal of the theory that we rely upon dates back to the foundational period,
roughly 1960-1985, with forbears in the 1950s.
a. Austin (1962) à Speech act (later systemized by Searle in 1969)
b. Grice (1967) à Conversational implicature, built on his intentional theory
of meaning (1957)
c. Scheglof & Sacks (1973) à Principles of conversation analysis
d. Stalnaker (1974) à Notion of presupposition
e. Fillmore (1971) à Systematized what we then knew about deixis
3. Most of the theory derives from Western philosophy, and inevitably reflects the
foci and preoccupations of Western scholars and societies, that is, the cultures
of the Global North.
4. Pragmatic theory and analysis is very much focused on familiar major languages,
and indeed largely on European ones and English in particular.
5. Much of the work done in pragmatics has been done with relatively
unsophisticated tools.
6. There are still many under-developed topics of research.
Chapter 3: The human communication bottleneck and the niche for pragmatics
The bottleneck of human communication = The diference between slow speech
production and fast comprehension.
The niche for pragmatics = Where communication strategies, such as body language
and tone compensate for the slow speech production.
Chapter 4: A design perspective on human communication
Shannon-Weaver model à The efective bit rate depends on the noise in the channel
and on the construction of the language. See figure 1. Languages must balance the need
4
Inhoudsopgave
Week 1 – Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3
Seminar slides ................................................................................................................................ 3
Levinson, S. C. (2024). The Dark Matter of Pragmatics: Known Unknowns. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. .............................................................................................................................. 4
Week 2 – Truth and Action ............................................................................................................. 7
Video lecture ................................................................................................................................... 7
Introduction week 2...................................................................................................................... 7
Indexicality & deixis ...................................................................................................................... 8
Understanding pragmatics – Chapter 1 Pragmatics and philosophy .................................................... 9
Week 3 – Indirectness and implicatures ........................................................................................ 10
Video lecture ..................................................................................................................................10
Entailment and presupposition ................................................................................................... 10
Utterance and sentence ............................................................................................................. 10
Grundy, P. (2019). Doing pragmatics. In Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429300301...11
Chapter 3 – Inference and utterances .......................................................................................... 11
Week 4 – Recap week ................................................................................................................... 14
Video lecture ..................................................................................................................................14
Summary video Austin & Searle – Speech act theory .................................................................... 14
Week 5 – Culture and context ....................................................................................................... 17
Seminar 5.1....................................................................................................................................17
Seminar 5.2....................................................................................................................................18
Auer, P. (1996b). Context and contextualization. In John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks (pp. 1-
19). https://doi.org/10.1075/hop.1.con8 ..........................................................................................19
Senft, G. (2014). Understanding pragmatics: an interdisciplinary approach to language use. Routledge.
http://site.ebrary.com/id/10829768 .................................................................................................21
Week 6 – Framing and participation .............................................................................................. 23
Video lecture framing and participation............................................................................................23
Seminars .......................................................................................................................................23
Branca Telles Ribeiro & Susan M. Hoyle - Frame Analysis, Handbook of Pragmatics Online 2000 .........25
Week 7 – Face and politeness ....................................................................................................... 27
Seminars .......................................................................................................................................27
1
, Video lecture ..................................................................................................................................29
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Politeness: Some universals in language usage [chapter 1, reprint].
In N. Coupland, & A. Jaworski (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: critical concepts [volume III: Interactional
sociolinguistics] (pp. 311-323). London: Routledge. ..........................................................................31
Mock exam Chat gpt .................................................................................................................... 31
2
,Week 1 – Introduction
Seminar slides
Pragmatiek =
- „[...] when we refer to attitudes and modes of behavior as pragmatic, we mean
that they have a factual kind of orientation in common. People who act
pragmatically or take a pragmatic perspective generally prefer a practical,
matter of fact and realistic rather than a theoretical, speculative and idealistic
way of approaching imminent problems and handling everyday affairs. To put it
differently, they share a concrete, situation-dependent approach geared to
action and usage rather than an abstract, situation-independent and system-
related point of view “- Bublitz & Norrick, Foundations of Pragmatics, 2011, p.
3
- „[...] pragmatic characterizes those theoretical and methodological approaches
that are oriented toward use and context rather than toward some system, and
that they regard use and context as creating a high degree of analytical surplus. “-
Bublitz & Norrick, Foundations of Pragmatics, 2011, p. 3
- „It bridges the gap between the system side of language and the use side and
relates both at the same time. Unlike syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics and
other linguistic disciplines, pragmatics is defined by its point of view more than
by its objects of investigation “- Bublitz & Norrick, Foundations of Pragmatics,
2011, preface
- “But pragmatics isn’t about form, it’s about the use of forms: although we know
what the speakers’ words mean formally (their semantics), knowing what the
speakers mean by using them (their pragmatics) isn’t so obvious.”- Grundy,
Doing Pragmatics, p.1-2
- “The distinction between what a speaker’s words (literally) mean and what the
speaker might mean by his words”- Atkinson, Kilby & Roca (1988:217) in Grundy
(2019:8)
- „Pragmatics [is] a general functional perspective on (any aspect of) language, i.e.
[...] an approach to language which takes into account the full complexity of its
cognitive, social, and cultural (i.e., ‚meaningful ‘) functioning in the lives of
human beings. “- Verschueren, Handbook of Pragmatics, 1995
- „The goal of pragmatics is to understand the cognitive abilities that speakers and
hearers can employ when conveying and understanding meaning in context “-
Cummins, Pragmatics, 2019, p. 9
3
, Levinson, S. C. (2024). The Dark Matter of Pragmatics: Known
Unknowns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chapter 1: What is pragmatics and why does it matter?
- Levinson à Pragmatics = The study of how humans communicate beyond the
literal meanings of words, using context and inferred meanings.
- Focus on how pragmatics helps us overcome communication limitations,
particularly the slow pace of speech encoding vs rapid pace of comprehension.
- Pragmatics, allows to convey more meaning than what is stated. Results in more
eficient and nuanced communication.
Chapter 2: How to find out what we don’t know we don’t know.
There are 6 reasons why we can conclude that there are these unknown unknowns:
1. The subject is half a century old
2. A great deal of the theory that we rely upon dates back to the foundational period,
roughly 1960-1985, with forbears in the 1950s.
a. Austin (1962) à Speech act (later systemized by Searle in 1969)
b. Grice (1967) à Conversational implicature, built on his intentional theory
of meaning (1957)
c. Scheglof & Sacks (1973) à Principles of conversation analysis
d. Stalnaker (1974) à Notion of presupposition
e. Fillmore (1971) à Systematized what we then knew about deixis
3. Most of the theory derives from Western philosophy, and inevitably reflects the
foci and preoccupations of Western scholars and societies, that is, the cultures
of the Global North.
4. Pragmatic theory and analysis is very much focused on familiar major languages,
and indeed largely on European ones and English in particular.
5. Much of the work done in pragmatics has been done with relatively
unsophisticated tools.
6. There are still many under-developed topics of research.
Chapter 3: The human communication bottleneck and the niche for pragmatics
The bottleneck of human communication = The diference between slow speech
production and fast comprehension.
The niche for pragmatics = Where communication strategies, such as body language
and tone compensate for the slow speech production.
Chapter 4: A design perspective on human communication
Shannon-Weaver model à The efective bit rate depends on the noise in the channel
and on the construction of the language. See figure 1. Languages must balance the need
4
